How to Train Your Bird to engage in fun games

Many domesticated birds love to play but even playtime demands structure. Birds can learn new behaviours relatively quickly however, what makes a difference is the skill level of the trainer.

Being sensitive to your parrot's body language and creating a relaxing and comfortable setting are crucial steps in helping your bird to learn.

Here are some ways you can train your parrot to engage in fun games.

Start Easy and Build Up

If you are new to parrot training, avoid getting frustrated by starting your training with the easiest tasks.

Many animal training begins with target training as it is a very simple behaviour that teaches your pet to orient its body part towards something

Once your parrot has learned to target, the target can then be used to direct it on where you want it to go without touching it.

You can use a targeting method to teach your bird to turn in a circle, step onto a scale, step onto a hand, go into a transport crate, or step back into their enclosure.

Begin Training With The Basics

Before training your parrot, ensure it is relaxed and comfortable and identify potential reinforcers.

Reinforcers are either things or experiences your parrot seeks to acquire or engage in, like its preferred foods, Parrot Toys, or even physical affection.

You could purchase your Parrot toy packs here

Try Out Applied Behavior Analysis

Before you start training your parrot, you need to carefully evaluate the type of method you would like to use in training it. A method for training your parrot is Applied Behaviour Analysis.

Positive reinforcement is an effective training tool because it creates eager participants and fosters trust because parrots would be empowered to choose to participate. A typical example is whenever your pet presents the desired behaviour, you do something good for it like giving it a desired treat, toy, or attention

Teach Your Parrot Patience

Understanding a new behaviour hinges on the complexity of the behaviour, the comfort level of your parrot, and your skills as the trainer,

 Training in some behaviours may take a session a day for several weeks, some minutes, hours, or even weeks or months

When you use your pet's instincts to teach it tricks that would come naturally (like instead of teaching your budgerigars to talk, you teach it tricks like pushing a lever or picking up a block) then the training would be much easier for both of you.

Here are some tricks you can train your parrot to do

1. Retrieve

This can be done by putting your parrot on a small perch and offering it a small toy. If your parrot doesn’t try picking it up with its beads, try hiding a piece of food behind the bead so the bird would touch the bead with its beak. Ensure you compliment your bird and reward it every time it does that.

You could try other training activities to achieve this. However, ensure you keep repeating the method and rewarding your parrot with a compliment or treat when it executes said task.

1. Dance

Do this by turning on some music and paying attention to whether your bird moves or dances. If it does, praise it either with food or a verbal phrase.

 Continue doing this till you can get rid of the food treat and simply use a verbal cue.

Once this positive behaviour has been reinforced, your parrot would dance whenever it hears music played.

1. Wave Hello

Do this by training it to lift its foot for a treat. Once this has been mastered, move on to having it hold its foot up. Once it picks it up it can receive the treat.

Continue the first two steps for several days or weeks until it seems your parrot understands that to receive his positive reinforcement, he needs to pick up his foot and hold it in place.