How to Touch a Parrot

Isn’t it fun to pet your dog or your cat? Most of our pets usually liked to be stroked from the top of their heads down towards their tails. Have you ever tried that with a parrot? If you have, you may have noticed the experience was not quite the same. Your dog or cat may respond by cuddling up closer, rolling over for a belly rub or relaxing and falling asleep. Usually when we touch a parrot in this manner the bird either tries to escape, bite or just tolerates our touch.

Does this mean we can’t touch our parrots? Fortunately for us, parrots usually do like to be touched. But the way they liked to be touched is just a bit different from the other pets in our home. The next time you have the opportunity to touch a parrot try the following tips.

 Touch on the Head

Try to avoid touching your parrot on the back, wings or tail. Most parrots prefer to be touched on the head. This is similar to how many parrots interact with each other in the wild. Because parrots can’t reach to preen the feathers on their own heads, they often appreciate the help of a friend for this job. When touching your bird’s head you may encounter something that feels like a little plastic tube. This is a new feather. When the feather is still growing it can be sensitive to touch. But once it has finished growing the last step is for the keratin wrapping to come off. You can help by pinching this “pin feather” in between your nails or fingertips. This will cause the wrapping to break away and expose the new feather. If the feather is still growing and not ready to be unwrapped, your parrot will let you know with a little squawk.

Stroke Head Feathers towards the Beak

Instead of petting from the beak towards the back of the bird, use your fingers to stroke the feathers towards the beak. A parrot who is really enjoying this will fluff up all his head feathers. Many times the bird will tuck his beak into his chest and close his eyes. When you see this body language you will know your parrot is really enjoying being touched.

Move Slowly

Bring your hand up to your bird’s head slowly. This will give you time to look at how he is responding. If he is moving away from your hand, he may not be in the mood to be touched. Come back and try again later when he is more receptive.

Look for a Relaxed Parrot

Many parrots are very receptive to touch right before they are ready to take a nap or go to sleep. Slowly move your hand towards his head and offer a nice head scratch when your parrot looks ready for a snooze.

Teach a Signal that Means Touch

Teach your parrot a signal that means you would like to touch him. An easy way to do this is to wiggle your fingers a little bit right before you reach to touch his head. Your bird will quickly learn that wiggling fingers means the opportunity exists to get a head scratch. Over time your parrot will lower his head and fluff his feathers when he sees you wiggle your fingers. That will be his way of saying to you “Yes! I would like a head scratch. Thank you for offering.”

Once your bird realizes you know the right way to touch a parrot, you may find your bird is open to being touched on other parts of his body. This can make it easier to train your bird to allow you to trim histoenails, stretch out his wings and even train him to wear a harness. It can be a very wonderful feeling when your bird trusts you enough to let you touch him. Try these tips with the parrots you meet and you will find you will have many new bird friends.

Barbara Heidenreich has been a professional animal trainer since 1990. Her company Good Bird Inc (www.GoodBirdInc.com) provides parrot training DVDs, books and workshops. She has been a featured speaker in twenty countries and has been published in nine languages. Barbara also consults on animal training in zoos. 

Barbara Heidenreich

For more information on how to train your parrot visit Good Bird Inc  

Barbara's Force Free Animal Training www.BarbarasFFAT.com

Copyright 2014  First appears in Fledglings Magazine by The Parrot Society of Australia

How to Train a Lorikeet

Lorikeets are a bit different from other parrot species. This means there are a few things you will need to consider when training your lorikeet. One of the main things to think about is what lorikeets like to eat as a treat. Many lorikeets like certain kinds of fruits, like bits of grape or apple. Be sure to use tiny pieces. Lorikeets are very small and can get full very fast on a large piece of fruit. Try to make your pieces of fruit no bigger than a grain of rice. Also expect a little bit of a mess if you plan to use fruit to train your lorikeet. This is because sometimes lorikeets like to suck the juices out and leave behind little bits of the fruit. It can get very sticky on your hands.

A nice way around the mess is to use something else that lorikeets love, nectar. You can buy a powder nectar mix and add water to it. There are also some recipes to make your own version of lorikeet nectar. Check with your veterinarian, breeder or zoo professional who knows about lorikeet diets to make sure your recipe is healthy. If nectar is not an option, you can also try a small amount of fruit juice. Try to look for pure organic fruit juice. Apple is often a favorite.  

When you are ready to train, use a small syringe to suck up a bit of nectar. You don't really need to press on the plunger, when you want to offer your lorikeet a taste. You can have a small drop hanging off the tip, or simply let your lorikeet stick his tongue into the syringe. It's important not to press hard on the plunger when you're ready to give your lorikeet another taste. You don't want to accidentally shoot fluid into your bird's mouth. When this happens sometimes liquid can get into the lungs, which is not healthy for your bird. 

Let your lorikeet have just a few licks every time you want to give him a treat for good behavior. This is the same idea as offering small bits of fruit. You don't need to give big giant treats every time your parrot does something that you like. Just a little taste is sufficient.

Many lorikeets are quite curious and will often investigate a syringe right away. It is usually easy to get your lorikeet to drink nectar from the syringe. Once your bird is doing that, you are ready to train some behaviors. 

Lorikeets are fast-moving birds. This means you will need to be on your toes and paying attention. During a training session your bird may be ready for the next step before you are. This means it's a good idea to have each step of your training session planned before you bring your bird out for training. This way you'll know exactly what to do next once your bird has mastered a step in your training plan. 

Even though lorikeets are small, they can learn all the same behaviors that other parrots are trained to present. This can include targeting, flying to your hand, turning around in a circle on cue, andretrieving an item. Because lorikeets often hop, I think hopping on cue is a fun behavior to train them to do. If you are using a syringe to deliver nectar during training, you will find your lorikeet will learn to orient towards it just like the target stick. You can use this to help train behaviors like turning around in a circle or hopping onto a scale. 

Lorikeets are often considered to be the clowns of the avian world because they are so playful. These are birds that are always on the go and eager to explore and investigate. These qualities also make them great candidates for training. I hope you get the chance to train a lorikeet. It is guaranteed to be fun!

Barbara Heidenreich has been a professional animal trainer since 1990. Her company Good Bird Inc (www.GoodBirdInc.com) provides parrot training DVDs, books and workshops. She has been a featured speaker in twenty countries and has been published in nine languages. Barbara also consults on animal training in zoos. 

Barbara Heidenreich

For more information on how to train your parrot visit Good Bird Inc  

Barbara's Force Free Animal Training www.BarbarasFFAT.com

Copyright 2014  First appears in Fledglings Magazine by The Parrot Society of Australia

5 Tips to Address Parrot Behavior Problems

Most of the time parrots are a lot of fun. But sometimes they do things humans find annoying. This can include refusing to go back into their cage, biting and screaming for attention. Parrots aren’t hatched with behavior problems. They learn through experience to do certain things to get desired results. For example if a scream causes people to come running into the room, a parrot can quickly learn to vocalize loudly to get attention from his favorite people.

Most parrot behavior problems can be prevented. But if your parrot is already doing something you don’t like, here are some tips to help you change his behavior.

1.      Always remember that parrots do things for a reason. Sometimes it is to get something they want, like your attention. Other times it is to avoid something they don’t want to do. For example a parrot who doesn’t like to be touched may try to nip at a hand that is reaching out to touch his head. Try to figure out why your bird might be presenting behavior you don’t like. This will help you work on a solution.

2. Sometimes changing things up can help get parrot behavior back on track. For example if your parrot is famous for chewing on the wood trim of the house, an easy solution is to move his perch so he isn’t so close to the tempting trim. Or if your parrot likes to dump his food bowls, you can try using a different type of bowl that is easily secured to the cage. Solutions to some problems can be as simple as changing the environment so the bad behavior can’t happen.

3. If your parrot has a choice between two behaviors, he will choose the one that is the most enjoyable. For example if your parrot climbs down his perch to roam around on the floor, it means the floor is much more fun than the play stand. If your goal is for your bird to stay on the perch, it means you need to make the play stand a lot more exciting. This may involve adding new toys frequently, and giving treats and attention when he is on the play stand. Anytime your parrot is not doing what you want ask yourself if you need to make it more fun for him to do what you prefer.

4. A great way to avoid biting problems and trust issues is to never force your parrot to do something he does not want to do. Always make sure your bird is a willing participant. Practice learning to recognize the body language a parrot shows when he is trying to say “No thank you!” When you see this, stop what you are doing. Give yourself a moment to think about a way you can make it fun for your bird to do what you ask. It might mean getting some treats or taking a break and coming back later to interact with your parrot. 

5. The best way to have a well behaved parrot is to train him to do want you want. This means making a list of some things you would like your bird to do. This may include step up, go back into his cage, talk on cue and more. Have training sessions to work on these behaviors so your parrot understands exactly what to do. Once he knows the behaviors, always offer treats, attention, toys or other things he likes whenever he does those behaviors when asked. This will help keep your parrot well behaved for the rest of this life. Remember, your parrot likes to be rewarded for his good behavior just like you do.

Try these tips with your parrot and soon you will find behavior problems are a thing of the past.

Barbara Heidenreich has been a professional animal trainer since 1990. Her company Good Bird Inc (www.GoodBirdInc.com) provides parrot training DVDs, books and workshops. She has been a featured speaker in twenty countries and has been published in nine languages. Barbara also consults on animal training in zoos. 

Barbara Heidenreich

For more information on how to train your parrot visit Good Bird Inc  

Barbara's Force Free Animal Training www.BarbarasFFAT.com

Copyright 2014  First appears in Fledglings Magazine by The Parrot Society of Australia

Zia Pueblo in Need of Parrot and Macaw Feathers

All my bird's molted feathers go to communities that use them for cultural purposes. I was fortunate to visit  two Pueblos and learn what a deep and meaningful gift this is to them.  The following is a special guest post by Celestino Gachupin (Natural Resources Director, former Governor, Pueblo of Zia) about how your unwanted feathers can have an important impact on an ancient culture. ~ Barbara

The Pueblo of Zia Indian Tribe in central New Mexico is one of the most traditional in the Southwest. Over the centuries we have maintained our cultural practices, a glue that binds our community together and to the land. The 122,000 acre Pueblo is situated in the steep mountains slopes and canyons of the Sierra Nacimiento Mountains. The geographic diversity of our homeland is stunning. (Even though you don’t realize it, you may have seen our Pueblo. As part of our economic development plan, we have an active location film set. The movies Wyatt Earp, The Missing, All the Pretty Horses, Dead or Alive, Desperado II, and the TV shows Earth 2 and New Eden were filmed in part or entirely on the Zia Reservation.)

Despite the strength and resilience of our culture, one element is in short supply: parrot and macaw feathers. As part of our cultural and religious dress and obligations, we use many types of bird feathers, including an abundance of these feathers. One might well wonder how a tribe many hundreds of miles outside the range of these birds has such a reverence for them. Our millennia old oral history relates the our origin and migration, which includes a deep connection with a band of our ancestors that migrated to Central and South America. 

This oral history is backed up by archaeological evidence. Well-documented routes from southern Mexico, and parrot and macaw feathers unearthed at archaeological sites all over the Southwestern United States bear testament to the well-developed north-south trade. Macaws were moved from deep in Mesoamerica to southern New Mexico in a trip of about eight weeks. A second leg of the journey branching out to various Pueblos and sites in northern and New Mexico and Arizona brought the birds to their final homes. Young macaws were carried in baskets, protected from chilling, and fed chewed hominy, often directly from the keeper’s mouth, every few hours, day and night.  This early feeding relationship results in human-imprinted birds that are attached to their keeper. Ancient pottery motifs and the age of skeletal remains suggest that juvenile macaws were carried to these sites, raised there for almost a year, and then traded north just in time for religious ceremonies at the spring equinox. Many hundreds of macaw remains have been recovered from Zia and other Pueblo sites around New Mexico.  A much more detailed and fascinating article on this history can be found on page 20 of Ancient Knowledge of the Chaco Canyon Anasazi 

We treat cultural artifacts with great reverence, storing them in cedar boxes. Nevertheless, wear and tear, and additional use as one-time offerings mean a constant need for more feathers. We are grateful for any contributions, which are completely legal in the United States. Please send parrot and macaw feathers of any color and size (even very small feathers are appreciated and used). Send them in an envelope or tube mailer to the following address:

Celestino Gachupin

1087 Zia BLvd
Zia Pueblo, NM  87053-6028

Bumble Foot in Parrots

Pat Phillips, a long time parrot advocate, trainer and student of behavior analysis was kind enough to provide a guest blog post. Her post covers a very important topic related to parrot health. I hope you will find this post educational and helpful to you and the parrots in your lives. Thanks Pat for sharing!

Bumble Foot in Parrots
By Guest Blogger Pat Phillips

When was the last time that you looked at your parrots’ feet…really looked at them, both top and bottom? What would it take for you to become aware of a foot problem? A limp? Lack of movement? A toe slightly out of place?

In June 2013, when Babe, an Umbrella Cockatoo, joined our family, Bumble foot became a major issue in our lives. The day after her arrival Babe had x-rays done on both feet. The diagnosis: Stage 3 bordering on Stage 4 Bumble foot in her left foot; Stage 2 Bumble foot in her right foot. Babe was immediately put on a three week course of antibiotics to halt the spread of this insidious disease.

I’m not a newbie to parrots. I’m now in my third decade of caring for and learning from and about these beautiful, intelligent creatures. At one time my husband and I had a flock of seventeen, all of whom came to us from less than desirable circumstances. For many of those years I took my birds to a highly skillful and knowledgeable avian veterinarian, who taught me as she treated my birds. So, probably, like you, I’d heard about Bumble foot. I even knew, from pictures in books and on the internet what the first indication of Bumble foot is. What I’ve never done, and now strongly advise you to do, is make a point of looking at my birds’ feet…every day. You no doubt look carefully at your birds’ droppings when you change cage papers. It’s become a part of your cage cleaning ritual. Do the same with feet. When your bird is hanging on the bars of the cage, make a point of looking at the bottoms of their feet. When your bird is walking on the table or floor for example, a quick look will tell you if all toes are pointed in the correct direction. If you don‘t look you won’t see that little, smooth, red spot(s) on the bottom of one or both feet. If you don’t look, you won’t see a slightly swollen joint, or a back-facing toe migrating to the side or the front.

What is Bumble foot? The past three months represent a fairly steep learning curve for me. And I still have several important questions to be answered. When Babe joined us in June, her left foot was badly deformed with three toes facing forward and one back and tucked under; she actually walks on that back toe.

Her right foot retained a normal appearance.  Her previous caregiver does not believe that parrots get Bumble foot and had diagnosed Babe’s problem as arthritis. (All species of birds can suffer from Bumble foot although it’s not often seen in the wild.) So, six weeks later when Babe received proper treatment, her left foot was irreparable and we could only hope we had halted the progression of the disease in her right foot. Today, Babe’s right foot is slowly and gradually going the way of her left. And I’m fearful of her next vet visit.

I seem to have veered off topic a bit. I intended to tell you what I understand Bumble foot to be. Bumble foot is an inflammation of the feet that starts out as a wearing thin of the skin on the bottom of the feet. It presents as a small, smooth, red spot(s). It’s caused by walking or standing for extended periods, on a hard, irregular surface like an uneven cement floor and cement or sandpaper perches. Older, obese or disabled birds with limited mobility can also get Bumble foot from standard wooden perches. If not caught and treated with antibiotics at this early stage, lesions form from which the infection penetrates to the joints of the foot and bones in the leg. The necrosis of the tendons in the feet deforms them. The next treatment step is surgery. Surgery entails removing as much as possible of the closed abscesses or plugs of pus and dead tissue and inserting antibiotics to kill the rest. For me, the most disturbing part of this intervention is that most birds that have endured this surgery go on to require amputation. I’ve got your attention now, don’t I?

To recap: During my research on Bumble foot on the computer, I’ve found that some experts describe the progression of the disease through 8 stages. Others use four stages. To my mind, the important information is:

1)    The beginning of Bumble foot is quickly and easily recognized in regular, routine examination of your bird’s feet.

2)    During the early stages of Bumble foot, it can be dealt with effectively with antibiotics.

3)    You and your bird do not want to get this far. The prognosis is not positive.

Patricia A. Phillips
September 2013

Posted with permission by Good Bird Inc
www.GoodBirdInc.com
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