I couldn’t decide which title to go with.

I know I’m behind a post for this past week. I have a good excuse though,  I just got home from visiting Dave and Jamie at the circus in Coney Island, NY where they have been stationed for the summer. It was so much fun. This was my first time out to see the show. It was strange to see my friends in this bizarre setting, and stranger still that they fit in so well.

The show was GREAT. I have decided I like a 1-ring circus better than a 3-ring because it is so much less overwhelming an experience and I think you see much more cool stuff that way. I watched the show three times and I still hadn’t gotten enough of it by the time I left.

I worked in entertainment most of my life and have seen a lot of strange things happen in backstage areas, but nowhere else will you walk back there to find an elephant standing around casually wagging its trunk back and forth right next to a guy juggling items that were moving too fast to identify. There was a guy warming up before his act in such a way that would’ve dislocated my joints, and everyone was wearing costumes that were so bedazzled that they probably weighed more than the people wearing them. Then there’s Stevie the clown who takes spiky hair to a new level. It’s all part of a typical day in the circus.

Of particular interest to me was watching the trainers interact with their animals, not all of whom were part of the show.  The care and attention they received was an all day/everyday thing with no small detail being overlooked. The animals and their enclosures were kept in pristine condition and it was heartwarming to catch a trainer talking baby talk to their animals when they thought no one was watching.
Of course, I was paying a lot of attention to how the birds were faring, and they all looked in great health and spirits. If I’m going to be honest, I was expecting to see some wear and tear on the flock (and on the Womachs), but I didn’t. They all looked and acted much like they did before they had left on tour. Jamie and Dave have done a spectacular job in raising the birds to be able to handle their lifestyle which always includes a lot of travel. The birds are well adjusted and therefore open to change and new experiences. And, man, do they look beautiful flying across the ring during the show.

So, you’re probably wondering where recall training fits into this post. Unfortunately, in order to explain, I have to throw Jamie under the bus for a second.  Following the final show on the first day I arrived, Jamie was carrying the macaws, Comet and Tusa, from their backstage cages to the aviaries for the night when Comet broke loose from her grip. I remember my jaw hitting the ground as I watched Comet fly ahead of us and bank to the right and out of sight. Jamie yelled to Dave, who was at the aviaries, that Comet was loose and he somehow managed to be on top of the aviary in the time it took us to round the corner to see Comet circling back and landing in his hand. These accidents happen to trainers too. If it weren’t for the excellent recall skills trained into these birds, Comet might be gone.  I think Jamie will forgive me for bringing this out into the open in the hopes that it will serve as a lesson for others.  Hopefully she’s forgiven everyone for all the teasing she received following the incident.   Got to have a sense of humor around here!

This question seems to be coming up a lot recently on the birdtricks facebook page and other places I visit regularly. I appreciate that people have the good sense to ask, but it’s a very difficult question to answer without knowing the person asking it, without getting a sense of the person or what their lifestyle is. I normally spend more effort trying to talk people out of getting birds than recommending a species to them.

Owning a bird takes a lot of time and work:
Are you up to it? Those of us with birds understand the higher level of care they require compared to our cats and dogs.  Aside from daily cleaning chores that come with having a bird, there are dietary requirements that take more time and thought than just opening a can.  With their great level of intelligence, they need constant mental stimulation.  And being social creatures, they require out of cage time with their flock and family member. Without attention to these details, a bird can easily become aggressive, loud and/or feather destructive. No one will be happy with this outcome, not you, not your bird.
Since no one can answer this question for you, it’s time to take a good look in the mirror and decide what kind of person you are, and how much of yourself you are willing to give to a parrot.  If you are a good, attentive owner, plan on getting up a little earlier for work and making some changes to your social calendar.  This might be tough on a younger new owner.

And a lot of money:
Birds are very long lived pets. They require lots of toys to keep them mentally and physically active.  Store bought toys are expensive, and if they are good toys and you have chosen them well for your parrot, they are promptly destroyed.  This is the point of toys.  Birds require fresh foods everyday, a good brand of pelleted food, some species require seed and nuts, others have specialized diets. You will be spending some time in the kitchen if you are feeding your bird correctly.  A good quality and appropriately sized powder coated cage for a large bird will cost $1000 or more.  This is tough on an owner of any age.

But mostly, a lot of patience and good sense:
It takes a lot of thought to raise a bird to be happy and independent and a welcomed part of the family. Parrots have the knack for throwing curve balls at their owners. Just when you think you’ve got them figured out, they will begin a behavior you’ve never seen before. Or decide they now hate their favorite food, toy or person.  You will learn to explore why your bird does something before you even try to understand how to go about finding a solution to a problem. You will have to know your species of bird well, in both captive and wild settings. After a while, creative thinking will be second nature.  You will learn that it truly takes a village to raise a parrot. You will find the advice and wisdom of those experienced with the type of bird you have selected to be helpful and comforting, and you will seek these people out.
Does this sound like nonsense to you?  Get a fish.

Still want one?
Which bird? To begin with, I don’t believe that there is any species of parrot that should be considered a “beginner bird”. Smaller birds are just as in need of enrichment, good food and love as are the big birds. The only difference is the volume with which they can state a complaint, or the severity of the bite they may issue when you make the mistakes we all did as beginners. If the beak intimidates you, you already know you want a smaller bird.
The very best way to determine which bird is right for you is to talk to someone who has the species you have in mind.  There are sites pertaining to EVERY species on the internet. Google conure, for instance, and you will find more info on the many species of conure than you can process in one sitting.  Go onto the bird forums and ask if anyone has a green cheeked conure because you are thinking about getting one. They will be happy to share info with you about the good, bad and ugly of that species. As your research continues, you might stumble across a bird species you hadn’t considered that would fit nicely into your life.
Know that the traits listed are what is typical of the species.  It doesn’t mean that every bird reads the manual. Some african greys don’t talk, some scarlet macaws aren’t nippy, not all cockatoos need to run the world.
If you decide to rehome your first bird, you should be aware that you are taking on the product of any mistakes or wrong-doings made by previous owners.  Often these birds come baggage, some bags are heavier than others. These birds sometimes need special considerations in terms of patience, and may need a push in the right direction in the areas of diet and socialization.
A lot, if not most, of how your bird turns out has to do with your technique of raising the bird and your willingness to put the time and effort into him. You will have your bird with you for a very long time. Take all the time you need now to choose carefully.

Take a good look at your parrot. You will notice he has wings. You will see that they, and most of the rest of his body, is covered with feathers of varying length and size. If you were to look inside his body, you would find hollow bones and a unique respiratory system and muscular structure.  All of these things contribute to a single outstanding ability: FLIGHT!
Birds are meant to fly, and I encourage you to let them do that. Flight is what differentiates birds from all other creatures on this earth. It’s what they were born to do and I believe they feel handicapped when it is denied them or when they are scolded for this most natural activity.
I am adamant that it is imperative to a baby bird’s overall and ongoing mental health to be allowed to fledge. Even if the prospective new owner never intends the bird to remain flighted, learning to fly is a necessary exercise in discovery and confidence building. The bird that never brings itself to take that first step off of a solid surface will never reap those benefits of trial and error learning and never experience the joy of that accomplishment. It might go on to be a bird that is insecure and unwilling to explore new things. That first flight is a leap of faith that follows weeks of flapping and testing out its wings with the expectation that they will carry him safely to the ground. Imagine not being allowed to learn that you do have the courage and the skill to make that come to fruition. Imagine having wings and never getting to experience flight.

When I first got Theo, my goffins cockatoo, she was a timid, perch bound little thing who had barbered her wing feathers down to the skin. To my knowledge, she had never taken a single flight in her, then, 22 years. Within a year or so, she had regrown most of her flight feathers and months later took her first leap into the air.  She flew about 6 feet, and landed softly on the floor. The expression on her face was nearly human with her surprise, joy and pride. I will never forget it. Something special happened to her that day and it changed the way she looked at her world. From that point on, she was into everything, sometimes flying there, sometimes climbing.  She developed a keen interest in everything around her, and began acting like a goffins is supposed to.

I am not anti-clipping in cases where where a bird needs to be clipped. My cockatiel, Tinky, was my first bird.  He reached a point in his accident prone life where I felt the need to clip him. Sometime after knocking himself silly by flying into a mirror, he received a nasty concussion when my young daughter accidentally closed his head in the bedroom door as he made an attempt to follow her out of the room.  He recovered, with the help of his vet, but I was still uncomfortable with the idea of clipping his wings and they remained intact.
In the not too distant future were two more separate events that involved him being stepped on and sat on. We decided he needed to be more stationary and out came the scissors. To our great surprise, and dismay, he was still quite capable of flight, just to a lesser extent.
Of course, I know now that Tinky was neither accident prone nor misbehaved.  It was our allowing him free reign of the house that led him to places where injury occured. It is impossible to keep track of every movement they make under those circumstances, and until we learned that lesson well, Tinky would remain at risk or stay clipped.  The arrival of our second cockatiel, DeeDee, helped to keep Tinky in one spot a bit more often with other activities. We adjusted our lifestyle with the birds, imposed more limitations and both are now fully flighted.

Before you clip, think carefully about the emotional impact of grounding your bird. Knowing that they can escape a dangerous or frightening situation if the need arises, or even an interaction that they simply wish not to participate in, gives a bird the room to make choices that bring about trust. You’ve heard the expression Fight or Flight. When the option of flight is removed, sometimes it leaves a wary bird only the option of fighting when it feels insecure.  A bird might be quicker to bite when there are no other options to explore. Trust is gained when you respect and accept their decision to move away.
Sometimes, when a previously flighted bird is suddenly grounded, it can change it’s personality. Aside from feeling insecure, it can become depressed, sometimes lethargic, as if it has lost its zeal for life.  I know some of you are thinking that this may not be such a bad thing for your over-active or nippy birds. It is not a good thing.  Please consider addressing the behavior with training and restrictions before resorting to a clip.

If you do decide to clip, be certain is is done in a humane fashion. The wings should not be so severely trimmed that the bird is unable to glide gracefully to the ground, which will be his first stop following a clipping.  Poorly clipped wings can result in injury to your bird, so let your vet or professional bird groomer handle it until you feel confident in what you are doing.  Start with a light clip.  You can always trim more later if necessary.
NEVER trim a single wing.  A bird’s wings provide overall balance whether it be on the ground or in the air.  This is why they molt and regrow their flight feathers evenly on each side.  Trimming a single wing can cause a bird to perch unevenly, causing pressure sores on its feet which can then develop into skin and bone infections.
Also avoid what is referred to as a “show cut”.  This is when the wings are trimmed leaving the first two feathers on each side intact. Because they now jut out awkwardly, they are easily caught on toys and perches and can cause injury.Your birds appearance is not important. Its safety is.  Most people don’t even notice that a bird is clipped if it is done properly.
There is only one reason to clip your bird’s wings: if the safety of the bird/s or the people in the home are at risk.  If your bird does not seem to get the message after repeatedly flying into windows or mirrors, then a clipping is a good idea.  If your bird is trying to injure a member of the household or another bird, then sometimes clipping is necessary while you assess and gain control of the situation.  It should be done as part of an multi-tiered plan to correct your bird’s behavior and make changes to your own lifestyle. Sometimes a light trim with take the edge off an ill tempered bird by limiting its abilities, while still allowing him flight. This bird will sometimes get the message, but often there are better alternatives to clipping.

5 reasons NOT to clip:

• 1.  Flight gives a bird confidence and keeps it mentally and emotionally balanced. Aside from knowing it can get itself out of harm’s way in a pinch, it is how a bird naturally gets around.  Sure, they can walk and climb, but they are built to fly. Anyone in wheelchair understands what I am saying about the loss of an ability.
• 2.  Given the muscular structure of a bird, flying is the best form of exercise they can get. This is why they flap their wings in their cages.  It probably feels good, but it isn’t enough to keep those muscle toned.
• 3.  A flighted bird can escape to safety in the home, if he finds himself in trouble.  If you have other pets, this is a consideration.
• 4.  If lost outside, an uflighted bird will not have the ability to outfly a predator.  A determined clipped bird certainly CAN fly, and they go up, but seem to be unable or unwilling to come down.
• 5. Your bird will always have the option to choose to avoid an altercation with you by flying away instead of biting.

**NOTE:  Never attempt to fly your birds outside without extensive professional freeflight and recall training.

This video is a 10 minute segment taken from a LIVE presentation I did at our Total Parrot Transformation Seminar that shows an exercise you really MUST try.

This exercise will immediately make you a FASTER trainer, by helping you understand why your bird doesn’t quite understand what you want him to do.

Here’s Your Homework:

After you watch this video, go and try this exercise on someone you know, and then report back to this blog post with any new revelations you have about how to communicate with your bird. Most people who do this exercise have MAJOR breakthroughs with their birds… so if you want a better relationship with your bird, do this exercise.

Looking forward to hearing about how this changes your perspective about your bird.

Parrots are easily able to manipulate their owners with the use of their beak.  This is done in a number of ways, most of which are referred to as a “bite”, but technically are not.  It’s important to consider the type of bite you have have received, so that you know what your next move will be.  Sometimes they are caused by the owners misactions, sometimes they are just a form of communication.  In any case, it is not acceptable, and your bird needs to be taught to get his points across in a way that doesn’t harm or intimidate you.

The True Bite:

When you’ve truly been bitten, you will know it.  I’m talking about the bite that comes from a bird that is holding no punches and has bitten you with the intention of causing injury.  THAT is a bite.  You will bleed.  Chunks of flesh may be missing.  You will cry and possibly visit the ER.  I have received some terrible bites from Linus, my umbrella cockatoo, both when he first came to live with me, and a couple of years later when he was in the throes of a particularly hormonal hissy.

Just so you know, small birds can inflict a lot of hurt.  The worst bite I have ever received came from a sun conure with a fear of hands.  His beak came away with a piece of my thumb in it.  A friend of mine, who works with large birds in a sanctuary in Texas, said that the worst bite she’s ever received was from a cockatiel who managed to get it’s beak inside the nail bed of her finger.

When a bird is so angry or frightened that it resorts to this type of bite, put it back in its cage where both of you will be safe from harm.  A healthy bird that is well kept and well treated will rarely, if ever, resort to these measures in dealing with its owners.

The Warning Bite:

The warning bite is exactly that: a warning to you that your bird is considering the real deal.  While a warning bite may not even break the skin, it needs to be taken seriously, because the real bite is the only recourse when warnings are ignored.  When your bird is showing you the consideration of holding back by first issuing a warning, you have done a good job in teaching it manners, but you are doing something that is making him uneasy at this time.

Take the time to evaluate what has upset your bird, and choose to either not do this around your bird or find a better way to do it.  For example, it you have gotten a warning shot because you are cleaning inside her cage, it’s not hard to figure out that your bird is territorial and would prefer that you not be inside her cage.  That’s fair.  She’s defending her nest.

Since you have to clean in there, you will opt to find a solution to the problem.  Before you’re ready to clean, put her in a carrier in another room or in a play spot with another member of the household.  That way, you can clean, and she doesn’t feel invaded.  Even though you might reach a point where your bird will tolerate you being inside of her cage, she will never feel comfortable with it because her instinct tells her otherwise.  This is a confrontation to avoid because there is no point to trying to train out instinctive behaviors, they will always resurface down the road.

I am going to add  The Lunge to the warning category even though the bird might not even make contact with you to bite.  Often, and especially with macaws, the lunge is a test to see how easily intimidated you are.  It helps them decide whether a bite might be necessary.  Just as often it is a game because it is just so darn much fun to watch a human shrink away in terror.

The Nip:

Birds communicate with each other using their beaks.  One bird will tell another that he is in the way with a quick nip, just as a human might use an elbow to nudge someone into paying attention.  While not terribly polite, it’s effective.  The problem is that where a bird might grab a beakful of feathers nipping another bird, they are making contact with our skin and sometimes it hurts.  I don’t believe this to be intentional, and do not consider this to be a bite.

One example of the nip is one day that I had Linus on the couch with me.  Like so many birds, Linus tends to misbehave on the couch, so he is only allowed there when he is actually on me.  This one day, he was in a comfortably predictable mood, so I let him adventure to the other side of the couch.  At some point he decided that I needed to move because I was blocking the way to the dark, nesty spot in the corner of the couch, and he nipped me on my side hard enough to leave a welt.  In those crucial first few seconds that follow, where you not only have to figure out what happened, but what to do about it before an opportunity is lost, I realized I was being asked to move in bird language.  Of course, I couldn’t just move out of the way because it would send a message that this is an acceptable way to communicate what he wants.  Instead, I moved him to a play stand.

Many times, when people have come to me because their bad bird bites them, it is not at all a “biting problem”.  It’s usually an “owner doesn’t understand what the bird is trying to say problem”.  Sometimes it might feel unnatural to try to have a meeting of the minds between you and your bird, two species that think and communicate in very different ways.   Know that it feels just as unnatural and complicated to them.  They take the time and effort to learn our language, the least we can do is try to learn theirs.

Q:  I have a 2 year old blue and gold macaw that is very sweet and has never bitten me.  I heard recently that at some point my bird will bite me.  Is this true?

-Mary, Springfield, IL

A:  This is a great question and an important topic for new bird owners.  Unfortunately, the answer to your question is most likely ‘yes”.  Parrots may bite for a number of different reasons ranging from fright to fear to aggression, with a host of different possibilities in between.  What is more important than the bite itself, is why it happened and how it can be avoided.

Biting is a natural tendency for a bird.  The birds in our homes today are only about 3 generations removed from the wild.  Dogs and cats have been domesticated over hundreds, even thousands, of years by breeding out undesirable characteristics through many, many generations.  We are a very long way away from that with our parrots.  There are many wild caught birds in captivity today.  Even our young captive-bred birds have parents or grandparents that were wild caught.  They are wild animals with their wild instincts still intact.

Birds interact with each other using their beaks in feeding, preening and as warning.  It makes sense that they would use their beaks in their communications with us as well.  However, as natural as a bite might be, it is completely unacceptable, with the one exception of when the bird is falling and grabs onto you to right itself.  It is never okay for your bird to bite you just because that’s what birds do.  It IS up to us to pay attention to the clear warnings that they give telling us that they are unhappy, and to not allow an atmosphere in the home that causes them to feel fear and the need to lash out.

A bite can often be avoided by watching body language for signs of aggression and observing and removing things or situations which trigger fear or anger related bites.  Sometimes, though, we  encounter situations that we can’t foresee, such as the backfiring of a truck that might startle a bird into biting.  If you carry your bird on your shoulder, you don’t want to be in between him and what has startled him.

When birds reach sexual maturity, their temperaments sometimes change.  Additionally, hormones make some parrots aggressive and excitable during this time of year, and they can be quite unpredictable.  To avoid being bitten, I avoid handling mine when they are in a mood like this.

Watch and get to know your bird, and continue to learn as he grows and changes. If you take the time to understand and teach him what is and is not acceptable, and treat him with the respect he deserves, your altercations should be minimal.  I have a goffins cockatoo that has never bitten anyone in her 24 years.

If you are experiencing a biting problem with your parrot, BirdTricks has a course that will help.