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ENRICHMENT INSPO - Foraging Introductions!
Often people are surprised when we tell them that parrots don't come with the skills to forage, these are learnt behaviours! In the wild they would learn from their parents, so it is up to us as their human caregivers, to introduce them and teach them how to forage in captivity.
Many parrots we meet in consults do not have much in the way of foraging skills and often this leads to caregivers who are not sure how to expand on and increase foraging activities for their parrots.
Foraging is an important aspect of parrot care, for more info on this topic check out our VLog on Enrichment here: https://m.facebook.com/groups/aparrotslife/permalink/3011756798872572/
Here is a quick video on how we get parrots started on foraging! Once your parrot gets the hang of this foraging gig the sky really is the limit, check out our other videos with foraging /enrichment tips and ideas in our Facebook group here!
UPCOMING - Harness Train Your Parrot Course! August 2021
Our next 'Harness Train Your Parrot' Course is set to begin on Saturday 14th August at 8am, running every Saturday at 8am for 6 weeks. To find out more about this one-of-a-kind course check our website here: https://www.parrotlife.com.au/harness-train-your-parrot
Client Testimonial: "Fantastic information, so well worth the money paid. I feel the premium participants got fantastic feedback...." "Lee adjusted the training portion to be first to give the birds the best chance of success. Her delivery was easy to understand and very
knowledgeable. Her on the spot problem solving was awesome despite being online, which is quite a difficult thing to pull off."
UPCOMING - Facebook LIVE Event! Parrot Kindergarten with Jennifer Cunha!
We are excited to have Jennifer Cunha of My Reading Pets: Learning Adventures for Bird Lovers and 'Parrot Kindergarten' joining us this coming Tuesday evening to talk all things Parrot Kindergarten!
Grab yourself a drink and settle in to hear Jen passion talk about her amazing contributions to parrot enrichment and cognition research!
This FB Live will be on Tuesday 27th July at 9pm AEST (7am EST).
This is a group EXCLUSIVE event! The live will be recorded and available for replay in the group for those who cannot make it. If you have already, you can join our group here: "A Parrot's Life"
teaching Independent play
A critical part of having a behaviourally healthy, stable parrot companion is encouraging them to play and spend time independent of their human flock members.
A lack of independence can lead to a number of issues as our parrots begin to mature including screaming/separation distress, pair bonding, aggression/biting, feather destructive behaviour and other undesirable behaviour.
You can encourage independent play through the steps outlined in our infographic below!
1) Provide plenty of play stands / play areas that are separate from their cage area. Many birds do not have anywhere to 'hang out' and be a bird when not inside their cages. This leads to the bird spending all of their time on their human flock members (or furniture / areas we rather they didn't such as curtain rods), leading to problem behaviours and co-dependency.
2) Make play areas fun and reinforcing for your bird by having foraging activities set up for them. Keep aside portions of their daily meals and/or favoured foods and hide these in foraging activities around their play stands. Make sure to switch it up regularly to keep it engaging!
3) Rotate toys and bring in fresh browse for their play areas every few days. A play area that never changes will get boring pretty quickly. We want to ensure that they have new and fun things to play with!
4) Go out of your way to actively reinforce your bird for spending time playing, foraging and hanging out on their play areas! We have a tendency to ignore our birds when they are entertaining themselves in ways we like them to and then give them lots of attention when they find other activities we don't like (chewing on furniture, flying to the curtain rods). This leads to birds who learn that the best way to get our attention is to engage in those (undesirable to us) behaviours. Be proactive and instead teach your bird that playstands = everything good in life!
Show us your birdie play areas in the comments!
Need more assistance? Check out our 'Un-velcro your Bird' talk we did recently with Robin Horemans of Canada Bird School, exclusive to our 'A Parrot's Life' Facebook group here!
FUN FACTS - BIRD EDITION!
Did you know that parrots have a unique joint, called the craniofacial hinge. This allows them to move their upper beak independently and upward in relation to the lower beak. Which allows finer dexterity in manipulating objects and increased jaw pressure to crack large, hard nuts. See a video demonstrating this here.
