Training Birds

Training diets are shunned by many because they think it's cruel. It's important to weigh your bird every single day whether they're on a training diet or not. Weighing and tracking your bird's weight will help you ensure they're healthy and strong.

That being said, a training diet isn't intended to starve your bird. It actually accomplishes two things; it helps your bird stay motivated to train -when you train them before mealtime.

It also makes sure your bird doesn't get overweight. If you're doing a lot of training and your bird is eating full meals - they can consume too much.

Here's how it works. Let's say you normally feed your bird 10 grams of food. You want to reduce their diet by 10%, so you'd feed them 9 grams at mealtime and you make up for that 10% during training time by feeding them treats.

Your bird receives the remainder of its food from treats during the training session - you're not depriving him of any calories or nutrients.

The goal is to have a bird that is hungry enough to work for you. Some birds perform very well without being on a training diet however others need the extra motivation.

That being said, it's important to not hold so much food that your bird begins to associate hunger with you or with training. A bird that is too hungry can begin to resent you and resent training - that's certainly not the desired effect we're shooting for.

Done correctly, training diets work. For example, if your bird is sitting on a perch and he knows that you want him to step up, but he's a little bit scared. If he's hungry, and he wants the food more than he's afraid of stepping up, then he'll be more willing to step up.

Establishing a proper training schedule is essential to a productive training program.
That responsibility lies solely on your shoulders.

That means keeping training sessions short, always ending on a positive note and paying attention to your bird's physical cues.

For example, sometimes when you're training a behavior, you'll find that it's difficult for the bird. He's having trouble understanding what you want. He's having trouble physically doing the behavior. It can be exhausting for them.

When they get to this point, training stops being fun. You'll know if you are able to read your bird's physical cues, when they're done training for the day. End the session on a positive note and go back to the behavior another day.

That being said, sometimes they won't want to go back to learning that behavior. They'll just stop being interested in training all together. This is due to overtraining. Rather than continue to force the issue, make training fun.

Choose something they like to do, like spread their wings, and then reward them for that behavior. Once your bird understands one behavior, it's much easier to teach him the second behavior because he knows the rules of the game, and you've taught him that the rules of the game are fun.

Finally, it's important for you to know how to use a clicker properly. A clicker is your signal to your bird that they've performed a behavior correctly. Therefore it must be timed correctly. If you click too soon your bird is confused and if you click too late they think the signal is for a different behavior.

Now using a clicker may sound simple however it takes practice to get it right. You want to train yourself to use a clicker properly before you begin using it to train your bird.

A great way to do this is to play a game with your children or even your older family members. Grab your brother or a friend and establish in your mind a behavior that you want them to perform. Don't tell them. It could be something as simple as sitting down on the sofa.

Every time they perform a behavior that gets them closer to your goal you click. You'll be surprised how difficult this game is. It's an excellent tool to help you practice clicking and to show you how important proper clicking really is.

Training birds will be a much more effective and enjoyable practice if you know these three bird training secrets in advance.