Parrot Training for New Parrot Owners
Have you just brought home a new parrot? If so, there’s no better time than now to start learning about parrot training. It doesn’t matter if you have a young bird or an older one; you can begin training right away by teaching your bird some simple behaviors. In my opinion, one of the best things you can teach your parrot is to have a reliable step up response. What this means is that your bird will step up immediately onto your hand when you give it the command to “step up.”
Why is this important? It makes it easier to take your bird from its cage, for one thing. It also helps when trying to remove the bird from a shoulder - either your own or someone else’s. When being removed from a shoulder, a few parrots may attempt to bite. However, with the step-up command this becomes less of a problem. You can imagine how helpful it would be to have a bird that willingly and easily steps up just in case your bird would ever escape and fly away by accident. Additionally, training your parrot to step up teaches it to cooperate with you at the same time. In summary, teaching a parrot to step up is a great behavior to begin its training with.
How to Teach “Step Up”
The step-up command is an easy behavior to teach your pet bird. You slowly place your hand so that it is in front of your bird at around the height of its feet and in a normal speaking tone, give the command to “step up.” Your parrot won’t know what “step up” means at first, so you might need to press your finger gently against it’s lower breast area so that it feels a little off balance. As you give a gentle nudge, your bird should willingly step onto your finger. Don’t forget to praise your bird enthusiastically once it has stepped up onto your finger. Next, continue to practice step-up a few more times by asking your bird to step up from one finger to the other. This is called “laddering” for obvious reasons.
Parrot Still Doesn’t Willingly Step Onto My Hand
There are a few particularly stubborn parrots that clamp down on the perch with their talons and hang on for dear life. Wouldn’t you love to know what is going on inside those beautiful heads of theirs? In any case, here’s a way to handle this situation that usually works. Keep your one hand in front of the bird and move your other hand behind just a few inches away. This presents the parrot with a choice - either step up to the hand in front or be scooped up from behind. Most of the time, the parrot will choose to willingly step up to your hand when presented with this choice. Remember to praise your bird when it steps up for you.
Regular Practice
Keep practicing step-up with your bird on a regular basis. Practice daily at first, and then do semi-regular practice sessions throughout the bird’s life to reinforce this behavior. If you do this, you’ll find your bird is easier to handle and it won’t be nearly as bad when the “terrible twos” hit. And there you go! You’ve just taken your first step (pun intended) towards becoming a parrot training expert.
Tags: parrot training, parrots, parrottraining