Training Your Pet Parrot

Parrots are wonderful pets. You will quickly find that these birds are extremely smart and their ability to learn makes them fun to train. Keep in mind that any animal that shows signs of high intelligence can easily get bored, so your job is to train your pet parrot and spend the time it takes to make your bird into a wonderful pet. It takes time and patience to train a parrot, but with the proper training, your parrot will provide you with many years of friendship and entertainment. African Grey Parrots are the easiest parrots to teach to speak, although mom and dad have a grey cockatiel that is over 28 years old that has a vocabulary of more than a hundred words. He learned to talk from sitting on dad’s shoulder as he read the newspaper and talked to the bird. No formal training was ever undertaken with him.

Here are some tips to help you train your parrot. Whenever “school is in” for your parrot, it is always best to remove your parrot from his or her cage and train it in a small quiet space. Your parrot is more likely to remain attentive and retain information when it is in a new environment. The next thing you have to do is eliminate all distractions in your home. If your parrot becomes distracted during training, it will not learn what you are trying to teach. That means that you need to turn off the radio, television and perhaps even the telephone. Also, remember that parrots are a lot like children. They have short attention spans, so short training sessions are recommended.

In addition, try to plan your parrot’s training time around their schedule, not yours. After mealtime is always a good time for training, because your parrot will be content and will pay attention. Your parrot will also appreciate plenty of praise. Even if you find that you are not very successful, do not let your parrot see your stress levels rise. This makes it an unpleasant experience for your bird and you will have a harder time getting your parrot interested in learning in the future. Try to make learning fun for your bird.

When you are ready to teach your parrot a new trick, your pet parrot will respond well to treats and praise. Remember that all animals respond better to praise than punishment. Try to avoid punishing your parrot, even if he or she is acting naughty. Ignoring this behaviour is your best bet when training your pet parrot. Parrots do not understand punishment or negative reinforcement. In fact, if you respond to your parrot’s bad behaviour, your pet may actually see this as positive attention. Keep in mind that while your parrot will love food treats as rewards, try to accentuate the positive and encourage good behaviour with lots of praise and play time. Otherwise, your parrot may only perform the tricks you want him to when some kind of food reward is available.

Repetition is the key to successfully training your pet parrot. Repeating these basic steps until your pet “gets” the trick is the best way to train your parrot to perform. This works well for basic commands and advanced tricks. If you have just gotten your pet parrot, start out with very simple tricks, such as teaching your parrot to sit on your finger on command. Find a word for each trick and use it every time you train. Most of all, never force your parrot to train. If you find your parrot is tired or uninterested, then stop and try again another time.

As your parrot learns more commands and tricks, you can begin moving your training session closer and closer to the bird’s cage. As he gets better at his new skill, he will feel comfortable performing in his cage and in the hustle and bustle of your household. Some birds can learn quickly and sometimes just by listening, which may cause embarrassment to you if they learn something inappropriate. One parrot mom and dad had learned things from watching television. Cisco, mom and dad’s cockatiel, learned from dad talking to him. Every night when they were ready for bed, they would say, “nighty night” to him, turn out the lights and go off to bed. After a couple of weeks of this, he would respond, “nighty night.” Now when mom can’t sleep and sits at the table reading, Cisco will put up with it for a little while and then he loudly pipes, “nighty night” until she goes to bed.

Training a parrot can take a lot of time and patience, and sometimes, like mom and dad’s parrot “Bertsie,” an Orange-winged Amazon parrot, they never learn to talk. Mom and dad no longer have any parrots of their own, but they do baby sit a friend’s African Grey parrot several times a year. “Paco” has a large vocabulary of words and sounds that he says. The interesting thing about him is that when he says something, he uses the voice of the person he learned the word or phrase from. If he learned from his “mother,” he mimics her voice and if he learned what he is repeating from this “father,” he mimics his voice. The funniest thing he does is go through the sound of a ringing cell phone, the sound of the phone being clicked open and then he says “Hello” and carries on a conversation…then he says “Well I have to go now, Goodbye”…then you hear the sounds of the cell phone being closed. He’s really funny, but when he makes some of his really loud noises he scares me, so I’m nervous when he is here. You must love your bird and have a lot of time and dedication to make this partnership worthwhile. With patient training and love, you will end up with a fantastic and well-behaved pet that will be with you for a very long time as the average lifespan of parrots is from 50 to 80 years, with some living over 100 years. They are truly unique pets. Whether they learn to talk or not, they are great to have around, as they will give you hours of pleasure watching their natural antics.

Until next time,

Teia

Unusual Pets: Macaws

Macaws belong to the family of New World Parrots. They are extremely colourful and are the largest in the Parrot family. These birds inhabit the rainforests in Central America, tropical South America and Mexico. Some of them even live in savannas and woodlands. They are very intelligent birds. Macaws are known to live up to one hundred years, but on an average they live from fifty to seventy-five years. Mini Macaws live up to thirty years. The lifespan of a captive Macaw totally depends on the nutrition and care provided to it.

Although there are many species of Macaws, the most popular in the pet trade are Scarlet Macaws, Military Macaws, Blue and Gold Macaws and Hyacinth Macaws. Their size can vary from twenty inches to forty-two inches, which includes their long tail.

Macaws feed on fruits and nuts. In the wild they also eat clay, which neutralizes the effect of poisonous nuts and seeds, which they accidentally eat. In captivity, the bird can be fed vegetables, fruits, grains, dry fruits, nuts, ice cream, cheese, etc. Care should be taken that the total fat shouldn’t exceed ten percent, as that can be harmful for the bird. They are also known to chew on objects. Because of their intelligence and curiosity, they should be monitored constantly. Macaws make partners for life but the ones that are kept in captivity and don’t have a mate, usually bond with their owner. They feel the need of communication and hence, the owner should talk to the bird constantly. This is also a technique used for bonding with the bird. Macaws that aren’t interacted with suffer mentally and physically. They are not shy to new people. If a stranger is accompanying the owner, they do not hesitate to accept the new face and be friends with them. Macaws normally only bond with one person at a time. If for some reason the person they have bonded with is no longer available, they will bond with a new person. If at a later time the person they had previously bonded with returns, the bird will not have anything to do with that person. It is not known if this is “holding a grudge” or if it is just that they are only capable of bonding with one person at a time.

Sometimes, Macaws have some behavioural problems when kept in captivity. Because of stress development they start to pluck their feathers, bite and even scream. They also have a large beak, which they sometimes use to harm people around them. Their voices are quite loud and when they screech it can be heard over a mile away. Sometimes, when they get excited, even their vocalizations can be quite loud. Macaws can be taught to talk. “Bucko” mom and dad’s Blue and Gold Macaw had a large vocabulary. He even learned “Yabba-Dabba-Doo and a few other terms from watching the “Flinstones” cartoons on television. The best talking birds are the African Grey Parrots, closely followed by Amazon Parrots. However, some Macaws are very good talkers and so are some Cockatoos and some Cockatiels. Mom and dad have a Cockatiel that is more than twenty-eight years old and he can talk very well.

Macaws are extremely playful and active. For this reason their cage needs to be very big and strong as well. It should be big so that the bird can move around freely and it should be strong because the bird is very intelligent and stands a chance of escaping. They have a very strong beak and can snap a metal “Hot Wheels” toy car in half with one bite. The material used to make the cage should be stainless steel and the dimensions should be at least forty by forty-eight by sixty inches high. A cage of this size will cost from $500 to $800 depending upon where you live. The bird is very fond of chewing things, so the cage should have a number of wood pieces or toys, which the Macaw can chew on. Hanging toys and toys on which the bird can climb are also a good choice.

Macaws are considered an endangered species and five of the species have become totally extinct. The problem is deforestation, killing them as farming pests and illegal capture for the pet trade. Therefore, in some states in the United States it is only legal to sell Macaws which have been born in captivity. In other states, they are banned completely. In Canada, you can only have Macaws which have been born domestically. Macaws are great pets, but they require a lot of attention and a lot of work. It is like having a hyperactive one and one-half year old child. Mom and dad eventually had to find a new home for “Bucko” because as they got older, he was just too much for them to handle.

Until next time,

Teia