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Re: New Parrot Lover

Postby stevesjk » Tue Mar 21, 2017 3:40 am

Start with 2 minutes, you don't want to bore it. If you want to prevent bad behaviours then lots of freedom from cage and lots of attention from you will help reduce the chances
stevesjk
Conure
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is male
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Re: New Parrot Lover

Postby Pajarita » Tue Mar 21, 2017 11:31 am

Well, training depends on many things because first you need to bond with the bird and wait until the bird is of an age where training becomes productive. Like children, there is no benefit in rushing things so babies and juveniles should not really have formal training sessions but more like Liz mentioned: as you would train a child, namely, as you go along. You haven't said how long you've had her (do you know for a fact it's a female?) or how old she is and the answer to these questions would determine the answer to yours.

The thing about training parrots is that they are not naturally mentally 'programmed' for obedience or subservience (like a dog would be, for example) so you need the parrot to love and trust you before you even start. Then you need to wait until the bird is old enough because, like toddlers, they need to learn how to interact properly BEFORE they go to school. Once the degree of love and trust as well as the age is optimum, you need to make sure their diet is the right one because the only thing that will motivate a parrot enough to learn a trick (I am not talking about stepping up or down or anything like that which doesn't really require a reward) is the food item you will give it if he does it right. In order for this reward to work, you need to identify which are the high value items in its diet BUT, in order for this item to be an actual reward, it has to be something the bird really craves and, because this is always a high protein item, you can't free-feed high protein because, if you do, the bird will not be interested in it. Then it's a matter of determining the best time of the day and always holding the sessions (which are never more than 5 minutes at a time) at the same time every day so the bird is expecting them AND looking forward to them.

So, please, tell us how old she is, how long you've had her, what her daily schedule and diet are and we will take it from there.
Pajarita
Norwegian Blue
 
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