New Year's Parrot Resolutions

[Michael]

Happy New Year everyone! I'd like everyone to make at least one New Year's resolution about something they will achieve this year with their parrot(s). What's yours?

[CaitlinRice413]

[terri]

Ill take a stab at this . Couple things I would like to acomplish - Keep improving on their diets,harness train more of them,try clicker training when they speak certain words,get my new Amazon in my lap and kiss his face Also learn how to load pictures and videos on here of Harlow laughing like a mad person

[Grey_Moon]

Gee...only one?

The biggest New Years resolution I want to achieve with Jacko is good health: I want her heart scan in the spring to be awesome, her chronic sinus issues to clear up and for her to transition well onto the new diet.

Smaller secondary stuffses:

-I'd like to continue her harness training and get her used to it again for the spring
-I'd like to potty-train her a bit more
-I'd like to continue to work on her flight skills and 'brain games' (labelling, colours etc).

[pennyandrocky]

getting mya to wear her harness by spring. getting my outdoor aviary built.

[friend2parrots]

this year, I'd like to achieve the following:

With Ringo, my GCC (who had been spooked out) :

I'd like to teach him to allow me to handle his wings and feet. I'd like to towel train him, and reintroduce him to his carry-kennel. i'd like to do this as soon as possible (of course working at his pace) so that i can take him to the vet with as minimal stress as possible.

I'd like to reintroduce Ringo to my husband, who decided after having his ears attacked and bloodied multiple times by Ringo last summer, that he didnt ever want to handle Ringo again. But hubby's been coming around, having noticed that in the past few months Ringo has calmed down substantially, and no longer goes searching him out for dive bombs.

i'd like to help Ringo be independent again, and play on his own again.

with Toby, my Bourke:

I want to be able to give Toby more one-on-one attention. this whole past seven months I have spent far less time handling Toby than i used to, because Ringo's therapy took up so much of my time.

I'd like to towel train and teach Toby to have his wings and feet handled - also to get him less stressed for vet exams.

[marie83]

Both birds- Get to the bottom of whats causing the random symptoms my birds are displaying.


Ollie- Another harness related one, I would like to resume harness training Ollie as I believe it will do him good to be able to get out and about. I would like to fine tune some of the tricks he knows before moving on to new tricks.

Harlie- I have a whole list of things but the biggest three things I would like to achieve in the next year are to finally get her carrier trained, move her into the bigger cage we have had for ages waiting for her and touch tame her. I can see it taking longer than a year for some of these things but I'm giving her a bit longer to become more confident in her more recent achievements first as she has days where she goes back to being unsure of things. She has been doing so well recently that I have to remind myself to keep it slow.

[Pralina]

Happy new year everyone!!!!!!!

After reading a lot on this forum and other websites, I took the very big decision to start food management today, January 1st!!! Its a big step for our fids, as until today they were on free-feeding, we have been spoiling them a lot... thank you Michael and other behaviorists for opening my eyes on this!

So today was the big day.... last night all their food was removed from their cages at bedtime.
This morning they were all put on the scale (which by now they know very well), then they were put back in their cages with a bowl of mixed foods, 10% of their weight, half pellets and half sprouts and carrot... which makes REALLY NOTHING inside the big bowl. Then they didn't quite understand the point, but I left the bowls in there for 1 hour and a half... until I see them go and eat....
Then I removed all the food.... until tonight.

And tonight once again they are getting a bowl for 1 hour, again 5-6 pieces of pellets in there with some papaya, about 10% of their weight. They're better be hungry!!!

Ok they did get a few treats during the day... as we interacted with them... but that`s not cheating right! We are just trying to make the transition period a little easier for them!

So tomorrow is Day 2!!! Wish me luck!!!

[Michael]

I'm glad you've received the motivation to do this but you're not quite doing it right. I don't think you understand the method. I doubt you could have harmed anything by doing it wrong this time, but you should look this over a bit more before doing that too long.

[Pralina]

Hmm ok let me see ... perhaps we should discuss that in the Diet section. I would gladly take your advice on it!