How to Train a Parrot

Video Transcript

"It'd be the same concept. You'd just want to bring it in. Any kind of bird. A lot of it depends on whether the bird is wild or tame. If the bird is wild you would bring it in and it would probably take a lot longer for the bird to get used to you. I would leave the bird alone for at least a couple of days. Talking to it of course, just not, don't put your hand in there, don't try to do anything to it because it's just going to get freaked out. If it's a tame bird that requires attention and it needs attention it's going to take a week or so for it to adjust but it's going to get attention right off because it requires attention. If you take a bird that is hand fed and hand raised and you, any bird in this room, and put it in a cage and it never got out again, it would eventually probably, it would for one go wild, it would also probably pluck its feathers out and kill itself. So, that's another thing that's different about having a dog as opposed to having a bird. You can really damage your pet if you're not taking care of it. When you bring your new bird home you want to quarantine the bird if you have other birds. You want to put the bird in a spot that is not near your other birds. That if at all, the best case is your ventilation, cut the ventilation off so if it's a airborne disease, which most likely it will be, it will filtrate through your system at your house and it wont end up getting in the room as well. If you handle that bird and then go to your other birds wash your hands. The best thing would be to change your clothes if you really want to be very, very serious about it. If you've had birds for twenty, thirty years, you bring in a bird and all of a sudden they're all dead. It's definitely a risk to take. That you don't deal with dogs and cats. So the quarantine process could be at least two months. And then you introduce it to your other flock which, just put the bird in the room. They'll eventually get used to it so. Definitely training a parrot they are creatures of habit. They're compared to three year old children. Children very often that never grow out of being a three year old. They need structure, they need consistency. That's the best way. They need a bedtime. That bedtime's the same bedtime every night. They need at least twelve hours of sleep. If they're not getting the right kind of food. If those things aren't in place there's no training that will help you. They have to get sleep, they have to be on a good diet. After that is in place then positive reinforcement. Good boy. Oh, good boy. If the bird doesn't want to, birds are moody. If they don't want to be messed with leave them alone. Don't force the bird to do what, to do what it doesn't want to do. Any training is just consistency, no fast movements, patience definitely and positive reinforcement. They will learn a bad habit or behavior very quickly. Like yelling and screaming. All birds scream so, and the bigger they are the louder the scream. And if the bird screams and you come in and say stop screaming that's what the bird wanted and wanted you to come in that room so it will know when I scream you're going to come in and give me the attention I want. If you yell back at the bird it's going to love it. It's going to yell louder. It wants to yell. So yelling at a bird is definitely not going to fix the yelling. Just leave the room."