What motivates your bird(s)?

[Kathleen]

What is the most effective way to motivate your bird? Do you use treats? Attention/sound? Petting? What kind of motivation seems to work best with your parrot?

For budgies, and maybe other small birds, it seems to be millet spray. Budgies are millet machines. They love the stuff. It's like budgie candy. I don't think my budgie gets so much reward out of attention as maybe the more intelligent or demanding parrots would. In fact, there are a lot of times where he shys away from me. I have found however, that if my budgie doesn't seem to be motivated to do a trick properly as I am teaching it, when I get very excited and say "good bird" with an excited voice, he seems to pick up on that somehow and does better.

[Michael]

All of the above. Sometimes my Senegal will do tricks and spit the treats back out because she is not hungry but just wanted the attention. Sometimes she is hungry and refuses to do tricks. Still much we don't understand about these birds.

[Mona]

Hi Kathleen:

I think finding a good motivator (or reinforcer) is always a challenge because motivators can change from day to day. If a bird is satiated they may not be motivated. Flock dynamic issues and new environments also effect motivation issues. How well does the bird know the behavior? Does the bird understand the communication? These things can also effect training although they are not necessarily motivation issues.

For training, my greys love almonds. I have used soy nuts in the past but now, mostly almonds. My Senegals will do almost any thing for a nutriberry. I do not feed nutriberries but I keep them out of their diet so they are only used as favorite treats. I can get all three Senegals to go back to their perches on cue, just by letting them know a nutriberry is forthcoming.

Good question and it is a very good topic because there are many, many answers.

Mona

[Kathleen]

Hey Mona,

That's interesting. What is a nutriberry? Is it like candy for birds or is it a healthy treat?

[Natacha]

Nutriberries: http://www.lafeber.com/pinnacle/index.p ... nt=24&pg=1

What motivates my birds? It depends...

Shade (Senegal) any type of food. She's a pig. She'll do anything for food and she's not very picky about what it is...

Piper (lovebird)..it varies between extra attention or a nutriberry.

Zuri (Meyer's) is also food motivated, although more picky than Shade..nutriberries and almonds work well with her.

Petey (Meyer's) loves a challenge, but loves it even more if there is a food reward at the end of the challenge. She loves nutriberries, almonds and pasta....wait I should have said she LOVES pasta. I've never seen a bird eat a strand of spaghetti like she does..

Joey (Red-bellied) the least food motivated out of my birds. He's biggest reward is getting a laugh out of you or extra praise.

[laducockatiel]

Ladu (my cockatiel) is mainly motivated by food and verbal praise. He really likes verbal praise when I say "good boy Ladu" excitedly. As for food, he is motivated the most when he gets peanuts as a treat, He LOVES them lol. For some reason, he doesn't really like millet

[Khaiqha]

My childhood irn, Orion, would do anything for praise and petting.

My current irn, Ace, will do anything for food, and will refuse tricks if there's no food (or if the food is a veggie). He also goes crazy for nutriberries, I call them his crack. If I grab the bag, he will literally go through every trick he knows without cue, repeating them until I give him one. It's great for convincing him to approach terrifying objects like Teddy bears, or as I'm sorry gifts when I press him too much and set him off.