Macaws:
Red Shouldered (Hahn's) Macaw
Severe Macaw
Blue And Gold Macaw
Blue Throated Macaw
Military Macaw
Red Fronted Macaw
Scarlet Macaw
Green Winged Macaw
Hyacinth Macaw
First of all I would like to thank everyone for their support who has been reading my updates about Truman's injury and recovery, all the people who posted responses, comments on youtube, discussions on The Parrot Forum, and endless private messages. Writing posts about this and all of your support is helping me cope with the entire situation. It's just really tough to watch him suffer and really not be able to do anything for him. It's mostly a factor of time and all of this writing and friendly support I am receiving is helping me pass the time in waiting for him to be better.
Before I get into the details about the vet situation, I'd like to share a bit more about how Truman is doing. Today I have noted a slight improvement over previous days this week. I hand fed him 3 times today and still he went to bed not a gram heavier than the previous nights. However, the improvement I am seeing is that by this evening he was actually demonstrating a subtle interest toward food. I noted that he had eaten a few pellets in his tub. He drank a few sips of water when I took him out. I offered him pellets, peas, broccoli, and carrots by hand. He did not really eat any of these but he did take them up in his beak and break them into smaller pieces. Most of this was coming right back out of his beak but at least he is showing some slight interest in food whereas even yesterday he wouldn't so much as look at it. This looks like a turning point and the first step to him returning to a normal feeding regime.
The hand feedings today were all slight. I've learned to make the formula thicker and have been following all sorts of advice I have been receiving. 6cc's is the most that I am getting out of the syringe and I'm lucky if half of that doesn't end up all over the place. Most of my effort goes into Truman not running or flying away from the feeding. As long as I get the stuff into his beak, for the most part he does end up swallowing it. But when I weigh him after a feeding I wonder how he could have gained so little or no weight at all from the food.
Truman seems to have two phases. Every time I come in from some absence, I always find him very mellow and squatting low on one leg. He definitely doesn't seem to be eating or playing much while I'm gone. However, as soon as he sees me, he gets up and becomes more active. He seems to be pretty active in my presence but very mellow in my absence. This is probably a good thing when it comes to letting his leg heal.
Throughout this week since Truman's Metacam crash I have been in regular contact with the Center for Avian & Exotic Medicine. Unfortunately the office manager that can authorize billing changes was unavailable throughout the week. However, I had several conversations with the nurses and one of the vets about Truman's progress. Unfortunately the results of those conversations were inconclusive but that is because for a while Truman was neither improving nor getting worse. The conclusion we have basically been reaching every time was to wait and see which direction his recovery takes. This was by no means anyone's fault, it was just that there was no point in changing his medications or stressing him by traveling to the vet again if things were not getting worse.
Finally the office manager returned today from a trip pertaining to animal rescue. She was unavailable when I called in the morning but she called me back herself a little later. Actually this is one of the things that I really appreciate from this facility. Whenever the person being reached is unable to talk, they always call back. In a world where we find ourselves talking to machines or someone abroad, this is always a welcome courtesy. The office manager called me back and we ended up talking for half an hour. The conversation began with Truman's current condition and progress and eventually led to the medication overdose and billing.
It turns out that Truman's prescription was mixed up with a rabbit's medication. They were both set to receive metacam but in slightly varying dosages and durations. Someone screwed up and misplaced the two. I joked that the poor rabbit must have only received a bird sized dose! Luckily Truman's overdose was not so tremendous but then again if they gave me a dosage suitable for a horse, bells would have been going off. The main reason I think this mix up went unnoticed was because the number of days was close (5 vs 7) and the dosages are both quite small despite the actual variation.
There is no doubt that the follow up tests and medications were good practice to verify that the overdose had not caused any substantial damage. My main concern was that I received a hefty bill that predominantly pertained to care Truman was receiving specifically in response to the medication mismatch. I felt that it was unjustified to have to pay for the damage control. I had no objection to the care he received in response to the overdose. In fact I am actually quite relieved that the vet had the competence to realize the concerns that such an overdose might raise and dealt with them appropriately.
I was very happy that the office manager was very aware of the situation and cooperative. In the course of the week I had prepared a bombardment of arguments to use but did not have to because she was being very respectful and supportive. This is good because having to try to fight for justice only leads to harder feelings. As I've stated in my original post, overall I am actually quite happy with the Center for Avian & Exotic Medicine, so I am relieved that this situation was professionally dealt with and I can continue Truman's vet care with this clinic.
Ideally the extra tests/medications should not have been charged in the first place which would have averted all the frustration, but unfortunately the office manager was out all week and the other staff could not have authorized such an amendment. It is not even that I do not want to pay for Truman's care, but rather that I felt cheated having to pay for tests to see if the mistake had caused damage. The absolute most important thing is that the overdose did not do any harm. The whole billing thing we have all the time in the world to sort out, so I'm not worried. The office manager offered to refund any fees associated with the medication issue. She made a full refund for that recent visit. I explained to her that it's not necessary to refund for Truman's new pain medication because I would have bought that for him even if the whole metacam dosage went according to plan. Yet I received a refund for the entire amount billed for the recent visit.
We also discussed whether or not I should be taking Truman outside. We reached a consensus that if done the right way, that in fact getting some air and sunlight would be beneficial to him. I have been preparing to start taking him outside for nearly two weeks now. Check back soon to find out what I had in store for him. It's something big and this next article you won't want to miss!
Before giving an overall judgment of this vet clinic, I'd prefer to wait until the completion of Truman's treatment. However, I would like to mention again that the staff are very pleasant and professional, the facilities spotless, and there exists a genuine concern for the animals' well being. I wish pet stores and companies I deal with overall could live up to these standards.
In the past few days I have been experimenting extensively with foods to see what he'll eat. Counting on him to eat his pellets himself has been futile. He may nibble on them a little bit but he hardly gets any meaningful amount into his crop though. Normally if I stick a pellet in his beak, he'll at least chew and swallow it but not now. He just spits his pellets right back out. The first time I tried to feed him oatmeal he would not eat it. Later I learned that if I force the oatmeal into his beak, then he'll swallow it but only then. He has made very little independent effort to eat food since Sunday.
With my intervention, luckily his weight has remained fairly stable in the 305-315g range. He is no longer losing any more but it's been a tough fight to get enough food into him to keep him in this weight range. Normally he drinks a lot of water and in the week prior he drank profusely. However, since the medication change he barely drinks a few sips of water a day. And I know exactly how much he drinks because I do not leave water for him in his tub. The last time I did, he knocked it over and the whole tub was flooded. Since then, I just offer him water in a dish every few hours.
Surprisingly, Truman exhibits some interest towards vegetables. I don't know if he's just playing with them as a chew toy or actually ingesting them but I do see them fairly torn up when I offer them to him. While he rejected apple sauce (human baby food) and Lafeber's, he still has a taste for nuts. I've been giving him an entire walnut (partially cracked) and several almonds every day. He's too "tired" to eat his pellets but he can work at those nuts for hours on end.
I believe that I've noticed some improvement with his bad leg. He seems to stand on both legs a bit more of the time rather than on just one alone. He has a stronger grip and I can feel more weight in the bad leg when he is standing on my hand. However, I'm not certain if perhaps this is merely because his good leg is tired so he's just balancing out the pain between the two. When I leave him alone, he squats very low, almost on his belly. He leans over on one leg and a wing. It almost looks as though he is nesting. He used to sit up higher before the medication switch so I'm not sure if this is in any way indicative of his condition or if he has just learned over time the most comfortable way to sit.
For the last few days Truman has been very flighty. He has had at least 5 flights yesterday and about as many today. A week ago I could trust him not to fly but now he takes every opportunity to fly away when I'm not looking. Just yesterday I had Kili and Truman out. I was trying to have Kili fly a recall. She wouldn't come but suddenly I felt something land on my hand as Truman flew from behind me and came to me instead. Behaviorally, Truman has shown some significant improvement in recent days but his appetite seems to have taken more of a dip. I find it strange how he can be so energetic on so little food.
I finally got in contact with Truman's breeder and she gave me recommendations about hand feeding him. I would not have a chance to get to a bird store that would sell hand feeding formula so I had it overnighted to me instead. That cost a good buck but considering how much I've put out on vet care already, this was not so extreme. I wanted to have it on hand as soon as possible in case Truman is eating poorly. If Truman's weight continues dropping, I will have to bring him back to the vet, but with my continuing efforts we have been able to avoid this for now.
The breeder instructed me to mix the formula in a cup with 2 parts water for every 1 part powder. She also suggested throwing a bit of peanut butter and Lafeber's into the mix. I have not had a chance to grab the peanut butter yet but I did add the Lafeber's for some extra nutrition. She explained to me the importance of exact temperature control so I ordered a thermometer along with syringes in that overnight package.
To make the formula, I begin by boiling water and then letting it cool for a little while. Then I pour the water into a mug and mix the powder in until it gets a muckier consistency. I keep mixing with a spoon and begin monitoring the temperature. I wait until the temperature begins dropping below 115 degrees Fahrenheit and then proceed to prepare to feed. By the time it reaches 110F, I suck it up into the syringe and offer it to Truman. Earlier today he had a really big hand fed meal but in the evening he ate much less. Most of it he shook off and it ended up on the floor and on me.
Likewise he's been annoying about taking his medication as well. He used to take it pretty eagerly but now he closes his beak, resists, and then shakes it off or spits it out. Not only does he not eat on his own but he sure makes it difficult to get stuff into him as well. Luckily (for the most part), what I can sneak into his beak, he will consume.
Here is a video of how I prepare the formula, give medication, and then handfeed the baby formula to Truman. Please do not use this video as a reference for hand feeding baby parrots and don't ask me how to. I know next to nothing about hand feeding and this is just the second time I did it on an already weened parrot.
Truman had been taking metacam for the five days since I brought him home. While he did not seem heeled by any means, he was in better spirits and a bit more active. He has been limping and his leg barely improved in a week's course. He gained a little bit of strength back in the leg but no improvement beyond that. In a midweek follow up the nurse said that this was about the progress excepted in this amount of time.
Friday was the last day I gave the medication to Truman. Over the weekend his state began a steady decline. On Saturday he seemed pretty neutral but by Sunday was slowly losing weight. I could still tell that he was eating but yet he was putting out less than he was taking in. By Monday morning his weight was very low and I began contemplating taking him to the vet. However, he did eat a little bit of pellets which was encouraging but not nearly the amount he would eat in a normal meal. I began to suspect that the quick withdrawal of the medication was making Truman feel bad again and not eat.
Thus I called the vets office to find out if this is expected upon termination of the medication. As we were talking about extending Truman's medication, there appeared to be some confusion about dosages. I was being told about lowering Truman's dosage from .1 to .05mL but I had been giving Truman 0.5mL throughout the week. At first it seemed as though I had been measuring the wrong dosage but upon further examination of the medication label, I was able to validate that in fact I was giving him the amount that was recommended to me. It turned out that the medication dosage was wrong and that Truman had been overdosing on metacam for an entire week!
The vet offered a courtesy visit to bring Truman in to check his condition. I was already contemplating whether to bring him to the vet or not so I obliged. The overdose was confirmed so they wanted to run some blood work on him to make sure it was not endangering the kidneys. Luckily it was not. Furthermore the tests showed that he was getting sufficient calcium from his diet for his fracture to heel although no significant progress has been made with that.
I am happy that the office is thoroughly working with Truman but not at all thrilled about this dosage mix up. And it's not even so much the fact that he got a larger dose, because it appears that it did not harm him (and actually he probably didn't overdose as badly as it seems cause he'd spit half the medication out and shake it all over, some landing on the floor and the rest on me), but rather that this ended up costing me big time. So while they didn't charge me for the visit, I still had to shell out a good $250 for this time alone.
The blood work to check that the overdose did not harm his systems ended up costing $112 and would not have happened if someone didn't screw up the dosage recommendations in the first place. Furthermore I had to buy a $45 medication that is supposed to help suppress the effects of the overdose. So while the other stuff I paid for might have been incurred either way, I ended up paying nearly twice as much as a vet visit just to get the whole overdose situation cleared up. While I can forgive the dosage mistake as it had not done any damage, I'm not happy to be paying an extensive bill for amending that mistake.
After the blood work, Truman needed to have a fluids injection as he hadn't been eating sufficiently. After bringing him back from the fluids injection, I took Truman out of his carrier to see how he was doing. He was bleeding profusely from the leg they did the injection to. I had to call a nurse back in to help. They don't use quick stop or anything else to stop this sort of bleeding except wiping it down and applying pressure. She applied a lot of peroxide and worked on stopping the bleeding. She told me that Truman is more sensitive and bleeds more than other birds for these kinds of procedures. Eventually the bleeding was stopped but his leg remained bruised.
On the subway ride back home, I took a peak into Truman's carrier (which I was keeping covered with a towel) and my heart nearly stopped when I saw him laying down on the bottom of the carrier with his eyes shut. He appeared dead! But then I saw an eye open and then the other. Regardless it seemed like he was on his last breath and no longer to hold up the weight of his head. I was having a panic attack and wondering if I should get off the train and catch another one back to the vet's office. I decided that I had just been there and they had given him any injections they'd give him and that they wouldn't be able to do much anyway. I figured the best thing would be to get him home to rest. As the train neared home, I spotted Truman standing up and holding his head higher. As time passed he stood better and better. I have a feeling he was just woozy from the blood loss and injections and resting his head down was the easiest way for him to balance during the turbulent train ride.
After getting him home, I immediately put Truman back in his tub and offered him pellets. He actually ate some which was a tremendous relief to me. I offered him water to drink and then even more pellets. After consuming an almond and some more water, Truman had brought his weight back up to at least his normal low weight so I was much relieved. He has had a difficult and exhausting day so I covered him to go to sleep a little earlier than usual. I just hope this new series of medications makes him better soon.
This article is about how to teach a parrot to fetch. I will only cover the bare basics and get into more advanced object retrieves another time. The basic fetch trick involves giving an object to a parrot, saying fetch, and then the parrot carries the object and drops it into a receptacle. In a later update I will cover how to get the parrot to go to retrieve the object on its own but this most basic version simply involves handing it to the parrot.
Fetch is a basic trick that can be trained to any parrot. Even parakeets can learn how to fetch. The time span for teaching this trick can vary from a few minutes to a few weeks. Typically it should take 3-7 training sessions to get the most basic version of the trick learned. It is beneficial but not absolutely necessary that the parrot knows some basic tricks like target and wave prior to learning the retrieve.
To teach the parrot to fetch is pretty straightforward and simple. You give the parrot an object to hold and then place a bowl underneath and wait for the parrot to drop it. Catch the object in the bowl, click, and reward the parrot. Over many repetitions of this process, the parrot will learn that dropping the object earns it a treat. To teach the parrot specifically to drop the object into the bowl rather than just anywhere, let it miss the bowl when it drops the object from time to time and don't reward. This narrows down the demands specifically to dropping the object into the bowl.
While the first few training sessions simply involve dropping the object straight down or a slight turn of the head, you should eventually work on having the parrot walk across a perch to take the object from you and then to walk some more to drop it. I highly recommend using Parrot Training Perches for the initial training of this trick. By using this kind of stand you can eliminate distractions and alternate paths of travel. The parrot can pay attention to you and since it can only walk in two directions, increases the likelihood that it will bring the object toward the bowl rather than run off with it.
Here is video footage of the original training sessions of how I taught Truman the basics of fetch in just 3 training sessions:
One problem that I encountered while training Truman is that he really enjoyed playing with the objects I gave him. In fact he enjoyed playing with them more than performing the trick. There are several methods for dealing with this kind of situation. First off, let the parrot get it out of its system. Let it play with the objects a bunch so that they become less novel. The parrot still has to be interested enough in the object to grab it but not wanting to play with it all day. Another thing you can do with a parrot that doesn't seem to want to drop the object is to offer it an even better toy to play with in return for dropping it. Often times just showing the parrot a cooler toy will make it drop what it is holding to take the new one. The new one becomes the positive reinforcement reward. The method is differential reinforcement where the new object has more value than the old one so it is worth working harder for the better object.
I did not run into this problem here but I know other people will. On the flip side of a parrot that won't let go of an object is one that won't hold it in the first place. Those parrots require a somewhat different approach. First try to experiment with different objects and see if you can find at least something that the bird will hold on to. If all fails, then try this. Use the target training method to teach the bird to target to the fetching object. Play target with the object a bit and let the parrot get used to going for the object. As the parrot puts its beak on the object, let go a bit and let it pull it out of your fingers. Click and reward this. So at first teach the parrot to pull the object out of your hand. Then start rewarding the times the bird holds the object for longer. At first it might just be a quarter second, then a half. Always reward the best times and ignore the worst ones. If the parrot at least holds the object long enough to fling it, you can use the fetch training method mentioned above (reward falling in bowl, ignore miss). The parrot will begin to learn to hold the object at least long enough to get it to the bowl.
Another issue you may run into is the parrot dropping the objects on purpose. It is important not to reinforce this. Don't immediately bend over to pick up what it dropped and try again. This can turn into a game where the parrot drops the object just to watch you picking it up again. Whenever the parrot drops an object or misses the bowl, turn around and ignore the bird briefly. It is best not to bend over and pick up the object but rather pull out a spare. Pick up the dropped object a bit later.
Once your parrot learns to take the object from you, walk over to the bowl, and drop it, it will have learned the simplest basics of fetch. However, do not stop here. Continue challenging your bird. Use alternative objects for the parrot to fetch as well as alternative receptacles. I recommend starting out with a very large bowl so it's hard to miss but then narrowing down to smaller and smaller ones to develop accuracy. Also change the direction where the parrot has to go to fetch. Don't let it get in a habit of walk left to pick up, right to drop. The parrot might not learn the actual concept then and would just be repeating motions. Instead, keep mixing up the direction but keep the concept of dropping objects into bowl the goal. I begin saying "fetch" from the first time I introduce the trick to the parrot. The earlier you start using the cue, the sooner the bird will pick it up. While it may seem strange to say "fetch" when the bird has no idea what the trick is and just holds the object to play, it just sets the training up and prepares it for hearing that cue once it catches on to the behavior.
This is just the very first stage of teaching the retrieve. Stay tuned for more updates about how to teach a parrot to fetch objects. I have been successful in using this method to train a Budgerigar, Senegal Parrot, and Cape Parrot to learn to fetch. I couldn't see why a Cockatiel, Conure, Amazon, or Macaw couldn't learn to fetch the same exact way. If you have any further questions, feel free to post in the comments or join the discussion on the parrot forum.
My World Record 20 Parrot Tricks in 2 Minutes has now received over one million views on youtube. I would like to thank everyone who watched that and my other parrot videos. But most of all, I would like to thank my regular readers and youtube viewers because if it weren't for them, I wouldn't be making all of these videos. It is because of their continual support that I have been motivated to put in all the work of capturing and presenting the parrot training that I normally do for my own pleasure anyway.
Actually, the footage was seen much more than a million times. Between all the unauthorized copies of the video floating around the internet and the fact that it was featured on Japanese television, I wouldn't be surprised if it had been viewed at least another half of that outside of my youtube channel (or more, really not possible to count). Here is a small selection of websites the twenty parrot tricks in two minutes video was featured on:
I'd like to answer a few of the frequent questions I received about the video. I am going to try to paraphrase them from memory:
How long did it take to teach Kili 20 tricks for the video?
The video was taken in early January of 2010 while I acquired Kili in September of 2008. This would mean that I would have had Kili for about a year and four months by the time the video was recorded. Considering I didn't start training her immediately and that she had known these tricks for some months before I made the complete video, basically it took one year of consistent training to get her to that point. I estimate an average of an hour of training per day across that range would mean that I spent around 500 hours training her to be able to do that. Please don't forget that she knew 25 or closer to 30 behaviors by that point but I chose not to include some for lack of time.
Why did you choose to do 20 tricks in 2 minutes?
I wanted to create a high paced medley to show all of the tricks that Kili knew up till that point. I was having a hard time counting how many tricks she knew in total but I was certain she knew at least 20. I thought it would sound nice to do 20 tricks in 2 minutes and I knew it couldn't take much longer or I'd lose the viewers' attention span. So I simply set this as my goal and attempted it. I had no idea if it was possible or not until I began rehearsing it and doing some time trials with Kili. Originally it was taking closer to 3 minutes but with mistakes here and there so I was convinced that if I could move quickly and organize all of the props in order, I would be able to make it in 2.
How many takes did it require to make the video
It took around 30 tries to get the performance required and in time. One of the difficulties was that she would have to do all 20 tricks accurately and quickly. If she messed up just one trick, whether in the beginning or the end of a run, the entire video was compromised. I wanted to show the entire sequence in a single uncut video so that people could see that a single parrot really did all those tricks in such a short time and without any fancy editing.
What was the hardest part about making the 20 parrot tricks in 2 minutes video?
Actually, believe it or not, the hardest part was for me to remember the order of all the tricks I had to cue Kili and when I could give her treats. I made a list of the tricks in order and highlighted the ones when there would be time to give her a treat. Unfortunately it wasn't big enough and I couldn't see it while I performed it. So I was messing up a lot at first with the order and that was slowing me down. One of the reasons we had to practice a lot was so that I could get the order right. Also I wanted Kili to get a bit accustomed to the order so she would be able to do it quicker as well. She was actually performing very well at first but beginning to lose focus by the time I got the take I would use. This is why I was caught assisting her with hand cues on a couple of the tricks cause it was the only way I could encourage her to do them quicker. I think it was on wings and turn around that I showed a hand cue in addition to verbal. In earlier takes I had her doing them strictly off the verbal cue but by the take I used, she wasn't opening her wings wide enough unless I showed her the signal.
The training was complete by this point and Kili knew all the tricks well. The challenge was sooner to have her stay focused and perform quickly rather than demonstrate knowledge of the tricks themselves. Under a little bit less pressure and slower pace, Kili was able to perform all the tricks flawlessly. In fact I was a bit peeved that she did a fantastic run during practice but then wasn't doing as well for the video. There were a couple rough spots in the routine that ended up in the video. I would have liked to have perfected those but I was really tired and so was Kili after so many takes. I really didn't want to have to leave all the props out in their spots for yet another day so once I got a workable run through, I decided to call it quits.
What's the song in the background? Was it playing during recording?
The song is called Paradigm Shift by Liquid Tension Experiment. They are an instrumental offshoot from Dream Theater and make some incredible music. I chose the song to match the high paced excitement of doing the routine so quickly. The music was not playing during recording but was mixed in afterward. While the distraction may have been a concern, it was mainly that it sounds better if mixed on computer rather than through the microphone. I have trained Kili in the past with music playing or noisy environments so I know that she could do it. As long as she can see me and hear the cues she will perform if she is motivated enough.
Who was holding the camera?
My then girlfriend, Kathleen helped me record the video. Following all of the action was no less of a challenge than performing the routine with Kili itself. I configured all the tricks around a semicircle so that the camera could follow me and the bird around and have the tricks be sequential. This was the only way to keep things moving quickly and show it all uncut. It took several takes to learn the camera tracking but fortunately that was perfected by the time the bird improved at the routine.
Did you intend for the 20 parrot tricks video to become this famous?
While I didn't have specific intentions or guesses at the magnitude of the popularity, I did hope this would be my most popular video. I was actually pretty disappointed that my Flighted Parrot Tricks Medley did not become popular. That was a well developed video that demonstrated a lot of advanced tricks involving flight but for some reason it just did not take off. It was meant to replace my Play Dead and Other Tricks video as an update of Kili's talents but just wasn't happening. So I set out to make an even more awe inspiring video.
Surprisingly, the 20 parrot tricks in 2 minutes video didn't take off immediately either. Viewers liked it but didn't really give it much thought. It took over half a year until the video got really noticed and went viral on the internet. Now people are acting like they made an incredible discovery when they post the link. But really the video has been around a while and just wasn't so noticed before. Also it by no means Kili's most complicated video. I have videos where Kili does a four piece puzzle and another where she does 4 rings on peg by color. And these videos came way before 20 parrot tricks. So in some ways I actually had to dumb down her routine in order to be able to meet the target 2 minute time frame. I couldn't show the puzzle because it takes nearly a minute for her to complete. I reduced the rings on peg by color to just 2 for the video so that it still demonstrates a knowledge of colors but eliminates the delay.
What treats are you feeding the parrot?
She likes many foods so I can use any of a number of things. Often I just giver her seeds and stuff out of a typical parrot seed mix. Other times I'll give her apple, banana, almonds, peanuts, oatmeal, bread, popcorn, or even pellets as treats. She's not that picky. She just likes getting rewarded. However, in the video I think I mainly used little peanut crumbs as treats because they were the fastest treat she could swallow whole and yet motivating enough for her to work for them.
Why did she take so long to flip the card?
The issue was that it was getting too repetitive. I had run through the entire routine with her many times trying to improve the timing or get a perfect take. She was figuring out on which tricks she was getting the treats and which ones she wasn't. She knew damn sure she was not getting it after the card so she didn't want to do it. I later began making the rewards more random but it was still difficult to do because there were certain tricks I couldn't reward after in order to maintain the flow. The ideal way to do this is to practice with the treats coming completing at random so that the parrot has to attempt all the tricks to see when it gets the rewards.
Is your parrot special or can any parrot do tricks like this?
I don't believe that Kili was born with any special capabilities that any other Senegal Parrot would lack. She's a pretty ordinary parrot but I just took the time to teach her one trick after another. I'm not sure how the speed would work with other species but I think any parrot can learn 20 tricks. Duke the budgie had learned over 10 tricks and demonstrated 8 in under a minute. So if a parakeet can learn so many tricks, I don't see why any parrot couldn't do at least the same.
Is the world record official? Is it in the Guinness Book of World Records?
No, it's not an official. I don't know of any record keeping in regards to parrots anyway. I simply thought it would be cool to call it that because I have never seen any parrot come even close. I have not met or seen a video of another parrot that could do 20 tricks period, let alone all 20 in just 2 minutes. Most parrots used in shows are actually far less skilled. They are often taught just a few tricks and then they interchange parrots based on the trick they want. However, with Kili I wanted to show that a single parrot can know so many tricks and do any of them on cue. If anyone knows of a parrot that can do more than 20 tricks and/or quicker than in 2 minutes, I would definitely like to know.
So what's next? Are you going to try to beat your own record?
I am putting a lot of focus into training Truman right now and would like him to eventually be capable of the same routine. There are some new tricks I am testing on Kili but in the future I would like to do 15 tricks in 1 minute and using only a single treat. This wouldn't be a greater number of tricks shown but would demonstrate a quicker pace, fewer mistakes, and variable ratio reinforcement at its max. Ideally I'd like her to do the tricks for the sake of doing the tricks.
How can I teach my parrot the 20 parrot tricks in 2 minutes routine?
Well you've come just to the right place. I started the Trained Parrot Blog to share with everyone (for free) how I teach Truman all of the same tricks from the very start. You see with Kili, I never really recorded the training sessions. She was my first experience so I really didn't even know if the tricks would work. I simply recorded results as they came. However, having succeeded with Kili and Duke, I feel that these same techniques should work on Truman. He's become used to cameras/lights from the day I got him so he's by no means camera shy. I simply record all of my training sessions and then share the results here on my blog. So keep checking back and I will show you how I train Truman the 20 tricks routine all from scratch. There's no need to spend a fortune on books, dvds, seminars, or online programs because I'm willing to show you how I do it just for the hell of it. Feel free to subscribe to the blog so that you can receive email updates when new articles come out. I would recommend you get a set of parrot training perches because they make training much easier (particularly for flight) and you can see that I used one for the first portion of my trick routine in the video.
Trained Parrot is a blog about how to train tricks to all parrots and parakeets. Read about how I teach tricks to Truman the Brown Necked Cape Parrot including flight recall, shake, wave, nod, turn around, fetch, wings, and play dead. Learn how you can train tricks to your Parrot, Parrotlet, Parakeet, Lovebird, Cockatiel, Conure, African Grey, Amazon, Cockatoo or Macaw. This blog is better than books or DVDs because the information is real, live, and completely free of charge. If you want to know how to teach your parrot tricks then you will enjoy this free parrot training tutorial.
Trained Parrot site content Copyright 2010-2020 Michael Sazhin. Reproduction of text, images, or videos without prior permission prohibited. All rights reserved.
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