how do i put her back

[cathy]

baby is very good at coming out .but now she dont like to go back in her cage.she is biting when i ask her to step off??or if i say its time to go home?? now what to do???

[entrancedbymyGCC]

Scooter did that for a while, and now he does it only very rarely and mostly if we take him out too late in the evening when he is tired and cranky. I did not do all that much to fix it... I warned him verbally I was going to put him back, "Time to go HOME" or some such. I made sure I didn't back off once I'd started to put him back and insisted he step down even if he was biting. I did find out he much preferred to go to the highest perch in the cage, so I asked him to go there, which helped. And I made a fuss of him when he did go back in side. It sounds silly, but I sang and danced! Finally, I sometimes took him right out again. I think part of the reason he did it was that he was used to getting out infrequently and thought going back in meant it would be a long time before he got to come out again.

[cathy]

i take her out and some days shes out all day .most days its out in the am for 1 or 2 hours then back in till after noon then out the rest of the day.can u keep them out to much?

[Michael]

Typically my parrots only get their meals after going back into the cage so they look forward to it if anything. In the morning I take the parrots out before feeding. They spend some time out. Then I put em in and they eat. I take the food back away for the day (DO NOT do this without very specific considerations). I take them out when I get home and they get dinner when put away. So the moral of the story is to manage to take them out prior to meals and then only feed meals in the cage afterwards to give them motivation to want to go back in.

[Rue]

I always put them away with a treat. In my case sunflower seeds. This is pretty much the only time they get sunflower seeds.

I have no problem. If anyone is reluctant to go in otherwise...they usually race to the cage if they see me with the seed jar...lol...it's kind of funny...

[kellybird]

Michael, I have a question as to why you don't keep your food in the cage for them to eat throughout the day? I know my birds will pick all day and it gives them something to do to occupy them when i am not home. Do you provide water all day in the cage??? I have a set schedule everyday when the birds get fed and its usually after dinner as I don't have much time in the mornings. I feed them, then its a few hours and lights out. We have been bad with turning the lights off to late at night lately and I have to stop doing that. But I have never known birds to eat and then take their food away during the day.??? I hope I am not too crazy for asking

[Michael]

This is a two part answer or more like two major reasons for this:

1) Cleanliness and habit. Even if I did leave the food in the cage all day (and btw with Truman being young, forget about current injury situation, I still do for the most part), both parrots tend to eat in the mornings and evenings anyway. In the wild they don't eat mid day. They tend to nap and relax in the middle of the day. So even with pellets which don't really go bad, there's just more likelihood that they will poop on them or throw broken toy bits in the bowl. So by removing the food between meals, it eliminates the mess. Oh and also it eliminates playing with food, throwing it all around the cage just for the hell of it. When they have too much food, they have no appreciation for it and just make a mess.

2) Training and taming. Feeding just twice a day plays a huge impact not only for training tricks but just for handle ability. My birds are hungriest when I see them (morning and evening). They have no way of sneaking a meal in prior to seeing me as the food is not there. They value treats from me but even beyond that they just value spending time with me even if they're not getting food. It's that I've gotten to have so many experiences where I'm "the good guy" who was providing food when the bird was hungry that it just bonds and trusts me overall. For trick training, this creates hunger and motivation for earning treats (see all my parrot training articles to get into this point but as you see it's not the only reason). Finally it creates an opportunity for the birds to be rewarded for going back into the cage (full meal). This creates a schedule of feeding that revolves around their interaction with me. It makes them much more handleable and guarantees that they are getting positively reinforced both out of the cage and in.

Parrots in the wild do not eat all day long so especially all the more they shouldn't be eating all day long in captivity where they get far less physical exertion as it is! If they are bored, they should play with toys rather than be picking up more calories. If you don't want to do training, you can substitute it with foraging opportunities out of the cage at the same intervals as I specified training. Foraging toys are basically an automatic self-occupying equivalent to parrot training.

Lastly I would like to point out that parrots have a crop. It's like a doggy bag for the food they want to save for later. Regardless if they are free fed or not, they tend to fill that crop up in the mornings and evenings. The evening fill up gets them through the night and the morning fill up through the day. If they can sleep 10-14 hours on a crop load of food, what makes you think they can't go 10 hours between meals without a buffet served in front of them 24/7? Fact is they fill up their crop and then gradually digest it throughout the day as they need it. From my personal experience with my birds it seems that the crop can hold 2 full days worth of food but they still eat frequently. So they go from 90% full crop to 60% full crop, then fill it up to 90% again. I weigh my birds frequently so this is the (ballpark) conclusion that I come to. So the crop acts like a buffer that gets filled and reduced over time. If you are feeding twice a day, that crop will never go fully empty but merely create a hunger to top it off again in the evening. This can be used to improve your relationship with the parrot through taming, training, bonding, and being the good guy for putting it back in the cage for a meal. By letting the parrot desire the things you give it (by not providing them in your absence), YOU get to take full credit for these good things in the parrots mind and get the better trust/relationship for it.

[ptuga72]

Wow Michael, that was really well said! I need to take that advice

[kellybird]

Very well put Michael. I am glad it works for you especially since you do train your birds. I don't put much effort into training my birds to do tricks etc. but most recently I have been giving out goldfish crackers as treats to my birds and its soooo funny but my greenwing now says "hello" on command with just a tiny little goldfish! This is probably nothing to you but I found it exciting and had to share!!! I don't think I could do that feeding ritual each day. I would either forget to take a bowl out of forget to feed them. Just easier (laziness) and I feed once a day in the evening, (unless there water bowls need another change throughout the day) and in the mornings sometimes give my fruits/veggies/snacks. Yes there is definately more waste and they dump half of it and I think while I am at work there is food fights going on, who knows? Just an aweful lot of mess everywhere when I get home from work lol. I am used to mess with 5 birds. I do see mine eat all throughout the day especially when I am home so I would feel horrible taking it away from them and what if they just got hungry at 2:12 in the afternoon and there was nothing to munch on....okay enough of me and my blabbering. Did you say you do leave water for them 24 hours a day????

[Michael]

When they are in their normal cages they have a water bottle 24/7. However, on trips and in this case with Truman in his tub healing from injury, I do not leave water in at all. In a travel carrier it is likely to spill. In the tub, Truman knocks it over and all gets soaked. Also it helps me monitor how much water they are drinking (during travel or injury). In that case I offer water every few hours but never more than 8 hours without water. Never been a problem. I have established my limits as to how long they can go without water by offering it progressively further and further apart when they would refuse to drink it until that time span. Normally they only drink twice a day and that is immediately after a meal of pellets. So I really wouldn't be one bit worried if the water bottle clogged (this has never happened so far) or for some reason they did not have water available for the duration of the day, as long as I can provide it in the evening. Once again, they have a crop and once they put what they need in it, they live off of that for quite some time.