Watch and listen to my brother and his wife Jamie describe a pretty eventful mourning while out on tour with his birds where he woke up to find two birds MISSING!

After you watch this video, you’ll understand why my brother and I are such big proponents of flight training.

If you’d like to learn more about how flight training might save your birds life someday, one of the DVD’s from our Total Parrot Transformation Seminar covers indoor flight training in great detail.

You can get it here:
Total Parrot Transformation Seminar DVD’s

When discussing bird toys, there are two very common statements made:  “I don’t give my bird toys anymore, she never plays with them.”  and  “Whenever I get my bird new toys, he just destroys them.”  Do either of these sound familiar?  Read on…

Toys are multi-tasking things. They should be fun, educational, provide challenges and satisfy a bird’s instinctive needs. They are there to fill the void that a caged bird might feel with limited space and social activity. They exist to be chewed on, smacked around, yelled at and reduced to splinters. An utterly annihilated toy, is one that has been most enjoyed.  So, to the guy who laments over his bird’s destroyed toys: well done. You found the perfect toy for your bird!  For the guy whose bird doesn’t play with toys: keep looking!  You just haven’t found what interests her yet.
Toys are there for the use and enjoyment of your bird. While we may think that the giraffe shaped pinata is adorable, your bird may have no interest in that type of toy. I will venture to say that most parrots really don’t care that a toy looks like a monkey or a snowflake. In fact, your bird has no idea what either of those things are. It is the texture and functionality of the toy that interests your bird.  Be careful not to buy the toys that are appealing to only you.
Toys are expensive and it’s hard to be able to afford to experiment with a $40 toy that your bird may not like. Try some things from around the house to test the waters. Here are a few suggestions:

• Offer a paper towel or paper bag. See what she does with toilet paper or paper towel tubes  Your bird might prefer shreddables.
• See how your bird reacts to pieces of an old t shirt or a facecloth. She might like fabric toys .
• Go to Home Depot and buy a couple of small wood scrap pieces from untreated pine 2X4s for the larger birds, and watch the gnawing begin!
• Fold a favorite treat up inside a unwaxed dixie cup to inspire her to learn to forage.  How well she does with this simple forager will tell you if your bird might be ready to try a more sophisticated toy.

Once you get a feel for the types of materials your bird prefers and makes the best use of, look into the different types of toys available that have that composition. Try, also, to get a feel for the activities your bird prefers. My umbrella cockatoo loves to put things inside of other things. Often I find he has jammed bits of wood into any crevices he can find in his cage. I have noticed that he has a longer than typical attention span than most cockatoos when it comes to accomplishing tasks. Puzzle toys are right for him, but he is very particular about the ones he likes.
I had several friends in Austin who own parrots. We had an arrangement for toy swapping so that we could experiment with what our birds liked.  I bought a Rainstick for Linus once. He hated it and actually got angry when he would hear the sounds it made.  I swapped it with an african grey’s owner for a moving parts toy that is now a favorite to Linus.  We would ONLY do this with plastic or metal toys that could be sterilized before passing them from bird to bird. It saved us a ton of money on wasted, unused toys.

Once you decide what your bird’s preferences are, look into these options:

• Foraging toys: Foraging for food is an activity that occupies a great deal of a wild bird’s day. Our companion birds benefit both mentally and physically when we create a foraging environment for them in their cages.
• Puzzle toys:  These are the educational toys. They can keep your bird busy for hours with different tasks.
• Wood/shreddables: Your bird has an innate need to chew. Gouging out a tree cavity or creating materials to line a nest are behaviors performed by your parrot’s wild cousins. This is hard wired into companion parrots as well. Providing toys that satisfy this urge will hopefully make the furniture less appealing.
• Preening toys:  These are great for the bird who would spend hours on your shoulder grooming your hair.  If you suspect your bird is an over-preener, or might be heading in the direction of feather destruction, these types of toys might distract him from that.
• Plastic toys: From pony beads to bullet proof acrylic, things that spin, slide, and speak. These are toys that will last a long time, but are not always the favorite. These are great toys to use in rotation in the cage to offer a variety of activities throughout the month. Since they don’t serve a purpose as far as destructibility goes, they should provide a fun/educational activity instead.

Toys are an essential part to your parrot’s well-being.  Unused toys in the cage are no better than no toys in the cage.  Observation and a little inexpensive experimentation will give the info you need to provide just the perfect ones for your bird.  The pictured toys and more are available at Birdtricks.com.

Q: My friend says that I shouldn’t get a mirror for my cockatiel because he will become infatuated with the “bird in the mirror” and want nothing to do with me.  Is this true?
Sharon M., Waterford, WI

A:  In a word, no. Cockatiels do love their own reflections and will spend a lot of  time staring at and singing to “the bird in the mirror”. Mine do, and I have never experienced my relationship suffering with any of my birds because of mirrors.

It is a bit difficult to understand a bird’s relationship to its reflection. There is really nothing in nature, besides water, that is so highly reflective that a bird could see itself. It would have to be a very still day for a bird to be able to recognize its reflection in a pond, and I have never read that anyone has observed this behavior in a wild bird. So why are so many enamored with their reflections in captivity?

It has been the subject of scientific study whether a bird recognizes the image in the mirror as itself.  Scientists believe that dolphins do recognize themselves and suspect that birds do as well. I know my umbrella cockatoo, Linus, recognizes his own reflection simply by the fact that he doesn’t try to attack it. However, my quaker gets aggressive when anything refective goes into his cage, including stainless steel bowls. Theo, my goffins cockatoo, sleeps cuddles up next to her stainless steel mirror, and lately I have watched her holding a corner in her foot and manipulating the image behind her. Very clever.

We may never have the answers to the questions this topic brings to mind. The bottom line is that if it makes your bird happy and there are no unwanted behaviors resulting from it, there’s no reason to disallow this form of entertainment.

Be very sure to select mirrors that are appropriate for your bird’s size. For the small birds, budgies and cockatiels, try Hall Of Mirrors. It’s a three sided mirror that gives multi images and is safe for their bite pressure.  My cockatiels love it so much I had to order another so they each had their own.  For any bird larger, conures on up to macaws, only use stainless steel mirrors for safety reasons.  NEVER use glass of any kind in your bird’s cage.  This includes hand-held and compact mirrors.

I try to buy all of my fruits and veggies organically, but the produce here in Orlando is horrible.  I have never seen such a poor selection of withered and wilted food anywhere I have lived before.  I’ll be in the organic area of the supermarket and often walk over to purchase the regular produce just because it’s fresher, a little. I sometimes resort to the frozen food section out of necessity.

Even though they are inconveniently located for me, I had hopes that Whole Foods would save the day, but they also sell fresh foods that are just days away from being garbage.  I have had to get comfortable with buying regular produce, and try to deal with the fact that it’s obviously quite past its peak.

I found this government list recently that tells you which foods should definitely be bought organically and those which we can feel safe about purchasing non-organically and why.  Rather than repeat the information, I have just included this link.  Don’t forget to go to page 2 for the list of clean vegetables:  12 dirtiest vegetables. I was kind of surprised not to see green beans on the dirty list.

If you’d like to learn more about Emotional Conditioning techniques and methods for eliminating your bird’s fears, then click here for DVD’s that teach you these techniques: Total Parrot Transformation Seminar

Q:  I was forced to board my parrot at the vet for two weeks when I had to fly out of town because my mother become ill.  Now my bird wants nothing to do with me, and has actually bitten me twice, which is not like her at all. What can I do to fix our relationship?

A:  One of the first things I teach my birds is an understanding of the words “I’m sorry”.  Accidents happen, toes get closed in cage doors, beaks get bonked with elbows. When I issue a heartfelt apology, all is forgiven. Sometimes, though, we commit such a sin in the eyes of our parrots that all the “I’m sorry”s, special treats and extra scritches in the world won’t make a difference. Usually, these things are done inadvertently by us, or out of necessity, as in your case.  Sometimes we have no clue that we did anything wrong at all.
Try to understand that you are you bird’s best friend, in some cases, only friend.  They look to you for their daily care and companionship. Imagine what it must seem like to your bird to be suddenly dumped in a strange place. Looking at this from a bird’s perspective, it’s a little unreasonable for us to expect that all of them will just accept what must seem like abuse.
Different birds handle their anger in different ways.  Some will turn their backs on you, which is a bird’s way of refusing to acknowledge your presence, some will take favor in a different person, some will bite.
If you had found out that your best friend had stolen money from you, you’d feel angry and betrayed, right?  Isn’t your hurt magnified by the fact that this was your best friend whom you trusted implicitly? If we lived in a society that accepted biting as reasonable retaliation in these circumstances, as birds do, wouldn’t you take a chunk out of your friend’s arm?  I would.

Since we can’t explain our misdeeds to a parrot, there is one way, and one way only, to fix this problem: by earning back the trust of your parrot through your actions. It’s not as hard as it might sound. You have already done this once when you first brought her home.

STARTING OVER

Take your relationship with your bird to the beginning, right back to the very first day you brought her home, and start over. When you’re done reading this post, write an outline of your first day with your bird way back when. Begin with a paragraph about how you felt.  Were you excited?  What were your hopes for this new relationship?  Were you looking for a constant companion for you or existing bird? What were your expectations?  Did you hope she would talk, learn tricks, accompany you on outings?
Write another paragraph about how the bird reacted to coming to your home?  Was she frightened?  Standoff-ish?  Was she a little slow to accept new things?
Finally make a list of all the special considerations you made to ensure her comfort. Did you speak more softly? Keep the household calm and quiet at first? Move more slowly around her to keep from frightening her?  Make sure she got lots of sleep?
Since you had created a great relationship with your bird, you have to assume you did things to her liking the first time around. Do it again.

It’s pretty simple isn’t it?  This time you even have the advantage of not being a total stranger. Usually the bird will come around pretty quickly, if you put in the effort. As things become familiar and comfortable again, she will begin the let go of her grudges.
I will say, though, that the more clever birds know when you are “sucking up” and will use it to their advantage. This is one area of a bird’s intelligence that we continually under-estimate. You will want to recognize signs of this and know where to draw the line. You are not trying to buy her love by spoiling her.  You are simply re-establishing what you once had. There’s a big difference.
Take a look at the paragraph you wrote about your expectations with this bird. Did you accomplish them?  If not, this is a second chance to change any bad habits or start training the new behaviors and tricks you had once imagined.