Can 1 Bird Love 2 People?

So many people have issues with what they call a “one person bird” and some birds are known to be one person birds, purely because of their breed.

Knowing this, Dave and I have goals to never encounter the problems that our customers have by raising our parrots the right way in an effort to avoid these types of problems.

Our birds like us both, but usually they prefer one person over the other. We always use percentages to explain it to other people when they ask, “Does the bird like you more?”

We like to keep it at a 51%/49%. What this means is that each bird likes one person 2% more than the other person. This makes it so that both people can handle, feed, care and train each bird we have. And if it ever starts to show signs of only wanting to be around one person more than the other, and only begins responding positively to one person over the other… then the opposite person takes over more responsibilities for the bird to even it back out.

For example, a lot of couples get into routines and don’t realize it. This just happens based on people’s different personalities and expectations.

One thing that happens with Dave and me is that I often am the one “taking the bird OUT” of the cage while Dave ends up being the other putting them back IN the cage. Since our birds would prefer to be outside of the cage, I am the positive and Dave can become the negative if he is the only one putting them back in. If he puts the birds back in their cages too many times and I never do it, they look at him as the signal for going away and don’t want to come to him.

So make sure to ALWAYS rotate responsibilities.

This means rotate who cleans cages (maybe the vacuum or broom is scary to the bird and you’re the only one cleaning up around there while your spouse delivers the treats… reverse roles!)

Make sure the same person isn’t always feeding the bird. The bird needs to understand it comes from BOTH people. Everything should come from both people if you want the bird to respond well to both of you.

If you have a one person bird already, it helps if the disliked person does a majority of the training at first – because birds LOVE training and will associate it with this other person. Once the bird is responding well to the new person, other people can begin training to build a relationship too and show the bird the training comes from people, and not just one person.

So if you’ve noticed your bird is starting to like someone else in the household, take a look at what that person offers that you don’t. Don’t let one person in the house fall into the role of putting the bird away all the time, or taking him out all the time either. Keep it mixed up enough to make sure your bird can love two people.