Teaching My Senegal Parrot to Bowl

Although I had heard of bowling parrots before, I was not really trying to teach this to my bird. I was at a store called Big Lots just picking up some miscellaneous junk when near the cash register I walked by a desktop bowling game. I stopped and went back to look at it and said “this is just the right size for my bird.” I bought it for 10 bucks, one of the coolest and yet cheapest props I bought for training my bird. I always keep my eyes out for toys and props that I can use for my bird and you find these things when most unexpected.

The way the trick works is the bird walks up to the bowling game, pushes the ball, the ball rolls toward the pins and knocks them down.

Luckily this is one of the easiest tricks I have ever taught my bird and yet visually perhaps the most impressive. Fact is, the setup does all the work; the bird only provides the momentum to get the balling rolling. Gravity and the setup do the rest of the work. No one is going to care about how many pins get knocked down because just the site of a bird bowling is so amazing by itself. If you want, you can teach your bird to knock down the remaining pins with its beak or fetch the pins one by one to you to clean up.

The way I taught my bird to nudge the ball to get it rolling was quite easy. With clicker and treats at hand, I put her down near the bowling game and the red launcher and shiny ball got her attention immediately. She started beaking these and messing around on her own. I would click and reward the bird whenever she made contact with the ball. Unfortunately she was never using enough power to get the ball to roll over the notch that keeps it in place, so I needed to teach her that she needs to push the ball harder. What I did here was pick up the bird in my hand and held her in such a way that her beak was against the ball. I then nudged my bird toward the ball so that the beak pushed the ball over the retaining notch and rolled it down the ramp toward the pins. Of course I immediately clicked and gave her a jackpot reward. I didn’t have to do this more than 5 times if I can remember correctly for her to understand that she gets a reward for putting the ball in motion. So next time, I let her try it on her own and it took her a minute of fighting the ball and pushing on it from different angles till she set it off. Once she figured out how to beak the ball to get it rolling, she had mastered the trick. Basically I taught the complete trick in just one training session. All subsequent training sessions of this trick were only for the purpose of getting her to do it more reliably and willingly.

There is no formal cue for the trick. Seeing the bowling setup is the cue for walking up to it and launching the ball. I try to say “bowl” every time she is walking up to roll the ball but she will do it without the command just the same. It just makes it look like she is following a command and I think it also gives her extra encouragement to do it.

One final tip. At first I tried to train this trick to my bird on the floor and in the middle/end of her normal trick training routine. She would get too full and too distracted to do the trick and sometimes would ignore the ball. I suggest training the trick on a very small and empty table and at the beginning of the trick training routine rather than at the end. This way the bird is hungry and focused and will try harder to make it happen. If the ball is trying to roll the ball and can’t get it rolling and is not getting treats, it may end up giving up. Don’t let it get so discouraged, try to reward it for the best effort possible and eventually it will bump it hard enough by accident and then will know how to do it. Your bird should know at least a few elementary tricks like target, wave, and shake before teaching this trick.

Anyone who used the birdtricks training system should be able to train this bowling trick and similar tricks with ease. Just remember to apply the skills you learned in the areas of target training, clicker training, training diet, and immediate positive reinforcement.