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How do you get cockatoo to play

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Re: How do you get cockatoo to play

Postby Pajarita » Sat Feb 18, 2017 12:40 pm

Liz, I don't doubt for a single second that the behaviors your observed actually happened but we are not that good at completely objective observation so, sometimes, we think we see a specific purpose to a behavior but, in reality, there isn't any. And that is almost always the case with what we call playing or games. Playing is an activity that has a specific purpose: entertainment. And this is what is usually misconstrued when we observe animals because the behaviors are not for entertainment but have a specific goal if not a real purpose. Animals can be goal oriented without being purposeful. For example, a lovebird will look as if its playing when it chews paper in such a way that it makes it into a perfect long strip and then tuck this strip very carefully in between the feathers of its rump, start on another one and do the same to three or four of them, adjusting them several times just so they are secure when it flies back to its cage. It then pulls them out and chews these strips into little, teeny confetti which it will deposit inside the nest. This entire rather complex behavior has a specific goal: that of preparing a nest by making nesting material. It also has a specific physical cause: sexual hormones. But there is no real ulterior purpose for it in the sense that the bird does not think to itself: "Oh, I would love to have a baby so I am going to make a nice 'nursery' for it by chewing strips that I will carry on my rump to the nest!". Humans have purpose for almost every voluntary action but not all animals (some do but it's almost always related to survival). And, when it comes to playing, the purpose of entertainment needs to be there for it to be actual play. It's a matter of whether there was forethought to the action and whether this forethought was nothing but entertainment that makes a behavior play or a natural (innate or instinctual) one that resembles what we would call play.
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Re: How do you get cockatoo to play

Postby Bird woman » Sat Feb 18, 2017 1:43 pm

Most of my adult too's play! I'll shoot you a video pajirta and you can post it if you want .There behaviors when playing like flinging water on me when we're playing in the water or playing chase with the ball or calling to me and hiding and then springing out at me saying peekaboo. Some love to dance and sing and when there happy they skip and hop like little children in a play yard. But I'll tell you they honestly have to be taught to play this one buddy the bare eye on the video I hope she can post has been with me less than a year and is just learning to enjoy himself. :danicing: :danicing: :danicing: BW
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Re: How do you get cockatoo to play

Postby Pajarita » Sun Feb 19, 2017 1:32 pm

For some reason, I can't post the video that BW was referring to (tried three times but I can't get it to go into my Photobucket account and I don't know why) but, on this video, Buddy is not really playing, he is re-directing aggression. He is not being entertained by the action with the cup, he is actually killing the cup and making sure it stays dead. Mind you, not that this action does not work to distract him from other, possibly bad, behavior but distraction is not necessarily entertainment. And I am sorry that you can't see the video because this is, precisely, what I was talking about before. We all tend to anthropomorphize, it's inevitable. We, as humans, see a behavior and our brain, trying to figure out what the bird is doing, looks for a similar occurrence within our experience and assigns it the same meaning but although the bird activity could be almost identical to a human activity, it doesn't necessarily have to have the same purpose. Buddy seems to be playing the way that we would play a game (soccer or rugby, maybe?) but it doesn't have the same purpose for the bird. He is merely hormonal and, as cockatoos get aggressive when hormonal, he is simply acting on the impulse only he is re-directing it toward the cup.

I found a couple of other videos were toos beat up stuff:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6u0zQ5VaQEg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYoc-cRHHMM
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Re: How do you get cockatoo to play

Postby liz » Mon Feb 20, 2017 7:43 am

I see no purpose for their play in the videos. Myrtle hanging from a plastic chain with one foot and swinging as high as she could does not have purpose. I understand that Rainbow, though he loves doing it, has a purpose for ripping boxes apart. Every once in a while he will ring his bell as if trying to make music or walk over to a toy that has been there for days and teach it a lesson. Tormenting me serves no purpose except to aggravate me into playing with them,
I saw a video of a crow who slid down an snowy slope on it's back then climb the slope and do it again. There was no purpose for his action.

I believe that any critter which is healthy and has his belly full will amuse himself with some kind of play.
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Re: How do you get cockatoo to play

Postby Pajarita » Mon Feb 20, 2017 2:43 pm

Well, that's the great thing about beliefs - we can all have ours!
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Re: How do you get cockatoo to play

Postby liz » Mon Feb 20, 2017 6:59 pm

Pajarita wrote:Well, that's the great thing about beliefs - we can all have ours!



Thank you. I guess I needed that.
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Re: How do you get cockatoo to play

Postby Bird woman » Sun Feb 26, 2017 2:04 pm

My birds play or at least are amusing me either way exercise is exercise . :lol: BW :danicing:
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Re: How do you get cockatoo to play

Postby Rmoses » Sun Feb 26, 2017 6:57 pm

Bird woman wrote:My birds play or at least are amusing me either way exercise is exercise . :lol: BW :danicing:

Bird woman puts on a necklace of sunflower seeds in order to get her birds to play with her. Seems to work well.
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Re: How do you get cockatoo to play

Postby liz » Mon Feb 27, 2017 6:36 am

If a bird sees his human playing with a computer key board he thinks it is a toy and will play with it. The same goes for cell phones and remote controls. There are exceptions to the destruction. I saw a video of two IRNs talking into a cell phone that was laying on a table. They knew that is how their human did it.

There was a vending machine always coming up short on money. Crows were board and found a way into the change holder. They found the quarters all laid out on a roof near there. That had no purpose.
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Gender: This parrot forum member is female
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Re: How do you get cockatoo to play

Postby Pajarita » Mon Feb 27, 2017 12:33 pm

Well, it's a well known fact that corvids are extremely curious animals who, apparently, have the need to examine and learn about anything they see so, most likely, one of them discovered by accident that they could get a coin out of the machine and the others, as curious as the first one, decided to check it out for themselves. Scientists that have observed corvids behaviors say that, in reality, it's usually only the young birds that do this but, as a juvenile bird is the same size as an adult, people who don't know think that all corvids do it. By the way, they are not really attracted to shiny objects, nor do they 'stash' little treasures, either. Both things are myths.
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