How to Train Parrots with Observations

Video Transcript

"Hi my name's Elizabeth and I'm speaking on behalf of expert village. We're talking about training parrots. Now one very useful tool I wanted to talk to you about when training parrots especially some of the more intelligent birds like african greys, cockatoos, and amazons but it works also with cockatiels. These birds are very, they're flock birds they learn a lot by observing other members of their flock and in a household environment you are this birds flock. So a lot of times if you wanna teach your bird that something's good to eat or how to do something simply demonstrating it yourself seems to help the bird understand this concept. For instance if you take a piece of corn and you offer it to your bird and the bird's like I'm not eating that what are you giving me a rock and you ingest it and your like oh this is so good and then offer the piece of corn to your bird a lot of times in that way they'll be like oh well one of my flock members ate it it must be edible and therefore want it. Sometimes just the fact of observing you eat it makes them this oh well I want what you have and that will also motivate them to have some interest in it. Another thing is that greys are constantly competing for attention or other parrots are constantnly competing for attention so if you're paying attention to another person in your house if you've ever been having a conversation and the bird's just escalating the noise higher and higher it's because your not paying attention to them. So there just trying to find a way to compete. So one of the ways if they see that Ronan is getting a treat for doing a particular behavior they may try and imitate, either Missy bird or Karen in the background, might try to imitate that behavior to try and get what Ronan has. An example of watching by observations I can show Ronan here that I've got this nut and this seed ball and put it into a paper bag and crumple it up and you can see he's watching what I'm doing and then offer it to him and just by observation Ronan now know that there's something inside that paper bag that he wants. Otherwise he might not have ever opened it he'd just be like it's trash. I think he gave up because it was kinda big and heavy. Also these birds are a little bit nervous being in front of a camera and with a lot of other distractions going on right here but you will find in a quite environment at home if you simply demonstrate for your bird what you want a lot of times these birds will try simple behaviors like bobbing up and down or nodding a lot of times will cause that same behavior in their bird in imitation. Again normally Ronan would happily bob with me but I think again he's very nervous and seems to not want to participate in this game but this is another way of training your bird that you might try at home."