trying new feeding/training schedule!! advice?

[rebeccaturpeinen]

I have had Jo for about a year now and although she isnt scared of me, I would like to make bigger progress with her training. So now I am going to try something new since what I have been doing the past year obviously doesnt pay off.

Today I realised that I have my dogs on feeding/training schedules and why would I have my dogs on feeding/training schedules but not my bird?? One of my dogs wouldnt over-eat but the other would, would eat everything untill there is nothing left. And he is impossible to train if he isnt hungry. Just on monday, I was suppose to go to dogtraining but we were out of dogtreats and I forgot to buy new... so I knew that he would be impossible on training and we simply didnt go.
I have the dogs on feeding schedules mostly because one of them over-eats but obviously this pays off BIG time when it is training time. Just like dogs I think it is very important that a parrot knows atleast the simple commands.

If it works for my dogs it must also work for Jo, she is a bit smarter than my dogs Im actually pretty excited about trying this. So from tomorrow Jo will be starting on a feeding/training schedule. Any advice you can give me on that? I was thinking about just filling her bowl and taking it out after a while and after some time I should be able to tell how much she is actually eating. (She doesnt over eat but once she realises the food gets taking out after while, I assume she will start eating untill she is full)

My plan is to put the food in in the morning before I go to work (I leave ate 5 am so I dont think Jo is ready to eat at that time) But if I dont put in too much food, just one portion then she can eat that in the mornings and when I come home we can do the training and then she can have her supper and fruit. This means changing my hole schedule around but yes, I am excited about trying this.

I will be giving updates on our progress and yes, bragging if it goes really well

Any advice (NOT if I should or should not start the feeding/training schedule, that is NOT up for discussion) would be greatly appreciated.

[pchela]

Do you have a gram scale? That will be important if you do a feeding schedule to make sure that your bird is getting enough. Weigh the food you give each morning and then weigh what's left over and that should give you a good idea about how much to give.

Also, another version of food management that still allows the bird to free feed (and in my opinion is the best route to take) is to find out your birds favorite treat and never give it to them unless you are training. It can be very effective.

[Michael]

What Pchela said is totally valid. However, one problem with the favorite treat method is that if you take the bird out right after it had a whopping meal and is stuffed either A) It won't train for the treat or B) It will train for the big treat but end up overeating in the process. Neither of these is ideal. A good way of going about food management is to make sure that the parrot is doing training and receiving treats before meals rather than after. So the goal becomes how to catch the parrot before eating. At least in the milder forms of food management are more focused with this rather than the exact amount fed or the weight of the bird.

For now I'll give you some milder forms for you to try and see how they go. And if it's not too successful I can suggest how to increase it. But without a scale, here is how to go about it. Use the work backwards approach. I started with this and recommend this for juvenile parrots so that they aren't being underfed in their developmental years. This may not be effective enough for advanced trick training or flight training but it's a definite start. In most cases when combined with favorite treats this method will work for basic training like target.

Start by taking the parrot's free feed away 3 hours prior to training. Do this for a few days and see how it goes (it is especially useful if the parrot has some qualitative tricks that it can do to measure motivation like how high it waves its foot or something). If it's not too effective, continue increasing the time without food progressively... 4, 5, eventually 6 hours. 3 hours may not work merely from the fact that the parrot may only choose to eat once every 5 hours so 3 hours without food would change nothing. It will vary by individual and species so if you want a safe/simple way to try it out without getting into weighing this is a good way to go.

If you have a gram scale and want to try twice a day scheduling, weight management, or need the motivation for advanced flight training, let me know and I can explain how to go about those. But the above mentioned method is harmless to try and can hint on whether or not managing food can be helpful.

[rebeccaturpeinen]

Thanks for the advice!!

Pchela, I know what Jo's favourite treat is; definitly sun flower seeds, she loooooves them. And she will come get them from me, and will step up on a perch that Im holding and will target too but as soon as it gets a little more complicated like stepping up on my hand instead of the perch she just isnt interested anymore and I cant even bribe her with a sunflower seed. I really need her to start stepping up on my hand so I can continue with other things like letting me touch her, I dont want her to miss out on all the socialising. I would love it if we could get to stage where she would just sit on my shoulder a bit and hang out with. I dont think she is really scared of me, just isnt so sure about all the touching but I am sure she would love the human contact once she experiences it.

Michael, thanks for your input. I dont have a gram scale so I am starting off with the mild version. I am very curious and excited about how this is going to work. Would you advice only giving her pellets in her cage, nothing else? She now also gets fruit wich is given at random times of the day.

Wish us luck!!

[Michael]

Yeah, I totally recommend 50-80% of diet in the cage and as pellets. And serving fresh foods (only assuming they are liked) outside the cage by hand either as treats or just to give you credit for it. Since you're only talking about elementary training, super high food motivation is not required. Definitely try the above mentioned method first. Work backwards from when you intend to train (I suggest before last meal of day prior to bird going to sleep) and take the food away when you get home 3-6 hours priors to that. You just need it to focus on targeting, you're not asking for it to think through puzzles or fly far for the treat so less hunger motivation is required. Once the bird knows some tricks, you can totally do one trick (like wave) for a big piece of fruit. So you're basically giving the bird the food for nothing but you still make it do something for it just so it is always used to listening to you for good stuff.

[GlassOnion]

Michael, do you feel that a strict, concrete feeding schedule has a huge impact on training? I'm reading this through and these measured guidelines are giving me a headache I do try to manage food on a less calculated measure, but I'm not seeing much of increased motivation.

[Michael]

Let's say that there are three main reasons for food management and then we can look at how they can be applied:

1) Prevent over eating and obesity related health problems
2) Reduce hormonal behavior related to abundance of food (triggered my environmental factors)
3) Behavior motivation (training, taming, and interaction you may not realize if food motivated)

Strictly for the purpose of preventing over eating, it would just be a matter of providing food 2-4 times per day for extensive periods of time but not leaving it available all the time. Diluting the diet a little bit may also help. Yes, most parrots are on poor diets but some people end up getting so worked up about it that it can be too rich. This will vary by species but I know with my guys that giving them a load of veggies for dinner instead of pellets is like giving them a reduced size portion of pellets. After eating veggies (and stuffing their crops full for that matter) they end up being more hungry come next training session and after eating pellets. So obviously most people need to improve their parrot's nutrition but for people who have them on a very rich pellet diet and feeding it all day long, it may help to reduce that a bit.

Now for training, we can look at different levels of hunger motivation required to overcome the difficulty of the task. From observation of my own parrots, this is how I see it:

1) Taming - Requires the least motivation (unless the bird is in the early stages and terrified) because things like opening the birds wings or touching its tail don't require it to spend any energy. It simply needs to overcome its fears and a little bit of treats helps. Few treats go a long way so treats alone and not eating immediately prior is sufficient.

2) Maintaining known tricks/behaviors - This requires some more motivation because it involves spending energy but since the bird already knows what to do, it may not have to be that hungry to do it a little bit for a scratch or a treat. For getting a parrot to do some known tricks or taming, making sure it didn't just eat and using a nice treat is usually enough if you're not going to repeat many times.

3) Basic trick training - Teaching to target, wave, shake, etc requires a bit more motivation than taming. The parrot actually needs to remember the behavior performed to get the treat. Also it has to spend a little energy like picking its foot up. For this kind of training, taking the food out 3-6 hours prior to training will usually suffice.

4) Advanced trick training - Teaching tricks like puzzles, matching colors, etc requires a lot of attention and motivation. I've noticed with Kili that even thought she knows the tricks, if she isn't hungry enough, she gets it wrong much more. However, when she is more hungry, she performs with better accuracy. Too hungry of course also hurts training because the bird becomes over zealous for the treats and tries all tricks in desperation and doesn't learn either. It's all about finding the optimal middle ground. For this point you'll almost definitely want to be doing twice daily feedings and building up enough time in between for there to be hunger at training to pay attention to tougher tasks.

5) Flight Training - Now the energy expense becomes so great that motivation must be high. If you want to do a lot of flight training to give the bird exercise as well as practice, it will have to be very motivated. Yes, you can get a few recalls out of a well trained parrot that just wants to hang out with you or a toy. But for the training process and for any extensive amount of flying, a bit more hunger will be needed. This is when you begin using weight management by weighing the parrot before and after meals and learning to adjust them to hit a target weight by training time. This will typically involve getting the parrot to 10-20% below free feed weight. However, I don't like using a derived number as a target weight. I just use this is a ball park and find the best weight through trial and error. I'll see what weight the parrot is prior to training on the first day, then give a little less the next day and weight at training, and less and less this way until I find which weight gives me optimal motivation and what amount of food gets me there. I use other tricks (usually something tough like puzzle or ring on peg) to test motivation for flight.

What I posted above is somewhat flexible and will depend largely on the bird. Just because I said taming can use the least food management, doesn't mean that for a certain bird it won't require twice daily meals or that some people can flight train a parrot on favorite treats alone. More importantly I showed the progression of the extent of food management. It is safest to begin with the least limiting ones and experimenting your way down the line. As long as you have a scale and can verify that your parrot is maintaining a healthy weight, it is ok to work your way down the line.

For parakeets it may not be advisable to go too far down the line on this scale because they have faster metabolisms and withholding food for 3-6 hours and millet could be enough to motivate them to do anything. So if you're thinking of flight training your cockatiel... experiment with lighter food management and find the amount that will get him to fly to you automatically when you hold a piece of millet. Don't use any more extensive food management than that and don't lure him. Teach him to target and target recall him for the treats. Proceed to a variable ratio of reward slowly but that way you can make a little hunger go a longer way.

Variable ratio reinforcement is probably why I get away with less extensive food management with Kili now than I used to use. To get her to learn the stuff, I needed the motivation to try 20-40 reps a day. But with variable ratio and the fact that I'm mainly just practicing/maintaining behaviors, instead of using 30 treats, I can get her hungry enough for just 10 treats and get just as many if not more behaviors out of her. The alternative to more extensive food management during the earlier stages of training is greater patience. Get them hungry enough for just 10 treats, practice 10 times a day and it takes 4 weeks instead of 1 week to teach the same thing. However, there comes a point where there just isn't enough motivation to learn it no matter how long you practice or the behavior falls out of practice because you don't do it enough.

Training prior to feeding is a very good idea because then there's no limit (practically) to how much treats you can use during the training session. You or the bird will lose interest before it gets full so it can fulfill its remaining hunger during its meal afterward. If you give an unlimited quantity meal until the bird walks away from it, you can be sure it's not going away hungry. This balances out that some days you may use 5 treats for training and another time 20. Well the day it had 5 it will eat more from the bowl and the day it had 20 less. The crop can only fit so much food...

Beyond the basic knowledge we can discuss here, it is highly experimental and it's important to learn by eye how much food will yield how much hunger later on for training. Variable ratio reinforcement helps stretch less hunger and fewer treats for more behaviors. It is important to make adjustments every once in a while and re-test the optimal training weight by easing off and working your way to deriving it again. Since species are different and each individual is different, the exact extent of food management needs to be tested by the trainer. However, there is no doubt that there's a good level of food management for every parrot and that if you do it right, it won't get too hungry or be harmed because it has a crop.

[coral]

oh gosh this topic again lol..