Training Your Parrot To Do Tricks

Parrots are very trainable and intelligent birds.  Parrots can eventually be taught many complicated tricks and behaviors, and remember them for years. Training parrots tricks help make them a much better pet and teaching them tricks have been linked to solving behavior problems. 

For most owners the fun of owning a parrot is to teach their parrot tricks. The most commonly taught tricks to pet parrots may include, talking or singing, coming on command, fetching, shaking hands, spreading their wings, and putting rings onto pegs.

More complex parrot tricks includes suchthings as riding bicycles, flying through hoops,flying free outdoors, or roller skating. Their intellectual abilities have been tested and have been proven that they have an intelligence level of a 3 to 5 year old child.  

When teaching a parrot tricks they should be trained slowly and carefully keeping the training sessions short. Training your parrot to do tricks requires patience, time and a commitment to working with your parrot for several minutes each day. Parrots are very intelligent and pick up bird training cues quickly when they feel safe. Parrots require mental stimulation to remain emotionally healthy. Training your parrot to do tricks will exercises the bird’s brain will help the owner and parrot bond.

Long session can be a negative experience for the bird. To increase the chances of success teaching your parrot tricks should be positive and in a quiet and a place free of any distractions. Owners need to have patience when it come to teaching their parrots tricks. If you are stressing out so will your parrot. 

Training a parrot with positive reinforcement techniques focuses on using rewards to reinforce or increase the regularity of a behavior and builds a trust training technique.  Before you begin trying to teach your parrot tricks, make sure the he or she is completely tame and well socialized. 

To effectively train your parrot to do tricks, you need to be able to tell when he’s frightened or distressed by your actions.  A parrot who exhibits either of these emotions just isn’t capable of learning what you’re teaching him. If he’s not busy worrying about your next move, he’ll be preoccupied with defending himself from your possible next move.

If you discover that your parrot is in this emotional state when you’re training him, you can give him a treat to see if he settles down at all.  If not, then halt the session.  Whatever you do, don’t force your parrot to do something that he’s not willing to do.

The bird must be willing to come to you, sit on your hand, and allow him or herself to be touched all over its body, its feet, and under its wings, It must also readily take food from your hand. You can use pieces of the fruit that your are feeding in your parrots diet as a reward.

The parrot is only rewarded for behaviors that bring it closer to the final desired outcome (stepping onto its owner’s hand or being quiet). For positive reinforcement techniques to work effectively, it is common to have to reward a parrot several times for making very small amounts of progress; like rewarding the parrot ten times in a row, just for taking one step closer to its owner’s hand. Just by accomplishing that you have already taught your parrot five tricks.

Birds like to mimic sounds that they hear regularly and have learned how to get attention this way. The African Grey bird is the most well known of all the parrots who talk.  To teach your parrot to talk start with simple words that contains only one or two syllables keep repeating the word slowly until the parrot makes a response.

While repetition is indeed the key to good training, it needs to go hand in hand with another habit as well:  Consistency.  This is especially true when you’re training your parrot to talk.  Let’s say for example that you want to teach your parrot to say “mmm, food.”  Then you not only use repetition, but consistency.  Every time you feed him you tell him this phrase.  Soon you’re your parrot associates these words with getting food.  The next thing you know, he’s repeating them when he’s hungry.

If you’re not quite sure exactly how to start your parrot’s training program, consider the game “peek-a-boo.”  We all know that game… It’s not only good training for your new friend; it’s effective training for you as well. You’ll need to get a bath towel for this training session.

Don’t be afraid to alternative who gets covered by the towel.  Place the towel over your head.  When you look out from it, you say peek a boo! Carefully lay the towel over your parrot.  Be patient, because he’ll eventually peek out  and when he does peek out, you say peek a boo!  

Both you and your friend will enjoy this game immensely.  But more than that this is a wonderful bonding exercise! This game most certainly can set the mood and the foundation for some very productive training.

Giving your feathered friend the proper parrot care and helping him or her to develop and articulate their knowledge can be very rewarding for both.

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