Blue and gold macaws

Q: I recently read that a good way to give your bird exercise is to hold its feet and drop your arm to make your bird flap its wings. I’m afraid my bird will bite me if I try this. What is your opinion?

 - Sarah G., Great Neck, NY

A: It is very important that your bird gets plenty of regular exercise. This can come from climbing, walking and flying. We will often notice our birds flapping their wings wildly inside the cage while gripping onto the bars. Exercise is something they both want and need and we should do everything we can to promote activity and provide the means for it.
However, “the drop”, as it was once known, is detrimental to your relationship with your bird. This method of forcing movement will only serve to cause mistrust.

When we offer our hand to our birds, they will eagerly step up knowing we are providing them a stable place to perch. They utilize our hands for travel between one place and another. And our hands are a place where they feel safe in our care. Your birds looks to you for its security.

Blue and gold macaws

If you suddenly and deliberately cause your bird to lose its footing and scramble to hang on because it believes it is falling, you can bet that you will simultaneously cause it to lose its confidence in you as a risk-free place to be. Using the drop says that the human hand, yours in particular, is unreliable.  It says to your bird that YOU can’t be trusted with its well-being. And yes, it could result in a bite – even if it is one that results from your bird having to use its beak suddenly to right itself.

The drop can make your efforts to step your bird up in the future uncertain and diminish the possibility of success in training recall. If you do not represent a place of comfort and safety to your bird, he will choose to be elsewhere.

Before we left two years ago Theo the goffin cockatoo was getting poofy as big as she could and walking hurriedly after my cockatoos Bondi and Bandit who are rose breasted cockatoos. Now Bondi is a small goffins cockatoo, so it’s not like her size is intimidating…

But because my birds are fully flighted they find it easier to fly away than risk getting hurt in any way and I can’t seem to convince them that Theo is in fact, bluffing.

Because I socialized Cressi (congo african grey) and Bondi, I thought, why not socialize Bondi and Theo? They are of the same size for the most part, and both females. They have nice personalities, though Bondi is a bit more easy going about things than Theo but Theo is definitely learning.

Theo, by the way, was thought to be a boy from her first owners if you couldn’t tell…

Anyway, the first few days back I decided to just watch the interaction between Theo and my birds. Theo would intimidate Bondi and Bandit to fly away, but Cressi would intimidate Theo to fly away. It was an interesting array of flights to watch take place.

While having all 4 smaller birds out and flying around (all of which are fully flighted) I watched more of their interaction. As Theo approached Bondi to intimidate her on the railing, I put my hand up to intervene and save Bondi the trouble of having to fly away.

Theo stopped where my hand was, using it as a border and Bondi felt safe enough with my hand there not to fly away.

Here is the video of how that went:

Obviously I wasn’t socializing in the best of circumstances – I had a lot of distractions from other birds.

A little while later though… both Bondi and Theo ended up on my lap for some cuddles. Theo was more interested in Bondi whereas Bondi had no interest in being close to Theo at the time. But again, I placed my hand up as a barrier and both liked the idea of having it. Theo tried pushing the boundaries and Bondi really wanted the boundaries left intact.

I decided that if Theo’s face was facing away (in other words, beak = away) then I’d let Theo get close to Bondi, that way Bondi didn’t feel threatened in any way as Theo’s position was actually showing trust and vulnerability. Bondi would lightly touch Theo a bit and see what would make her move. I watched and judged by watching their body language not only with each other but with me on how far I’d let each one go.

Here’s how that looked:

They eventually got to the point of sweetly just beginning to preen one another. Then I thought I’d end while things were on a high note for them both and offer space to both of them.

Since then, Theo doesn’t try to intimidate Bondi. Instead of going towards her all puffed up on the railing, Theo actually walked in the opposite direction to do her own thing.

Socializing the two of them has made Theo feel less like she has to show who’s boss and prove that she’s unafraid and it’s doing wonders for their relationships around the house.

Honestly, if they weren’t both fully flighted, this story wouldn’t be as sweet sounding… in the least.

 Photo by Dave
Location: Waynesboro, VA
Birds pictured: Blue throat macaw “Jinx”, Congo African Grey “Cressi”

This topic came up recently on the facebook. Someone asked about their two birds and explained how one picks on the other. This is making it very hard to have them both out at the same time without one bird getting its (excuse my language) ass kicked. Recently we’ve been encountering some ‘bullying’ behavior with our toucan Rocko.

Because we’re nervous about getting him too close to our parrots (for safety reasons – his beak could reach them way before theirs could reach him) he has started to feel that he’s king of everything and act like it too. He will go over to our stuffed animal toucans and ‘beat them up’ which isn’t a big deal except he started to pass that aggression onto us, other objects and eventually act like he could do that to our other birds when we were introducing them for the first time. We noticed it coming right away and stopped socialization for a while until we could overcome his heiness’ ego.

Photo by Dave
Location: Waynesboro, VA
Birds pictured: Blue throat macaw “Jinx”, Congo African Grey “Cressi”

We began doing this with where the behavior started: with the stuffed toucans.

As Rocko would go over to beat them up like usual, I would put my hand behind the toucan and act like it was alive and sick and tired of being jabbed around. At first, Rocko reacted even more aggressively but then as the stuffed toucan would come closer to him and eventually on him and around him, he would stop caring and leave the stuffed toucan alone either not caring what it was doing or playing elsewhere where the toucan wasn’t. After weeks of this, he plays with the stuffed toucans now but doesn’t bully them which we are hoping will help with REAL socializing, too.

Rocko has been flying outside and in Virginia was the first time in the company of our other birds really being part of it. Tusa, our camelot macaw, sat perched on Dave’s shoulder while Rocko did recall flights to Dave. At first, Rocko saw Tusa and aggressively made sounds at him but once he was focused on his flight tasks he practically forgot Tusa was there.

It’s important that when one bird bullies another you don’t encourage it or let it go on – in the wild birds often fight to the death and if your birds are clipped and unable to get away from each other easily without falling off something, it can be especially risky and dangerous.

Photo by Dave
Location: Waynesboro, VA
Birds pictured: Blue throat macaw “Jinx”, Congo African Grey “Cressi”

It’s better to stop the bully bird before he starts and have things around to distract him. It’s also okay to obviously protect the other bird whether that involves moving it out of biting range or blocking an attack when you know the bully bird won’t bully you.

I find it easiest to socialize and prevent bullying and fighting by listening to my intuition when working with two birds.

For example, out of our flock our african grey Cressi and our blue throated macaw Jinx get along the least. I put them both on a pumpkin for a picture and they both wanted to eat it – but since they both knew they didn’t care for each other that much and they were both wanting the pumpkin they were weary of the other bird. Because in this situation they not only had to lend a little trust to each other but they had to give it to the other bird as well. And it was obvious their trust in each other was lacking.

Photo by Dave
Location: Waynesboro, VA
Birds pictured: Blue throat macaw “Jinx”, Congo African Grey “Cressi”

Each bird had to stick their head into the pumpkin to get a bite and chew on that bite while the other bird did the same thing after them and wait. Each bird assumed the other bird was out to get them in their time of vulnerability for they were each on high alert. I tried to help… here’s the video…

 
Remember it’s always easier to get your birds to get along when they are fully flighted so they have the confidence of being able to get away when they want to. A clipped bird is more likely to lash out in fear and desperation.

In our seminar DVD set, I talk about the Gypsy Experience as a means to training your bird.  It refers to my lifestyle – everyday a hundred new mile markers roll by, every night my birds are in front of more than 5,000 people.  Every day they experience different people, places, and things.  For a species that spends 80% of its day foraging for food and having to figure out new things, this is the next best thing to a magic potion for success with your psittacines.

Whether I’m traveling by land or by sea, I always try to “add value” for my clients by offering to do a free animal training seminar.  To my clients, I’m going above and beyond by doing more than they hired me for, and secretly I’m doing wonders for my flock!  They get to meet people of all ages and races.  The more you can expose your parrots to these new experiences everyday, the more confident they’ll be throughout their lives.  Additionally, it adds invaluable training time for them.

Inevitably, birds seem to think that a trick is completely different when you add a dozen (or 5,000) people into the equation.  It’s as if they do the trick perfectly on stage with full lights, sound, and pyro… but when you add applause into the equation it’s no longer the “pick-up-your-foot-and-wiggle-it-back-and-forth” command.  Similar… but now it’s the ”pick-up-your-foot-and-wiggle-it-back-and-forth-with-applause” command… totally different!  ;o)

If you can find yourself in a position to be able to get your birds in front of more than a couple people, do it!  It doesn’t have to be fancy, and it doesn’t have to be perfect.  That’s the beauty about doing an animal seminar.  You can educate people about your parrots, talk to them about training, and the audience can see them during the learning process.

I wanted to get Rocko in front of an audience, to test how he would respond.  The following video showcases that beautifully.  The angle isn’t the best, but due to laws we couldn’t include kids in the video without written consent from each parent.  Clearly that wasn’t an option, so we shot it from the side.  In this video you’ll get to see what it looks like when we’re training our birds a new behavior.  Sometimes it requires a lot of patience… I use these opportunities to get my birds ready for the big stage, socialize them, build confidence, and entertain/educate my audiences.

Enjoy Rocko’s first animal training seminar, and a sneak peak behind the scenes of my training.

Rosebreasted cockatoos

Q: I have a 7 year old yellow naped amazon named Petey. I have had him since he was a baby and he means everything to me. I was just given a promotion at work and my new position is going to take up a some of the time I used to spend with Petey and I am afraid it will change our relationship. How much time is too little to be spending with him?
-Jack M., Laguna Beach, CA

A: There really aren’t any minmum requirements as to the amount of time our birds need from us every day. There are many factors that play into determining what amount of interaction is satisfactory for any particular bird. It depends largely on that bird as an individual.

Some less hands-on birds are independent players that are fine with more in-cage time. Some birds are more intensely focused on their owners and need to be out socializing whenever possible. Some birds are more secure than others in their environment, with their owners and themselves and are less likely consider the drop in personal interaction time to reflect a drop in their status in your home and heart.

It also depends on the birds play area and cage. Is there lots to do in the cage? And does your bird actually utiluze what you have provided him with for entertainment? How enriching is your birds life when you remove yourself from the equation? The big question is: does your bird still feel fulfilled and valued with having less of your time and attention?

Blue and gold macaw

Much more important than the AMOUNT of time that we spend with our birds is the QUALITY of the time spent together. There are different types of out of cage attention that we give our birds. There is out of cage time apart from the owner (on a perch playing independently), there is out of cage time with physical contact (perched on a shoulder while owner goes about chores or watches tv) and there is out of cage time that involves engaging the bird in activity (training, playing, interaction/conversation involving direct eye contact).

Only the last example is truly interactive and meaningful. Yes, your bird loves to be freed from its cage and enjoys simply being in your presence, but neither of these things have the same value as even short periods of time where your focus is solely on your bird and nothing or no one else.

Cockatiel

As long as you make sure that Petey has enough of these significant experiences with you to keep your bond with him strong, there is no reason your relationship with him should deteriorate even with shorter durations of interaction. Think quality, not quantity.

Photo by Dave
Location: Musha Cay, Bahamas
Playing: Blue and gold macaws “Jersey” & “Chayko”

My nephew Jimmy is at that age where he is learning to rough house with the boys (his dad and uncle and friends) but then also learning how to shut off the playtime mode and calm down in time for dinner, or a movie, or something else.

There’s a time for playtime, and it plays a very important role in developing proper social skills. This goes for parrots and humans. Learning to turn it on and shut it off it the hard part and knowing when the right time is for when it should be implemented. This is something we need to teach our birds so they know when it’s good to play and when it’s time to stop playing.

As their companions we also need to get good at realizing when a bird is going to get too into a mood before they do so, so that we can help prevent going there. This is especially, and mainly true with cockatoos.

Playing with them and getting them excited about something can be really fun for both human and bird, but cockatoos can easily get out of hand and cause serious damage if they get too hyped up to the point they can’t come down.

Photo by Dave
Location: Musha Cay, Bahamas
Playing: Blue and gold macaw “Jersey”

And most strangers are clueless to this. I remember once backstage some friends of Dave’s had taken his umbrella cockatoo Linus out to play and had him on one boy’s arm jumping up and down with his crest up and his feathers poofed out… they were all having a great time but as we walked in we saw things had already escalated and Linus was on the brink of biting this boy’s arm to shreds. Of course the boys were clueless to this and assumed they were all having a good time.

But Linus had started hitting his beak against the boy’s arm and opening and closing it in preparation to bite.

We coaxed everyone to slowly calm down and bring Linus back down in mood as well to avoid anything from going wrong, and anyone from getting bit from a moody high.

Boundaries and allotted playtimes are needed when it comes to play time between you and your bird, your bird and another bird(s) as well as your bird and other people. It’s so important for it to have all these different types of playtimes, but also be able to come down from the high they get from it and know when it’s okay and when it’s not okay.

Photo by Jamieleigh
Location: Orlando, FL
Playing: Military macaw “Cash”

Be very clear with your parrot and use training, a clicker, treats, praise and ignoring of bad behavior as your way to communicate to your parrot what you want it to do and what you don’t want it to do. And be sure to communicate how your bird is to other people so they can be aware of any quirks or what to look for to know play time might be getting out of hand.

The more your bird learns to play with others the better he will be in social settings and the more confident he can be in any environment which is really important for your bird to be able to cope with change which is inevitable.