Food Diet vs. Social Diets

In the previous two posts, I discussed the types of non food diets that can be used on your bird. Now that you are aware of other ways to ration something your bird wants, you can turn that into a reward and controlling its hand out. In turn, you can use those rewards to motivate your bird to do certain behaviors that you desire.

I would like to outline the difference between food diet and social diets in their practical application and use. The fact is, a food diet is the most concrete, easy to control, and predictable diet that is guaranteed to motivate your bird to learn. This is why the BirdTricks system emphasizes this rationing of food. The food training diet is very effective and will help you get 90% out of your birds motivation.

But what about the other 10%? If you really want to get 100% out of your bird, if you want more than just a bird who will wave/play dead, if you want a well behaved, well vocalized, happy, loving companion for life, you should use the social diets previously outlined. The reduction in daily attention that the bird receives will just make the interaction that it does that much more enjoyable. The limit of number of toys will make new toys all the more exciting. The withholding of petting until a favorable behavior is performed will make the bird learn acceptable behavior.

For every diet (food, social, petting, etc), there is an X amount that your bird needs to satisfy its hunger. This may be (hypothetically) 10 grams of food, 3 hours of attention, and 2x 20 second petting sessions. Any more than this may be bonus or may just be fattening and unnecessary. So for food, you would ration out 1 out of 10 grams to feed exclusively during trick training. For social attention, you would ration 3 out of 24 hours to spend out of the cage with you. Finally you would pet it twice that day when it is sitting quietly on its perch and not flying off.

Sometimes you can emphasize a particularly desired behavior by giving a bigger helping (of whatever diet you are using for that). For instance, I will let my bird stay out of the cage longer when there is company around because she is learning how to behave around strangers and to reward her for being good with other people. This will help the bird remember that other people are good, she gets to spend more time out. My bird has been prone to one-person-bird challenges but by giving her greater petting, attention, etc around other people, she is beginning to look forward to social outings more. As you may have read, I give my bird greater than usual attention when I take it driving or out on trips as a reward for the stress of being in the carrier and traveling. It would not even be possible to reward my bird with a food reward for doing this because she will often be scared and not eat or just eat a normal meal. That extra motivation for being good while traveling comes from all the bonus attention I give to her.

You can only use a particular motivator for as much as the bird wants. You can only feed a bird till it’s full, pet a bird till it’s satisfied, or keep it out of the cage until it’s tired. This is a great reason to use a variety of motivators and diets for your bird because when one runs out, you may still be able to influence your bird by using another. You can also use different types of motivators for different behaviors. A lot of these social motivators are very long term while click/treat is direct. These are both good for their individual purposes. A click/treat is excellent and pin pointing the exact way to hold the foot while teaching the wave trick. On the other hand, there is no real click for sitting on the perch quietly. This is where all of these toys, attention, and petting come in. While you may be able to do 50 repetitions of a particular trick using a food reward, you might only be able to do one or two rewards per day for sitting quietly. But if you do this over a long stretch of time, your bird will realize that actually being calm and quiet earns it attention more reliably than screaming and being a nuisance. In this case, food would not be such a good reward because the bird would not be receiving food for all times it is relaxed and also the bird may still be receiving food when it is rambunctious. But if you are limiting attention, talking, and petting to only a relaxed bird, it will soon catch on. Don’t give your bird food for not doing anything (being calm) because that will hurt your ability to get the bird to do something (a trick). Teaching it to be calm for food will extinguish its desire to try new behaviors that may lead to a trick for food. So reserve those non-food rewards for those calm behaviors and food for teaching tricks.

By rationing and rewarding your bird with everything it wants (and not only food), you can build a much stronger relationship. Not only will your bird learn better behavior but it will also be thrilled because it is receiving all this stuff from you and it knows exactly what to do in order to get it. If you pet the bird randomly, it doesn’t know how to ask. If you pet it when it is calm and well behaved and bends its head over to you, and you pet it, the bird will know what to do.

This all may sound very regimental but really it is quite simple. Give your bird what it wants only if it is giving you what you want. In turn your bird will only give you what you want if you give it what it wants. The bird wants food, you ask it to do a trick, it does trick, you give it a seed. If the bird does the trick wrong, you do not give it the seed. Apply the same thing to something like petting/attention. If the bird is sitting calm/quiet/relaxed you can talk to it, give it attention, pet it. If the bird is running around and screaming, you ignore it. So just remember, never to give the bird anything that it wants if it is going to be used to reinforce undesirable behavior but to hold it off until the bird is doing what you want.

Conclusion

A real “training diet” should actually be rationing everything that your bird enjoys and not just food. This way you always have something that the bird will try hard to earn from you. Whether that is food, attention, being left alone, time out of the cage, time in the cage, toys, vocalization, petting, training, or just playing together, you have full control over how much of that your bird can get. If you leave your bird always wanting more, you have the power to influence your avian friend about proper and improper behavior. If you give your bird too much, your bird will feel like it doesn’t have to listen to you. If you don’t give enough, your bird will be lonely, upset, and neglected. Finding the proper balance is key to a healthy owner to bird relationship. And it is this balance that will be the subject of the next article in this series about the healthy balance for birds.

Umbrella Cockatoo

Natural sunlight varies as seasons progress and ebb.  It is the intensity and duration of light that tells a bird that it is breeding season, and when to molt – it regulates it’s cyclical clock and adjusts metabolism. Ultraviolet light strengthens the immune system and works with the glandular system in the synthesis of vitamin D, which through a series of processes, increases calcium absorption.  This means healthier and stronger bones and beaks, and improved feather production.  Additionally, a bird’s vision and perception is dramatically enhanced.  Our parrots can see into the near ultraviolet range. This gives them the ability to, for instance, to see colors that we cannot, and to see things from a different perspective than we do.  In the wild, it is how they select mates and identify other flock members, and predators.  It assists in their search for food. Have you ever been outside with your parrot, when she suddenly cocks her head to the side and stares upward in horror at something that is a mere black speck in the sky to you?  She has likely identified a hawk.

Umbrella Cockatoo

Birds love the sunshine. Linus would spend all day outdoors if he could.

Natural sunlight is the best thing for our parrots. But it is impractical (and often unsafe) to roll their cages outside each day to give them this advantage.  Being in tuned with the seasons makes for a more psychologically well-balanced bird.  The health benefits are many. As 90% of the sun’s beneficial near ultraviolet rays are filtered out through modern window glass (even aluminum screening will filter out 30% or more), simply placing the cage by the window is ineffective. The next best thing we can offer as an alternative is full spectrum (FS) lighting in our indoor cage areas.

What is FS (full spectrum) lighting?

Full spectrum is a term that is used in the marketing of bulbs that replicate natural sunlight.  It radiates near ultraviolet light that, while not equal in quality to sunlight, it is the best artificial light that we have at this time and is very effective.

Where can I buy these bulbs and which ones are the best?

FS bulbs are available in many pet stores and online.  They come in two varieties: tubes that vary in length (like the ones you might have at work and bulbs like the high-efficiency bulbs we have at home (the curly ones).  The tube bulbs require fixtures that hold those particular bulbs in a length equal to the length of the bulb you are purchasing (usually 24″ or 48″) and the screw in bulbs will fit into any regular lamp base.

Some brand names are Vita Lite, Chroma, BioLight and Lumichrome.  The bulbs, to be effective,  should have a CRI (color rendition index) of 90 or more, and a color temperature of 5000k or more. Be sure to get bulbs specified for avian use.  Reptile have different lighting requirements.  Logic tells me that the tube bulbs would distribute light more broadly and would be a better choice.  If you elect to go with the screw in bulbs, I would consider using two of them.

If you get a parrot cage by cages by design, their cages come with full spectrum lighting.

Where do I place the lighting in the room and how long do I keep it on?

To maximize the benefits of FS lighting, the bulbs need to be placed about 12″ to 18″ from the cage. The heat generated by these bulbs is minimal and it won’t cause overheating. Try to place them over the top of the cage (if there’s a tray covering the top, you can either remove it or angle the light in from the highest possible point). Since we are trying to duplicate nature, shoot for high-noon.  Put the lights on a timer that will turn them on at sunrise and off at sunset, or as close to that as you can to work within your schedule.  Remember to adjust the timer to mimic the seasonal sun.

Umbrella Cockatoo

As I was doing research for this, I learned that my own lighting system is inadequate in one room. I need to add at least two more light sources to fully cover the needs of all the cages.  Hopefully, one day, I will have the outdoor aviaries I’ve always dreamed about and FS lighting will no longer be an issue.

Thought I’d let you guys see some pics of the newest edition to my flock. He’s an 11 year old, abused, feather plucking Congo African Grey parrot named ‘Bean’.

Notice how he picks his upper chest feathers, and chews his lower chest feathers in half. He’s not the worst feather plucking parrot in the world, but I decided to adopt him specifically so you could watch me rehabilitate him here on this blog… with free tip filled videos.

So don’t expect Bean to look this plucked for long… today was his first day of training, and it won’t be long before I have him in top top shape, and hopefully fully feathered again.

He’s super fearful of people, and refuses to step up for ANYONE as of right now.

Make sure you subscribe to the rss feed on this blog, or check back often so you can see his progress as I train him live.

I’ll post again in a few days when I have some more progress on how his training has progressed.

Chet

Notice the mangled feather destruction and plucking