new feeding schedule! any thoughts?

[coral]

it just sems the only interaction he has with his parrots is training and treats.. i just dont see that as a good relationship.

[kaylayuh]

I can see this from both sides. I think cuddling/verbal praise works instead of a treat sometimes when training. But a little appetite for treats does go a long way when training. For the most part, Apple and I interact on just love and cuddling.. but I feel like I'm missing something as he will only recall once he knows I have treats.

I've gravitated away from using food restrictions or treats because it simply doesn't work for my birds. Hungry or not, they're not motivated by a treat to do a trick. My personal opinion is that restricting all food to only two specific times, as Michael seems to do, is unnecessary. If I were to trick train and operate on the basis that interactions need treats to solidify a positive relationship, I'd probably pick one particular thing that my bird seems especially fond of and use that.

My relationship with my birds is on the basis of respect and being able to accurately guage their body language and intent. If I don't know that I'm doing something that's going to get me bitten, I feel like I'm personally doing something wrong and should be more attentive to what my bird is trying to communicate. I don't feel like my bird's sole existance is to be a show pony for my amusement. It's great if they do tricks, but perfectly fine if they don't.

I think this thread has just gone a little off here and everybody is trying to argue that their way is the best. I don't think my way is the best for everyone, but it's the best for me and my particular birds, in the same way that Michael's way is best for him and his particular birds. I think it was a bit condescending to imply that I'm an irresponsible parrot owner, but that's the view of one person that's seen my interactions with my birds solely through a computer screen.

In the end, I think coral needs to do what feels right for her. If the feeding schedule she worked out works for her and Marty, perfect. Both she and the bird are happy and everyone's needs are being met. If he's gaining too much weight or being misbehaved, then there's time to adjust what's being done to figure out something that works for everyone.

[Michael]

vikki puts her huge macaws in cages for biting so actually you can do that to a huge macaw... birds shouldnt want to interact with the owner for food but for the interaction itself food is a given cuddling and playing are what it should look to you for imo. Roz and Capt and Vikki and a few others on this form really seem to know what their doing with parrots theyve had far for experience than you have and clipping is not punishment they are still birds even if they cannot fly, roz breeds and her aviaries are outside if she opens the doors they might fly away or maybe she clips her indoor birds because she has other pets and doesnt want it all over the house for their own safety. michael you dont know everything im sorry. it seems to me that your birds only want to interact with you for food because they are always hungry. i have not once associated marty's bad behavior with hunger. he acts certain ways for certain reasons as all birds do but his reasons are being a re-homed bird he was aggressive for neglect and had a strong fear for adult women, he was afraid of a new environment, he was upset or scared, and he did not want to go back in his cage. i have taught him to not fear people in fact he lets almost anyone pet him (a few women excluded), he has learned that if he doesnt bite i wont leave the room and if he screams i ignore him but he rarely screams for attention anymore, he has learned to love his new home and the new adventures he gets to go on. when he used to bite i would leave to room until he calmed down and everything would be fine again. my method is similar to roz and kaylayuh's but not the same but has the same effect. he will never associate me with fear. your birds only seem to want to interact with you because you offer food and they are hungry. do you ever just let them eat and cuddle with you? i trained marty without hunger and treats. marty forages for his treats. i really disagree with your methods michael and you seem to love to argue i dont have a very good impression of you.

This is all coming from people who don't have real birds. They have something else. A clipped parrot is not a bird, it's a completely different animal. The parrot in its natural state is very curious, independent, and destructive. The people you esteem all caused severe physical harm to their parrots because they were unable to control them otherwise. All the reasons you mentioned why people would want to clip their birds come down to not being able to control them and that is because as I said, [flighted] parrots are very difficult to manage because they are so free willed.

My interest is to be able to teach my parrots or manipulate their environment such that we can coexist in harmony. But also it is my goal to give the healthiest life possible with the most freedom possible to my parrots. I do all of this without physically altering my parrots but rather by using "training." Training is a way of teaching and convincing people or animals that things should be done a certain way, particularly if it contradicts what they want to do. People go to school to learn how to exist in our world. Training is used on parrots to teach them how to exist in our world. But parrots are really difficult because they fly. And by flying they have a 3 dimensional existence that is so unlike ours. Most people can't even begin to fathom how to think in 3d such so they clip their birds and turn them into a 2d terrestrial animal instead.

For people who don't interact with them or who can dedicate an entire room to their flighted birds, managing their parrots is not an issue. The environment can be entirely manipulated such that the parrot can do no harm (to itself or our stuff). That is a very good way of giving their parrots extensive freedom while preserving their own human way of life. Not all of us have the space or means to do things this way. Without a dedicated bird room it leaves us with 4 options:

-Keep the bird caged (always or more often)
-Tolerate the damage, mess, and problems
-Train the parrot (along with manipulating environment which includes food and room)
-Clip the wings to punish flight attempts

Since I know someone is going to bring it up, I'll also add another intermediate half option that some people use which is to do a very light or partial clip so that the parrot can still fly but tires more quickly. Instead of punishing flight it just reduces it.

Keeping the bird caged all the time to avoid flight or a lot more voids the parrot of social interaction, freedom, exercise, and kind of makes having one pointless. Many of us cannot afford to tolerate the mess/damage that a wild flighted parrot can do. We may not have the money/time to keep replacing our furniture and things because the parrot thinks everything in the house is its chew toy. Furthermore, they can be items that are dangerous that no amount of bird proofing can solve (for example chewing power cords). Clipping the parrot is the most common way of dealing with the trouble that keeping a bird presents. It's both for convenience and for control. The convenience is that it cannot fly into unreachable places and do damage. The control aspect is that most people fear that their parrot would not want to be on/with them if it had the choice.

This leaves training. However, the problem with training a flighted parrot is that if it has all it wants, there is nothing you can use as a reward for training. Petting, attention, and cuddling can all be rewards but the problem is that there is only so much of it that birds want. Sure I can get my birds to fly to me for some petting/attention. But this only works a few times a day until they've had their fill of that and would prefer to fly around and wreak havoc than get more scratches or cuddling.

Flight requires far more energy than all the behaviors flightless parrots do combined. So it is no wonder that flighted parrots are reluctant to fly for things they aren't highly motivated for getting! The fact that I can often get my parrots to do more flights than the calories I reward them with must attest to either the effectiveness of my training or the affinity of my parrots. I'm no biologist but I think it's not an unreasonable guess that over a mile of stop and go flight takes a lot more energy than what is provided by 4 sunflower seeds.

The problem is that if depending strictly on praise, petting, cuddling, and let's even add toys to that equation, I could only keep my parrots focused on being with me or at least not doing something bad for only about 15-30 minutes of the day. I can shower them or take them out when they are sleepy for another 30-60 minutes of peaceful out time. However, there is no way to keep them out for hours without them being bad (bad includes landing on places they aren't supposed to be or attacking each other, etc) with just those means. Clippers wouldn't understand this because when they put their parrot down on a stand, it stays on the stand cause it has no other place it can go. So by keeping my birds hungry during out of cage time (once again before someone accuses me of starving them, I am talking about having them out within the last hours before they get their meal and normal caloric intake rather than purposefully making them so hungry that they are powerless), I can keep them more focused on doing good behavior for the mere possibility of getting food that way rather than necessarily making them work for food. Yes, food management for formal trick training is very helpful if not required. However, for general parrot management for out of cage time in a human home, letting it happen during the time when they are getting hungry in preparation of meal time, keeps them focused enough that they can respect some rules established on the basis of positive reinforcement.

And no, trick training is not the only thing I do with my parrots. I just put more effort into videoing and showcasing the tricks because it is more interesting/amusing/helpful to my viewers. This doesn't mean that I don't just take my parrots for walks or play with them at home. There will be long periods of time when I'm too busy or don't feel like working on tricks. I don't really post videos of together time with parrots because frankly I think it's boring to watch and it's kind of personal. But in order to enjoy personal cuddle time with a parrot and be able to give it out of cage time without physically handicapping it, this is the only way I have found to be successful. If there are other owners of unhandicapped parrots that don't have a bird room and let their parrots fly in their house have better ways of managing them, I would be absolutely thrilled to learn about them. I don't have any trouble with trick training, diet, cuddling, biting, and other common issues people may discuss. Those are all manageable. But the flight aspect of a parrot is a whole other thing and by far the most challenging aspect of owning a parrot.

I don't know how many times I can say it, but I am not talking about trick training at all here. I am not telling everyone to trick train. I am not talking about food management for the purpose of trick training. I am talking about the most basic food management for keeping parrots well behaved in the human household environment. While the things they try to do would be perfectly suitable for the wild, they are destructive and potentially dangerous in our households. This is why proper management of their behavior is necessary. Most people choose to blame the bird for this and clip its wings rather than accept the challenge or working with the bird to alleviate this. Managing flight has become the leading challenge of my parrot ownership in order to make all remaining pleasant aspects of parrot ownership possible. Without managing flight, there can't be cuddling and all the other fun stuff. Just because you cut your birds wings to force it to interact with you, doesn't mean it chose to.

Manipulating the timing of feeding (as well as type of food like boring food in cage, treats when out) is one of the least harmful or intrusive ways of controlling a parrot. It still has the choice of whether or not to listen or come to the owner but it is more likely to decide to go with it because some element of desire for the food is present. We don't have access to food all day long and neither should our birds. When we go to school, work, trips, etc, we eat during meal times and then do other things. Children eat when their parents say it's time to eat. I can't understand why anyone would think it should be different for birds. Birds have a crop so withholding food for some reasonable period between feedings ensures that their digestive system is never without food but they feel the urge to replenish their reserve by the time you have them out. This is very effective and yet quite harmless. Clipping on the other hand is bordering on animal abuse. It causes extensive physical and psychological harm to birds whose physiology is evolved for flight.

Most people are too impatient, irresponsible, busy, uncaring, selfish, inconfident, or ignorant that they chose to blame the parrot and screw it out of the ability to fly rather than to make some kind of changes in themselves or their household to make it possible. The sacrifices to let parrots fly in their home will vary greatly for different people and households to be sure. But it is always for the benefit of the owner rather than the parrot that they end up getting clipped. I know someone will somewhere find an exception case of some injured or psychologically screwed up parrot that causes too much harm to itself with flight and needs to be kept clipped and I can understand those rare cases. However, for the rest of you who clip, please do not pass judgment on the methods by which I manage my parrots when you decided to clip your parrots to solve flight problems rather than finding ways of convincing them to cooperate with you. You chose to use a far more harmful method to manage your parrots flighted misbehaviors by clipping than timing their food.

I'm not out to tell people not to clip. I have come to accept that most people can't/won't do otherwise. However, I will not accept people telling me that they have a perfect handle on their parrot's behavior without using food management when they used a far more abusive/extreme method by clipping them. I challenge someone with a flighted parrot larger than a cockatiel to tell me how they deal with their parrot flying all about, causing damage, refusing to come, attacking other birds or people, etc without having to use food management, excessive caging, or a separate room?

PS Over feeding a couch potato (clipped parrot) is probably more detrimental health wise than a flighted parrot. Ironic isn't it that the parrots that can afford the extra calories (flighted) need to have their food managed whereas the ones who get insufficient exercise get way too much food?

[kaylayuh]

This is all coming from people who don't have real birds.

What, pray tell, is it that I have? My birds came to me clipped; two of which are now completely flighted, the other is in the process of completing his set of flights. Two of them do laps around my apartment frequently. The other can fly to and from me (and anywhere else in my apartment given its size) with absolutely no trouble. I don't clip my birds, and all three of them can fly. I still don't use your techniques.

You're being ridiculously condescending in assuming that the only way I can control or manage to live with my birds is to alter their wings or do it your way. The four of us here have managed to live quite well with one another without food management and being completely flighted. Because you can't manage your birds without doing one or the other doesn't mean that other's can't or successfully haven't.

And for the record, all three of my birds have been taught basic commands while flighted without the use of food deprivation or food based rewards. All three of them come to me willingly when I call to them, all three of them step up, and all three of them know what behaviors are acceptable and what behaviors are unacceptable.

I should also say that I can leave all three of my birds unsupervised and out of their cage in my apartment without having to worry about chewed powercords, ruined furniture, or whatever other havok a bird can do. I routinely do leave them unsupervised while I shower or do household chores that can't leave me in their presence. Never do they gnaw powercords or fly to areas where they know they shouldn't be.

I don't have a particularly large apartment or a dedicated bird room, nor are my parrots trick trained and deprived of basic necessities to make them more managable. My birds are able to come in and out of their cages as they please; the only exception being for biting, where verbal warnings haven't worked, or I need to leave the apartment for more than 5 minutes.

Until and unless my vet says I'm doing something wrong, I'll continue to do things my way.

[coral]

you are sooo biased i am sorry but a parrot in my opinion will never be a real bird when they live in doors and depend on us for food and the chance to mate so michael you dont have a real bird either. you love training. great it works for you. breeding birds are usually not very tame they usually dont like the interaction with people so your right they are clipped because they arnt tame correct me if im wrong Roz. you just arnt open to other ideas. no good parrot owner would leave their parrots caged up all the time, we all have our house parrots trained to not be bad but we dont TRICK TRAIN thats what im talking about trick training isnt natural either what wild parrot do you know that will preform tricks? really? clipping wings is a way for the parrot to co-exist in certain homes. it isnt a punishment. at all. i had marty clipped because he was very aggressive and at first it was easier for both of us if he couldnt fly. his wings are going to grow back but if it becomes dangerous for his best interest i will have them clipped again. its not a punishment it is for safety reasons such as i have cats and dogs. now im sure your going to tell me "OH NO you cant have other animals with PARROTS!!" well actually you can if you can supervise them. but if he can fly away from me and my dogs see him flying they think oh im supposed to chase that and if i cant catch him or if he lands on the floor it could be dangerous. no i will not choose one animal over the other they all live peacefully. tbh i think the dogs are more afraid of the bird. just because flight works for you and you are biased doesnt mean it works for everyone is what im saying. your birds seem to only be good when you use food so i suppose that their not really trained. i have had flighted birds actually Australian parrots before michael its not any harder. it all depends on how you train them and you use food so thats why.

[Michael]

clipping wings is a way for the parrot to co-exist in certain homes.

Yes, sacrifice the parrot's well being for the owner's, go on.

it isnt a punishment. at all.

Then what's the point? If the point of clipping is not to teach the parrot not to fly, then I really don't know why it would be done.

i had marty clipped because he was very aggressive and at first it was easier for both of us if he couldnt fly.

If you think clipping successfully reduced aggression and flight, then you did use clipping as a means of punishing those behaviors.

his wings are going to grow back but if it becomes dangerous for his best interest i will have them clipped again.

I'm sure his best interest is the last thing on your mind. I could not possibly fathom how being clipped is in the interest of any parrot. No, this is only for YOUR best interest. You are being selfish and I can accept that. I am selfish in not wanting Truman to chew up my window shades although he'd really love to. However, the harm you cause to your parrot's physiology and mental well being by denying flight is far greater than my timing of feeding times for Truman and discouraging him from going on the shades (while he is free to fly about in other ways). No owner of companion parrots can give their parrot 100% freedom as in the wild, but certainly it is possible to balance things more in the best interest of the parrot vs the best interest of the owner. I find the challenge to be finding the things that are least harmful/intrusive to the parrot while yielding the best coexistence with my household. So yes, I keep my parrot in a cage when I am not home. But on the other hand I let him fly around freely (within some small constraints) when I am home. He still gets to exercise his flight muscles, heart, and breathing system in flight.

The parrots I own were already captive bred before I got them so there was no chance of them going back into the wild anyway. So with that as a given and the fact that I don't have an entire room to use instead of a cage, I do have to keep them in cages when I am not home. I don't think many people would argue against this who own parrots so there's no point in spending more time defending it. However, beyond the base fact that I own parrots and have to keep them in cages, in all other ways I try to give them the free-est and best life possible.

its not a punishment it is for safety reasons such as i have cats and dogs.

It is punishment. You are reducing unwanted behavior (flight) by letting the bird get hurt every time it attempts to fly so that it would not try to fly. I don't think anyone does a true clip to their parrots with full intention of them trying to fly all the time. Worse yet, you are punishing the parrot for flying because you chose to have both cats/dogs and parrots even though you admit they are incompatible and pose a danger.

but if he can fly away from me and my dogs see him flying they think oh im supposed to chase that and if i cant catch him or if he lands on the floor it could be dangerous.

Thank you for admitting this could be dangerous. It would be far more dangerous to be unaware of or deny the risk.

no i will not choose one animal over the other they all live peacefully.

At a great expense to the bird and by your choice. The bird had features that its ancestors evolved to avoid the likes of the other animals you keep. And yet you took away its only defense mechanism and forced it to live like them.

just because flight works for you and you are biased doesnt mean it works for everyone is what im saying.

Then I don't know why you would want a bird as a pet. Clearly you don't like some of the things about it (like that it flies) so it really doesn't make sense that you would choose to have one. It's not fair to the bird that you made a severe physical alteration to it just because you don't like birds for what they are.

your birds seem to only be good when you use food so i suppose that their not really trained.

Training is all about cause and effect. "What is in it for me?" is a great question to think about from the trainees perspective. The bird must get something it wants in response to anything it does or it will lose incentive for doing it. This learning apparatus know is operant conditioning is biologically encoded because without it animals would do things that have no point, waste energy, and be less competitive to survive than the ones that are more goal oriented. Whether it is food treats, toys, praise, scratches, or other, the parrot must be getting something in reward at some point. I did not say that the only reason my parrots come to me is for food. There are other reasons they'll come. However, they need far less of it than food because flight requires many calories. I demonstrated that Kili can fly to me 20 times just for a single treat. My parrots "obey me" not necessarily for getting food but rather the potential of getting food. This is why a bit of hunger based on food management I previously explained is required. You are incapable of understanding this (and keep mentioning tricks which are completely irrelevant for this discussion) because your parrot can't fly away from you and can't do horrible things like biting off entire chunks of your furniture that it flies onto. I don't think you read my very detailed response because I explained how all the other motivators combined (attention, petting, praise, and even toys) can't keep a flighted parrot from getting bored and eventually flying off to do its own thing. Food is the only significant enough of a reinforcer that both at home and in the wild will motivate them enough to fly long distances to get it.

[GlassOnion]

There definitely are some challenges with having a flighted bird, but the fact that I KNOW it makes them happy is enough for me to sacrifice certain conveniences. Seeing as how mine LOVE to fly and that birds are designed to fly, I would never dare clip their wings. I know it would psychologically damage their self esteem and confidence.

One thing I wanted to mention: I have a cat who roams around. If my birds could not fly, they would have been killed a long time ago. I 100% believe that a flighted bird is MUCH MUCH safer around other animals. There is no way that a clipped bird can escape from the dangerous claws of a cat by running on the floor.

Let's say a clipped bird is on its playstand. The cat comes and jumps at the stand, the bird 'attempts' to fly but flutters to the ground. The cat runs to it and kills it. If the bird were flighted, it would have flown to a safe area or to me. There is no argument that a flighted bird is safer around predatory animals, as flying away is EXACTLY how they have survived so well for thousands and thousands of years.

[patdbunny]

breeding birds are usually not very tame they usually dont like the interaction with people so your right they are clipped because they arnt tame correct me if im wrong Roz.

All the breeders are flighted because they don't get out of their cages to exercise otherwise.

I clip my pets because I can give them a richer, safer life given my particular household circumstances. I do not believe the average pet owner can safely have a flighted bird considering most people cannot get their dogs to come when called. Note - "average" generally is not anyone here. "Average" pet owner is not interested in learning various management/training methods.

In general, I suggest to my buyers who have not weighed all the pros and cons and thought it all out very thoroughly to clip. Clipped birds are "punished" by falling to the floor. Flighted birds in the wrong households die from falling in toilets, smacking into windows, smashing into ceiling fans, flying into the fireplace with a fire going, flying into a pot of boiling water, flying out the door, etc. Those are actual ends to some of the birds I've sold. Sadly, most of the birds were under a year old when they died.

There are considerations other than "birds were meant to fly" when we are keeping them in our unnatural households.
http://www.holisticbirds.com/pages/toflyornot0803.htm
http://www.parrotchronicles.com/behavio ... havior.htm

[GlassOnion]

I appreciate the links, Roz. Good reads!

[coral]

Michael I obviously want him to fly if im letting his wings grow out. And roz I agree with your reasons for clipping. Marty can still fly just not very far so I guess he has a patial clip. But roz is right it seems like their are a lot of dangers that go along with flying. Pets can coexist its dangerous but many of us do it an find ways to do it- such as clipping. Roz im gonna read your links when I get home, im on my phone lol