How to Pet Parrots

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Elizabeth and I'm speaking on behalf of Expert Village. What we're talking about today is just having a bird accept touch. If you've got a sweet bird, like Missy bird is here, most birds do like to have their heads touched. You want to offer your hand gently to them, bring it over the top of their head and pet this way. A lot of times, most birds like to be pet underneath their feathers versus pet like a dog, but then there are some birds that don't like to be touched at all. Right now Missy bird is a little bit reluctant to be touched. You can start out slowly. Some birds are more comfortable with their heads being touched, or something simple like letting them let you let them touch their beak. My grays are much more comfortable with letting me touch their beak or feet than their bodies. Missy bird is more comfortable with this sort of things, but I use her as example because she's a little bit nervous right now. What you can start with is if your bird has their feet sticking out through the cage bars or just on a perch you can just come down here and just touch their foot. Then you tell them good and you offer them a treat. You'll do that very slowly. Every time you touch your bird you just very simply, you don't want to be threatening, you just simply touch their body and then give them a treat immediately afterwards, tell them good. And eventually you can move up to more intimate things like a couple of strokes, immediately give them a treat. As soon as they start seeming uncomfortable with the behavior, pull back and give them a treat. You can do this with any part of their body. You can start with the feet if you're more comfortable starting with their head you can simply just bring your hand up and try and touch or anything (good bird) and offer a treat. Just so they start becoming comfortable with touch. This way you can move up to more intimate things with the bird, like putting your hand on their back. This can become even more and more complicated behaviors where eventually you can take them and lay them on their backs so they will lay on your hand upside-down. That’s obviously a bird that’s very comfortable and can take some time and work to get to that point. But most birds can get very comfortable with accepting touch. They may or may not become affectionate or like it, per say, or come to seek it, but they will do it for a treat. "