I am the third person to have Chip-Chip. He has about fifteen words he says. At first he loved me and kissed on my cheek-rode on my shoulder,then one day he was on my knee and I leaned over to talk to him and he flew up and bit my lip. About two days later he bit threw my shirt and made my arm bleed. Now he wants to bite me every chance he gets. He takes food from my fingers but refuses to come to me. Now he has bonded with my husband and even lets him pet him. Also I have never been able teach him any new words. Did teach him to whistle like a Quail. I love him, but the feeling isn’t returned.

- Lois Thomas

I’d highly recommend starting out with trick training with Chip-Chip. You need to do something that is “hands off” right now since he doesn’t have a desire to be with you and only your husband.

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You should also make sure you are doing the training alone. Tricks like the “spin“, “touch training” and the “wave” are easy tricks to train and are very hands-off so you don’t have to get bit or pass that safe zone with your bird.

If you touch train your bird (which is the very first thing we teach in all of our courses) you can easily train him these tricks afterwards using the target stick.

Our parrot Cressi absolutely loves Dave and although she likes me, I can tell it’s not as much. Once I took the time to train her to wave and spin, she wouldn’t stop flying to me over him! I was more fun and stimulating to be around and she was excited to learn more with me. It really strengthened our bond and?I feel this will do the same for you and Chip-Chip.

We show how to train these tricks on our trick training course at http://www.BirdTricks.com/trick-training.

Once you develop this type of bond with Chip-Chip, I am sure you will be able to move on and teach him new words, too. As he will be more interested in learning and listening to you.

Yellow Crowned Amazon Parrot

Hey there,

first of all, amazing video’s and talented parrots. I have recently got my new parrot from a owner that is getting too old to keep up with the bird. she is a yellow nape amazon 10 years old and pretty easy to handle.

I would like to train her to do tricks like bandit and bondi.

any tips on how to start? and also this family has been feeding the bird human food for 5 years . . so how would you recommend me convert to pellets?

- James Lui

I’ll address the issue of your Amazon’s diet, first. Human food can be healthy for birds as long as it’s pretty much healthy for humans – such as fresh, organic veggies, fruits, cooked meats and cooked grains like pastas, rice and beans. Whole grains are best. So as long as your bird isn’t used to greasy pizza, salty chips and any other high in sugar or salt items, it will be ok to continue feeding some “human food” to the bird.

If he’s only on the bad human food, I’d recommend cooking up some birdie bread and baking organic pellets into it so the bird starts developing a taste for organic pellets. You don’t want the bird strictly on pellets, though. Make sure it gets lots of healthy greens (peas, spinach, green beans) and the other foods I mentioned. Brown rice and cooked beans every day is great for your parrot.

A great trick I use at home is to feed the healthiest foods first – when your bird is at his hungriest so he is more likely to eat them. An example of this would be to feed the pellets plus enriched greens in the morning as your bird’s “breakfast” and then check back in a couple hours and add onto that with other foods.

Getting started with trick training is super easy! We always start with teaching touch training first. It’s the first thing we teach you in our trick training course. Our training course includes EVERYTHING you will need to get started in trick training and will keep you busy for a while with your bird! We explain every step by step and show you how it works LIVE, in real time, with our own birds who, in the video, are not yet trained to do the tricks we teach.

White Budgie

What to do about a boring budgie?
I got my budgie over 2 weeks ago, which is enough time for her to be settled in, which she definitely is. but she just isnt as lively and happy as other budgies that i’ve seen. she doesn’t usually move around her cage and she NEVER chirps. is there anything i can do to change this, or something maybe wrong? i just want a happy, perky bird!

- Courtney

Anytime you get a new bird you should always take it to the vet for a full exam to make sure it’s completely healthy. I am going to assume you did this and everything turned up clean, and if you didn’t, it’s the first thing you should really do to rule out health related problems.

If you got a budgie (or any bird, for that matter) for the sole purpose to watch it in the cage as it proves to entertain you throughout the day… boy were you mistaken to bring the little fella home.

Put yourself in your budgie’s situation – you most likely got it from a home where it was around tons of other birds of its kind where it constantly socialized, talked and played and interacted with these other birds. Now it’s alone with no one who speaks its language, what’s to be happy about?

This is why BirdTricks.com works so hard? to beat it into our customers heads to trick train your bird! We don’t tell you to do this so that you have a performing parrot on your hands – we tell you to do it because in the process of training you are also taming your bird – you are showing it a good time! You are building the bond with it and showing it that you’re a heck of a lot of fun to be around! Training is stimulating and fun for birds, they NEED the challenge of it and the constant interaction and learning process it gives.

Training your bird makes for a more lively, friendly pet parrot. If you entertain him, he will entertain you. But if you simply stare at him and wonder what’s wrong with him, he will do the same thing to you.

Check out the cute video below to see the fun new game we taught our Rose Breasted Cockatoo (aka. Galah, for you Aussies)

If you’re interested in teaching your parrot to play fun games like this, you can sign up for a free 30 day subscription to Parrot Magic… which is a monthly program where we teach you how to play a new game with your parrot, or teach a new trick every single month.

You can learn more about this program here:

http://www.birdtricks.com/ParrotMagic

Until Next Time, Happy Training!

Chet

P.S. If you liked this video feel free to leave me a comment. Would you like us to share more videos like this with you?

Thought you’d appreciate some footage of our Rose Breasted Cockatoo performing her new trick.

Enjoy!

Blue and Gold Macaw

Here’s the link to check out the new parrot tricks videos people sent in for my ‘Win $250 For Your Best Parrot Video’ Contest.

I’ll have one more set of videos to send you on Friday in the ‘Funniest’ videos category for you to vote on. And then next week it’ll be time to award the cash to the winners! We have a close race going on between the battle for the best talking parrot video, between the talking parakeet video and the whistling cockatiel video, so make sure you get your votes in for your favorite one before it’s too late.

Talk to you on Friday

Chet