Storm, blue fronted amazon

In my early days of bird ownership, pre-internet, doing right by my birds was a lot of guess work. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I came upon learning that an all seed diet, then the norm, was inadequate. I discovered this in two ways: 1) by going to the library and studying the diet of my species wild counterparts, and 2) observing them descending on the vegetables on my plate at dinnertime. That was a hard to miss clue.

I didn’t exactly struggle with bird care – I intuitively knew that my birds needed more than what was recommended by the “experts”. I made do with the few bird toys that were available in pet stores and constructed many from household items made of paper, cardboard and wood – I observed what they “got into”. I have very few books that don’t have chewed-on pages – so, obviously, paper is a cockatiel delicasy. Observation is the most effective learning tool we have.

Linus, umbrella cockatoo, snoozing next to a toy I made myself.

Years later, a friend turned me on to the bird forums. I was SO excited. I found a place where I could share stories with fellow bird owners who wouldn’t cringe when I went on about my life with the birds and would laugh when I posted pictures of the sweet potato stuck to my living room wall. I learned untold amounts about different, sometimes easier, ways to acheive what I was trying to accomplish. There were products, toys, gizmos out there that I was completely unaware of.

But after a while, I started to feel inadequate. I felt like my birds were missing out because I didn’t have all the fancy bird things that my new friends had. I started spending money, lots of it. I wanted my birds to have the best of everything. I spent hours filling my shopping cart at online bird stores. I dropped a fortune on a playstand that took up half the living room.

You know what I disovered? My bird were no happier or healthier than they were before having all the bells and whistles. I had been doing things just right all along and I soon returned to my former ways even if they were a bit old-school. They worked, and my birds were thriving. Bub-bye Poop Off, hello again vinegar and water, my old friend. The rarely used Cadillac of a playstand found a new home with a lady with several macaws.

This is where your money is best spent!

In the end, it isn’t about what you don’t have, it’s about how well you make use of what you DO have. I would rather spend my money on excellent food and great toys than on some device that trains me to be lazy. Yes, for years, I had many chair backs fall victim to my birds’ beaks in lieu of a playstand, but isn’t that part of the charm of life with parrots? Okay, maybe not, The point is that we don’t have to go broke because we have birds.

If your bird has a great diet, is fulfilled and enriched, and you have training abilities that ensure a happy co-existance with its human flock, I say you have everything that you need. If someone invents a self-cleaning cage, however, I will surely sell my car to get one.

Cockatiel

There are so many aspects to the training experience for both the trainer and the parrot. It’s about bond building and mutual trust. It’s wonderful enrichment for a caged bird. It’s about cooperation. Mostly, though, it’s about communication. It provides a common language through which a human and a parrot can begin to converse and understand one another. It is exciting and deeply rewarding for everyone.

That I would suggest that someone NOT train their bird is troubling to me, especially when it is such a positive thing. But there are circumstances when the time is not right – more troubling is the idea of someone failing so miserably at training that they will hesitate to ever pick up the target training stick again, or that a bird would be so put off by the experience that is unreceptive to the experience in future attempts. When all the proper elements are in place, it is difficult to fail.

Sulphur crested cockatoo

The following are four scenarios that will tell you that you are not in the right place to consider training. Instead of attempting a start knowing that there are hurdles blocking your path to success, place your efforts today on correcting those problems for when you DO begin:

YOUR BIRD IS ON A SEEDED DIET: The reward your bird receives for performing a requested task is crucial to successful training. Most birds are motivated by a food reward. The bird performs to your approval, you click, and it receives a favorite treat.
It just so happens that seed is a preferred food for most birds. If your bird receives seed regularly and that is its expectaion, the motivation to “earn” treats is greatly diminished and the training process falls apart. Please read this article on how to convert from a seeded diet.

YOUR BIRD IS NOT IN GOOD HEALTH: This is particularly true of birds on a seeded diet. They often suffer from serious vitamin deficiencies without their owner’s awareness that can affect their general mood and willingness to train. Birds with known illnesses might be difficult to train as they are sometimes unable to complete tasks because of ill health.

Additionally, a bird whose mood is altered by surges of seasonal hormones is not a good candidate for training. They can be temperamental and aggressive during this time and it serves everyone to wait until the breeding season passes.
The plan is to always set your bird up for success and an ill or moody bird might not succeed. It would be a frustrating experince for you both.

NOTE: This does not apply to birds that are handicapped but are in otherwise good health. You would simply tailor your training expectations so that they don’t exceed physical limitations.

YOU ARE UNWILLING TO USE FOOD MANAGEMENT: As stated above, birds are food motivated. Food management is simply an adaptation of your feeding schedule that ensures your bird is hungry enough to to be willing to work for food during a training session. When done properly, hunger is not excessive (overly hungry birds do not train well) and there is the perfect window of opportunity for you to train your bird and for your bird to get a full tummy. Win/win.

YOU ARE NOT MOTIVATED OR IN THE RIGHT FRAME OF MIND: Sometimes we are our own biggest obstacle in training. There are times when we are not at our best, perhaps grouchy and impatient. Our birds are highly receptive to our emotions and will surely recognize that you are feeling aggitated or pressed for time. Their reaction to this will be skittishness and it will interfere with their ability to focus on the task at hand.

If you are in the midst of a stressful time in your life and are unable to decompress before a training session, it is better not to train at all. (That said, some people find that disconnecting from life and concentrating on their bird is the ideal release from daily pressures.)

Rosebreasted cockatoo

Each of these scenarios have one thing in common: they all lead to potential failure in training. I have included links in each section to offer further explanation and guidance on how to move past these road blocks. Please take the time to read them so that you can begin training with all the tools you need to succeed.

Budgie

One of the things that most fascinates me about parrots is the differences in their personalities. Even within the same species, each bird is unique with its own demeanor and preferences.
We should fully research the species we keep, looking into both their captive and wild settings, so we are aware of traits that are typical for that species. But in the end, each bird is its own man, so to speak, and those intricacies will stand out.

Hyacinth macaw

I have owned two umbrella cockatoos at different times in my life – they couldn’t have been less alike. Abu, my first, was laid back and amicable. She was quiet and reserved and she would stay perched for hours, as long as she had something interesting to do and her favorite people were nearby – things unheard of with the vast majority of this species.

Linus, on the other hand, is temperamental and high strung. Nothing, but nothing, keeps him in one spot for more than a couple of minutes, and he will always pause to look over his shoulder as he wanders away to be sure that I notice that he’s doing things his own way. It’s as if the two birds came from alternate universes.

Congo african grey

One thing I have learned over the years is that despite the differences in temperament, most birds are very compliant and patient. Most will accept change and adapt well as long as we don’t let things become too uncomfortable for them too many times. Even Linus, by far and away the more challenging of the two cockatoos, would patiently wait for me to get things right before he showed the signs of reaching his threshold of tolerance with my human ineptness.

The problem is that being human, we have a hard time recognizing when we are pushing the limits at all. One day we will be going about our regular routine and everything will be fine, and then the following day the same routine is met with anger and mistrust. Everything we do is wrong. We stand there scratching our heads wondering if this is even the same bird because there’s no way your bird could have changed so much overnight.

Your bird has changed, but it didn’t happen overnight. It has taken a long time to get to this point. It is fed up and has put its little foot down and said: “That’s it!! I’m over this!” It refuses to cooperate with the same activities that were seemingly acceptable yesterday. It’s effort to communicate its unhappiness to you has ended in failure as we missed all the warning signs and persisted in doing things the same way – over and over again. Now the relationship is in jeopardy.

Rosebreasted cockatoo

As with every behavioral problem you face with your bird, there ARE warnings that preceed it. Here are three easy to spot signs that trouble is brewing. YOUR bird may display additional signs (back to each bird being an individual), but these signs are evident in all species when limits of tolerance are being reached:

1. The stink eye: Most people who have had birds for a while see this right away – it is quite simply a dirty look. When birds are feeling happy, respected and safe, the shape of their eyes is perfectly round. When your bird is uneasy with what is going on around it, the eye shape changes to varying degrees of “squinty” Go to the mirror and give yourself an overly dramatized angry/warning look. That’s the look. Watch how your bird reacts to different things throughout the day and notice how the eye shape changes. It is a useful tool in reading body language – especially in cockatoos.
2. The hesitation: Whenever your bird even slightly hesitates in doing the things it normally does without pause, it is something you should pay attention to. This is a clear sign that your bird is giving second thoughts to interacting with you. A good example of this is in the step up. When you reach to retrieve your bird and your bird thinks twice, even though it eventually does step up, it is a warning that something is going wrong in your relationship. It might be the result of you being too pushy and demanding in your expectations that the bird comply with your wishes.
3. The “dis”: In the wild, when a bird does not wish to interact with another from it’s flock, it will simply turn its back on that bird as if to say “Go away. I don’t like you.” They do the same to us when they wish to relay that same message. It’s pretty rude by human standards, but a signal doesn’t get any clearer than that. However, I think it is also an effort on their part to avoid confrontation with us when they feel we have the tendency to be too pushy. Imagine how disrespected they might feel when we disregard that effort.

Quaker parakeet

We sometimes ask too much of our birds. They need to be respected and they need to be given choices. It can’t always be us telling them what to do and expecting them to cooperate. They have minds and ideas of their own and should be given the right to have things their way sometimes.  It’s only fair.

There are times where we need our bird’s immediate cooperation, such as when danger is present. I have learned over the years that when you show your bird respect, it will CHOOSE to show you respect by complying with your wishes on these occassions. If you observe and respond to the three warning signs above, you should be able to sidestep pushing your bird, and your relationship, over the edge.

Blue and gold macaw

Are you noticing lately that your sweet, happy cockatiel is a little nippy? Has your quiet-as-a-mouse African grey become loud and opinionated? Is your cockatoo cuddling in ways that make you blush?
It’s the onset of the spring season here in the northern hemisphere of the world. Although in most places it is still very cold, our birds are able to perceive the subtle signs of spring, even when all we see is the harshness of winter.
Parrots see things we do not. Their amped up eyesight allows them the see light patterns that are the telltale signs of spring. They are able to recognize that the days are getting longer and that warmer weather – and breeding season – are around the corner.

Umbrella cockatoo

These signs trigger hormonal changes in our birds and cause behaviors that may lay dormant the rest of the year. Nestiness, excess vocalizing and territorial aggression are common this time of year. And as unreasonable as it sounds, many times when behaviors turn aggressive it is our fault for being  unprepared or unaware of the triggers.

If your bird makes his way under the couch and bites you when you try to retrieve him, you are paying the painful price for making not one, but two mistakes: 1) you allowed your bird to follow its nesting insticts and head for a dark space, and 2) the intrusion of your hand triggered the instict to protect the nest (territorial aggression).
While you could never call this behavior acceptable, it is understandable and even provoked. It isn’t the onset of a behavioral problem (unless you reinforce it with your reaction to it). You chock it up to experience and you don’t make the same mistake next year.

Blue throated macaw

However, we must be careful not to use hormones as an excuse or an explanation for ALL unwanted behaviors – ones that might be present all year long and simply escalated because of hormones.

The perfect example of this was a woman I knew a few years back who had a yellow sided conure. Throughout the year, whenever she would try to pick the bird up from its play stand, it would lunge at her hand, sometimes nipping, before it would finally relent and step up. She always played down the event saying that she must have frightened the bird or would try to defend the action by saying it was crabby because it hadn’t slept enough the night before.

The following spring, her bird, then four years old, actually bit her hard and drew blood, she called me for help with her “hormonal” bird. No doubt her bird was hormonal and conures are territorial at any time of the year, but this was a problem that had begun a long time back.

The point of this post is this: I have always encouraged you to be understanding and forgiving of behaviors that are relative to breeding. It is a difficult time not just for humans but is stressful for our birds as well. Since birds are guests in our homes, it is our job to do what we can to eliminate from the environment the things that cause the behaviors. Unfortunately, we are humans and we understand only a portion of what is happening to our birds.

While we are busy being kind and compassionate, we have to be careful not to excuse behaviors that are not seasonal, or blame new unwanted behaviors on hormones. When we see a problem, at any time of the year, we should address it before it become ingrained in the bird’s behavior and becomes a challenge to deal with. Sometimes the behaviors we see in full bloom in spring are the results of seeds planted earlier in the year.

Military macaw

When my daughter was young, it was a seldom that she was allowed to eat candy, chips, cake or ice cream. These were rare treats that were reserved for holidays, birthdays or other special occasions. In fact, it wasn’t until she entered grade school that she even realized that this was not the norm in other households. When she was in school, and away from my direct supervision, she started to be influenced by the other children in her class.

I knew, of course, that I couldn’t shelter her forever, but it was always a source of frustration to me. Until that time, fruit was a snack to her and she was satisfied with that. She would come home from school and ask for an apple. I was very proud of that – it wasn’t easy to keep a child eating well in a world overflowing with Big Macs and Twinkies. She was blissfully unaware, for a while.

Congo African grey

Snacks are a part of any child’s life and they should be part of your bird’s life. They are that extra bonus that makes life feel good. But the word snack is a relative term in today’s world. Where one person looks forward to carrot sticks, another will accept nothing less than a Snicker’s bar. It depends on a person’s upbringing.

This holds especially true for our parrots. Wild parrots know nothing of candy. They don’t know about Fritos or cookies. They don’t hold out for butter on their daily veggies. Unfortunately, many companion parrots have been made familiar with all of these things and for the majority of those, the more nutritious choices become unacceptible. Foods without sugar, salt or butter no longer satisfy. Once your bird has developed a taste for junk food, it is a slow road back to a healthy diet.

The very best way to avoid the development of bad snacking habits is to never let your bird try human snack foods in the first place. Be more conscientious with your choices and remember that parrots do not need to experience the tastes that we humans so relish.

If you have a bird that is already stuck on human snack foods, try offering more healthy versions of the foods as an alternative:

• Plain popcorn (preferably made in an air popper) with no butter or salt is a healthy parrot snack.
• Homemade oven baked potato slices or wedges can be replacements for chips or fries. (You can also use sweet potatoes.)
• Oven baked corn tortilla strips will appease the corn chip munchies.

Some other snacks that are okay to offer daily:

• Whole grain cereal pieces
• Nutriberries
• Veggie chips. Baked NOT deep fried and, of course, no salt!  These are easy to make yourself.
• Birdie Breads. You get a lot of bang for your buck with birdie breads or muffins because you can load it up with healthy foods and your bird will still regard it as a treat.

Occasional snacks:

• Dried fruits or banana chips. (These are healthy, but the sugar content is concentrated during dehydration.)
• Millet. Millet is a very healthy grain and something that all birds should have access to either cooked or on the stalks, but it contains fats and feeding should be moderated.
• Nuts. For some species of birds, nuts are a dietary requirement. But for most, they are a snack food. They are a great source of protein and EFAs, but they are high in fat and should be offered in moderation.

I learned from raising my daughter that if you don’t introduce foods that are unhealthy, they will not be missed.

Hyacinth macaw

If I’m going to be honest, I have to admit that I used to have a real problem with the idea of a training diet. It seemed unthinkable that a bird, virtually a wild animal in terms of its lack of domestication, should be locked in a cage and then denied food, something it would be free to acquire in the wild. It is psychologically damaging for any sentient being to be kept at another’s mercy, how could this ever be considered a good thing?

Training bridges a gap, fills in the blanks in the relationship between a human and a parrot. Where there was an inability to communicate, there is now established a “language” that both could understand and build a relationship around. Instead of looking at each other like aliens, you and your bird are comrades, teammates. It changes everything.

Blue and Gold Macaw

Of course, I wanted this for me and my bird, but I didn’t want to have to starve him to get there. I was afraid that while I was laying the groundwork for communication, that I would be violating the very basic understanding and trust that I would care for him and see to his needs. One step forward and two steps back – it didn’t seem worth it.

It took me a while to come around to the notion that food management did not equal suffering, but I had to let go of some of my “old” thinking to reach that conclusion.

Budgie

My first hint came when I began studying the habits of wild birds – looking at the ways they spent their time and realizing the difficulties they face everyday. Life in the wild isn’t easy. There are times when food sources are not abundant and birds may go to roost at night having had barely enough food to get by.

With the best intentions at heart, we have the tendency to feel that we owe our birds the ultimate in comfort in our homes. There are likely many different reasons for that thinking, but this is not necessarily what is best for our birds. It is unnatural for birds NOT to work for their food, which never, ever appears to them in the wild by way of a hand out.

When done properly, food management will teach your bird to see his empty food dish as an opportunity to train – something he will anticipate as the bonding and learning experience it is, but also as a way to earn his food.

Congo african grey

Trainers will refer to “motivation” in the training diet. This speaks to the level of hunger your bird is experiencing. A properly motivated bird is hungry enough to want to train and be eager to go through the steps. A bird that is too hungry will be uncoopereative and unwilling to “earn” food. Letting your bird get to that point is not only unproductive from a training standpoint, but it will damage your relationship with your bird.

If you are doing it right, your bird should never even be aware that you are managing his food. Using measurement, and through trial and error, you can get a fairly accurate idea of how much your bird eats and limit his portions to only that amount.

You never want to take your bird’s food away, instead, you want it to run out. There is different psychology involved between the two actions. When you remove a dish from your bird’s cage containing food, you might be presumed to be the cause of your bird’s hunger. If the food runs out, there is simply no food, just an empty bowl. Once you begin training, your bird will see the empty bowl as an opportunity, as I said before.

Blue throated macaw

Another advantage, two actually, in using a training diet and feeding your bird at a later time in the day is that: 1) your bird loses his expectation for timely feeding, something else that rarely happens in the wild. He will no longer call out demanding to be fed when he sees the first rays of dawn or at another time of his choosing, and 2) if you feed him just before he normally starts his sundown calls, it can eliminate a potentially loud and unnerving part of the day for your neighborhood.

I promise you that your bird will not starve to death if you don’t place a bowl of food in the cage at the crack of dawn, or even at the crack of noon. After observing how food management lends itself to the training experience, I now know that it does not cause hardship, but helps to set the stage for success in what is one of the most rewarding parts of your bird’s life.