Spoiling Your Bird… Too Much

We all love to spoil our pets, grand children and ourselves, too. I think it’s entirely normal to want to spoil someone. However, there’s a point where it becomes un-beneficial to both parties and in this case, I mean you AND your bird.

I’ve heard a lot of people say that their bird acts better when it doesn’t get spoiled as much as they are normally doing. For example, one lady wrote on the bird tricks facebook that when she didn’t give her bird as much time out where it wanted to be all the time, that it actually interacted better with her.

Many people give the bird what it wants, when it asks. But eventually the asking becomes telling, and telling becomes the bird training the owner, instead of the other way around. When you hand the bird the reins, you need to be prepared to be disappointed because the bird is going to take control and get mad when you try to take it back.

I’ve always loved the saying “Less is More” because it applies to EVERYTHING. My trip before last to freefly the birds we were aching to stay longer and continue to fly the birds outside. But this last trip we stayed so long that the birds were tired of flying and we were tired of being there because they were tired of it. It’s much better to leave wanting more.

When I hear people say things like, “Well I gave my bird cookies and pizza today because it just won’t eat broccoli or anything like that.” I get SO mad! When did you think it was good to offer it cookies and pizza in the first place? It was probably a time when you decided to spoil your bird a little… and then it started asking for it all the time because veggies taste like cardboard compared to cheesy pizza and sweet cookies. So you probably spoiled it a little more often, but then the bird started TELLING you that it wouldn’t eat anything BUT cookies and pizza and so then you allowed your bird to train you and now you can’t get the reins back in the right hands.

You then have to work slowly backwards because you’ve created an unhealthy eater and there’s a lot of undoing to do. I can tell you with 100% certainty that the bird wasn’t hatched loving pizza and cookies. So really, there are no excuses to feed your bird that way.

Try using foods that should only be given in moderation (depending on your species of bird) like tiny pieces of nut, favorite seed treats, dabs of yogurt, grated pieces of cheese and putting those items over and in healthy foods. Use the healthy stuff as a food finding toy for your bird to start getting used to the taste. Do whatever you can to wean your bird back OFF the unhealthy stuff and ON the healthy stuff.

A healthy bird is a very happy bird.