Questions!! Training an old bird

[sollerto]

I'm currently looking at a few birds to adopt, and one bird in particular is 30+ years. (They think early 30's, wild caught.) I'm interested in what you all think about the likely hood of teaching him new things. I plan to integrate interactive brain power toys into the play time of whatever bird I get, but I'd really like to be able to teach my bird new words. He's a Yellow-naped Amazon by the way !! Another bird I'm looking at is a cockatoo, who is 20+ yrs. What do you think? Can you teach a fully matured bird new tricks and words?

Thanks!

[Wayne361]

Absolutely you can teach an old bird tricks......as long as there is motivation to get reward.

Wayne

[Michael]

Yeah, developing motivation and teaching the bird to work/learn is the initial challenge but beyond that everything should be the same. If you have trouble establishing motivation, contact me for a private consultation cause I've developed a few tricks up my sleeve from working with Santina my 14 year old rescue macaw.

Frankly it's mostly the same as training any bird but there are some ways to clean a slate more quickly and develop a training relationship. Some people approach parrot ownership so wrong that they just never get the opportunity to get there. So just read up and learn and you'll be fine.

[bird_turd]

yeah,u can train it.jst do it the same way u would with a younger bird. Also, bfore u start, make sure ur bird trusts u and find out what treats it likes

[Harpmaker]

Just don't expect an older bird that doesn't talk at all to start. While you might be able to improve it's motivation, some of them just don't ever use people language. One advantage of getting an older bird is that talkers are more likely to have started talking.