Training Multiple Tricks at Once

I noticed that my birds learn certain tricks better in a certain order. For instance, it was very easy to teach the budgie to go through a toilet paper tube after he’s already learned to go through a ring. Also, we taught him the toilet paper roll trick just a few days after teaching turn around but the tricks did not interfere. To me it seems like there are 3 types of tricks (and basically one of each can be taught simultaneously as they do not interfere):

- Taming (handling, touching, petting, etc)
- Prop induced tricks (fetch, jump through hoop, bowling, etc.)
- Cue induced tricks (wave, turn around, wings, etc.)

I have found it very effective to teach a bird several tricks at a time if they are in separate categories as above. I don’t mean literally at once but interlaced in the same weeks as each is taught. I can only teach about one to two cue induced tricks per month or else my Senegal parrot gets the cues mixed up or one trick overwhelms the other. On the other hand, the prop induced tricks are very memorable to the birds and the props look different so they don’t get confused on those. If the tricks are different enough, they can learn several at a time. And finally taming just takes a long time and a certain type of taming like holding on back in hand take a long time to teach so the bird gets comfortable. A good routine for a month might be to handle the bird and progress toward getting it on its back. Teach going through a hoop with the prop. And teaching to turn around. These three tricks being completely different do not cause any interference and can make a good routine. Of course target training and training diet are prerequisites to it all.

Parrots in the wild have to learn to deal with many different situations on a daily basis. And like humans they learn to adapt to their surroundings. But also, like humans they forget things as well. This is why you can’t train too many things at once. However, it seems that they remember tricks differently. A taming routine is something they slowly get used to over time so this is mostly taught through calm and continuous repetition over a long period of time. The prop tricks on the other hand, the birds seem to remember exceptionally well because each prop looks unique. The cue tricks are harder for them to discern because the prop is almost always your hand or a verbal cue so just the sign of a hand vs a prop is not enough to determine what trick it is. The bird has to look at the hand motion or position to understand what trick is being asked. What happens with these cued tricks is that you might teach the bird how to do the trick in just a few training sessions and then spend weeks practicing the cue so that it remembers that that exact cue goes with that trick.

So the point of this post is that you should consider what set of tricks you would like to train your bird in the upcoming month. You can think of a taming exercise, prop trick, and cue trick to work on and then span that training out over the necessary period of time. But at the end, you will have taught your bird 3 things in parallel rather than taking 3 months to teach these in a series. The more tricks your bird knows, the better it can learn more tricks. You should still emphasize one trick at a time for introductory training sessions, but you can definitely teach multiple tricks this way in the span of days and weeks.