Taming & Training Rescue Birds

In a society where instant gratification runs rampant, many people want “McTraining” methods that resemble a fast food establishment. The majority of DVD’s, online experts and chat room parrot gurus feed this craving with one-size-fits-all approaches to parrot problem solving. The truth is, some birds have had a very hard life and for them stepping up or being handled is more of an “advanced” behavior to train. Today I will share what has worked for me. This is called Food Management and is a great starting point for novice trainers.

The first thing we need to ask ourselves is what kind of relationship do we have with the bird already? When we walk in the room, does the bird exhibit fearful body language? Does he run to the back of the cage and hide?

FOOD MAGAGEMENT
If the bird sees you as something to escape or avoid that is the first thing that needs to change. When we walk in the room we want that bird to be eager to work with us, so this is where we would begin to manage the animals’ diet in a more productive way that will allow us to gain his or her trust. Make no mistake, not all parrots have to be trained using food rewards – some will work for “secondary reinforcers” such as praise, affection, a favorite toy and so forth but these birds are not what we are here to discuss today. The birds we are talking about are the “rescues”.

To manage the animals’ food we need to first observe him/her to see what their favorite food items are. Give them a large bowl filled with plenty of variety in food choices and see what they pick 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd and so on. Do this over a few days offering different foods each time and soon you will have a very good idea of what foods your bird loves and which foods it seems indifferent to.

Now that we know what the birds favorite foods are we ONLY feed them those foods as rewards during training sessions when they have performed correctly or taken a step towards your goal. Now, for many people this raises an emotional issue because they feel like they are withholding food from their birds and they feel it is “wrong” to deny him or her treats or make their bird “work” for food. The truth is, all we are doing is MANAGING the food, we are NOT withholding it. Think about it like this: If we feed the parrot one bowl of food every day the only food he has is in that bowl. If his favorite food is peanuts, he can only eat as many as you put in his food dish. So everyday he gets 2 or 3 peanuts. But if he is working to earn those peanuts as a reward during training sessions he can have AS MANY AS HE WANTS! He could have 10 of them if he performs well, so are we really withholding food if he was only receiving 3 a day? The birds I work with where I have managed their food typically get much more of that favorite food than they used to get when they were free fed.

The easiest birds to train have all been seed-junkies:  Take a 30 year old parrot that has been fed sunflower seeds his entire life and convert him to an all pellet diet supplemented with seeds as training rewards - you have never seen such a motivated bird!

 The best way to have success with food management is to set up a training diet. Many birds will eat about 20% of their weight in food each day. Parrots typically eat 2 times per day in the wild, so this can be mimicked in the home by feeding the bird 2 meals daily instead of one large meal. We would then schedule training sessions around those meals so that we have the biggest impact on our birds because they are more motivated for food if they are trained on an empty stomach. I typically feed a “salad” in the morning made of vegetables, fruits, sprouts and so on and in the evening they get pellets. Before we feed those meals we would train the bird – so if you are feeding the salad at 8am and the pellets for dinner at 6pm we would train at 7:00-7:30am and also at 5:00-5:30pm daily.
*NOTE After about an hour you should remove the food to prevent spoilage and also to keep the bird on schedule. Leaving the food in the birds cage or enclosure is the most common mistake I see beginning trainers make. If you leave the bowls until the next session/feeding you will not have very productive training sessions.

So, to recap what we are doing here is motivating the bird a couple different ways: The first thing we are doing is making his 1 daily feeding into 2 smaller feedings. The next thing we are doing is taking the food he sees as the most “valuable” and giving it even more value because it is harder to come by.

We should start to see an impact in the birds behavior right away because we are making him want to do what we want him to do. What we are trying to accomplish is getting the bird to do things we want by choice. These things could be entering the cage or carrier willingly, stepping up, interacting politely with different handlers or multiple family members and so on. We are finding the most positive, least intrusive solution. I hope you give Food Management a chance; I’d love to hear how it has helped your bird and your relationship with him.

-Chris