Well, I'm back posting... I feel bad for neglecting this blog, but have found that training myself (going back to school) has been taking priority over a lot of things in my life.
Birds update:
Darwin is off medication for his seizures, and seems to be doing ok. He still loves to annoy the big birds.
Lucha is still the handsome green boy. He is getting better at allowing me to touch him below the neck, but still on his terms.
Marnie is finally getting all her primaries grown in. She has been flying occasionally and is getting stronger. I am looking forward to try and teach her to recall.
Puff went through a phase of only wanting to step up onto the perch and would remove flesh from my hands... but now he's back wanting to step up onto my hands.
Silver came into our lives in harm, and passed on knowing the best of what birds should have without being able to return her to the wild.
Mobie recently came into our lives last week. She is a 15+yr old African Grey. Her owners loved her very much, but realised that with one of them terminally ill (he since passed) and in their 70's it was time to find Mobie a forever home.
She's a great little gal, who is happily hanging out on the playscape, eating good foods, and stepping up for me.
So there's an update, hopefully it won't be too long till the next one, but no guarantees as the spring semester starts!
Showing posts with label Lucha. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lucha. Show all posts
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Playscape Additions
Birds in the wild do not spend all day hanging out in the same tree... no matter how enriching that tree may be, so I have always thought that my own captive birds should not spend all day in or around their "tree" or in this case cage.
Now my birds all have cages that are larger than most would provide for their species, with a variety of perches, toys, foraging opportunities etc etc... but lets face it... if we had to live in our bedrooms all day, every day we would get pretty bored, no matter how nice our decorations are.
Because of this I have over the years been developing, improving and expanding what I like to call their "playscape". It started off as a single manzanita playgym and has now developed into a manzanita play gym, a HQ metal play gym, a starbird climbing net. All of these are enhanced with various toys, foraging opportunities and boings. All of which are rotated and moved regularly to present new challenges.
My birds all love this playscape and make full use of it, but I am always looking for ways to improve it.
One of the ways I have been wanting to improve it is to add something which would allow a) a place to have a bird bath, b) a flat perching surface and c) new foraging opportunities.
Last week I found just the right piece to add. While wondering around Walmart I came across a bathroom organizer (one of the shelves which go around and over a toilet) which was marked down to $10. The shelves were wire bars of about 3/4 to 1" spacing.
I brought it home and and assembled it to add into the playscape. The height was perfect and allowed for me to put my Austin Air Cleaner underneath to save some space.
The bars allowed me to add in foraging toys which were designed to be fixed onto the side of a cage. The flat shelves allowed me to add a large flat dog bowl as a bathing dish (I use a plastic one with a rubber base to prevent slipping). Finally the bars on the shelves and the struts of the main frame allow me to attach hanging foraging toys, foot toys and other fun things.
This new addition to the playscape has gone down very well with Marnie and Lucha who will spend hours moving around it and exploring. Puff is still a little nervous of it, but given time I am sure he will come around to it.
The important thing to take away from this is that you never know when you will find a chance to enrich your birds lives further. Whenever I go to a store, yard sale, farmers market, on craigslist I am always looking at things with the birds in mind, and have found a number of great deals. All my birds love their stainless steel measuring spoons that cost me $1 from Walmart. The childrens links that I buy in bags of 30 from Target for $5 have made life so much easier by using them to hang toys... this way I never have to worry about the link not fitting around the larger bars, or having to mess with tightening or loosening links when a bird is threatening to remove my hand.
The new addition to the playscape with the air filter below it. On the shelves are the bird bath, toys and of course my grey Marnie
Now my birds all have cages that are larger than most would provide for their species, with a variety of perches, toys, foraging opportunities etc etc... but lets face it... if we had to live in our bedrooms all day, every day we would get pretty bored, no matter how nice our decorations are.
Because of this I have over the years been developing, improving and expanding what I like to call their "playscape". It started off as a single manzanita playgym and has now developed into a manzanita play gym, a HQ metal play gym, a starbird climbing net. All of these are enhanced with various toys, foraging opportunities and boings. All of which are rotated and moved regularly to present new challenges.
My birds all love this playscape and make full use of it, but I am always looking for ways to improve it.
One of the ways I have been wanting to improve it is to add something which would allow a) a place to have a bird bath, b) a flat perching surface and c) new foraging opportunities.
Last week I found just the right piece to add. While wondering around Walmart I came across a bathroom organizer (one of the shelves which go around and over a toilet) which was marked down to $10. The shelves were wire bars of about 3/4 to 1" spacing.
I brought it home and and assembled it to add into the playscape. The height was perfect and allowed for me to put my Austin Air Cleaner underneath to save some space.
The bars allowed me to add in foraging toys which were designed to be fixed onto the side of a cage. The flat shelves allowed me to add a large flat dog bowl as a bathing dish (I use a plastic one with a rubber base to prevent slipping). Finally the bars on the shelves and the struts of the main frame allow me to attach hanging foraging toys, foot toys and other fun things.
This new addition to the playscape has gone down very well with Marnie and Lucha who will spend hours moving around it and exploring. Puff is still a little nervous of it, but given time I am sure he will come around to it.
The important thing to take away from this is that you never know when you will find a chance to enrich your birds lives further. Whenever I go to a store, yard sale, farmers market, on craigslist I am always looking at things with the birds in mind, and have found a number of great deals. All my birds love their stainless steel measuring spoons that cost me $1 from Walmart. The childrens links that I buy in bags of 30 from Target for $5 have made life so much easier by using them to hang toys... this way I never have to worry about the link not fitting around the larger bars, or having to mess with tightening or loosening links when a bird is threatening to remove my hand.
The new addition to the playscape with the air filter below it. On the shelves are the bird bath, toys and of course my grey Marnie
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Browse of Various Kinds
Today was a good day for my birds... or maybe that should be a good day for me being able to enrich my birds?
For some reason I have lived in the same condo complex for nearly 5 years and never registered that just over the fence by the flood pond is a lot of bamboo... and when I mean a lot I mean 20ft by 20ft of it. It's never sprayed on either side, and conveniently lower branches hang over the fence within grabbing distance. Today, when walking my Dachshund Mina, I finally noticed it!
I pulled several branches/tops down and snapped them off, returning to the house with a good handful. Now all my birds have fresh bamboo browse to destroy in their cages. Tomorrow I think I shall gather some to add to their playscape.
Bamboo is awesome stuff where birds are concerned. The thicker parts can be cut up to make foraging toys, wedged between cage bars to form perches, or can be placed between bars to be shredded. The frondier end pieces can be woven through the cage bars to provide shredding goodness for all sized birds.
After my good fortune (and guilt at not noticing it earlier) with the bamboo I set about making a batch of chop and freeze. This is a time saving mix of veggies, dried fruits, nuts, herbs, grains and legumes which is hacked, mixed and then frozen. A couple of hours of making it one day, leaves you with weeks if not months worth of quick foods for when schedules are tight. I like to break mine up with bird bread, fruits, fresh veggies and a little of whatever I am eating if bird healthy.
This most recent batch consisted of: Mustard greens, red kale, dandelion greens, yellow bell pepper, courgettes, carrots, quinoa, a bean mix, millet, dried amarillo chili peppers, dried goji berries, dried apricot, dried pineapple, dried mango, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, pine nuts, chamomile, red leaf raspberry, hibiscus, spearmint, flax seeds, OptOmega oil and Palm Oil. All organic of course.
The thing I really love about doing it in this way is that it can be made of whatever organic produce you can get at the time; No mustard greens? Use some collard greens instead. Can't find fresh chili peppers? Use dried instead. This way not only can you support seasonal produce, but you can also provide your bird with something new every batch. Indeed, every meal they get of it will be different in it's balance of ingredients.
You can increase the enrichment factor by not making all the ingredients of uniform size. Carrots for example can be put in whole, sticks, chunks and circles. Each requiring a slightly different approach from the bird to eat.
My top reason for doing this chop? My birds on the kitchen counter "helping"! In the case of my CAG Marnie it is stealing large amounts of goodies and then getting mad when I make her give most of it back to put in the mix. Lucha the amazon will instead gently take small pieces of chopped up foods and eat it off to one side. A highly enriching past time for both!
When doing this chop mix I always put some of the ingredients to one side for separate enrichment uses. Today a couple of mustard green leaves and carrots were kept back and hung on a stainless steel skewer.
For some reason I have lived in the same condo complex for nearly 5 years and never registered that just over the fence by the flood pond is a lot of bamboo... and when I mean a lot I mean 20ft by 20ft of it. It's never sprayed on either side, and conveniently lower branches hang over the fence within grabbing distance. Today, when walking my Dachshund Mina, I finally noticed it!
I pulled several branches/tops down and snapped them off, returning to the house with a good handful. Now all my birds have fresh bamboo browse to destroy in their cages. Tomorrow I think I shall gather some to add to their playscape.
Bamboo is awesome stuff where birds are concerned. The thicker parts can be cut up to make foraging toys, wedged between cage bars to form perches, or can be placed between bars to be shredded. The frondier end pieces can be woven through the cage bars to provide shredding goodness for all sized birds.
After my good fortune (and guilt at not noticing it earlier) with the bamboo I set about making a batch of chop and freeze. This is a time saving mix of veggies, dried fruits, nuts, herbs, grains and legumes which is hacked, mixed and then frozen. A couple of hours of making it one day, leaves you with weeks if not months worth of quick foods for when schedules are tight. I like to break mine up with bird bread, fruits, fresh veggies and a little of whatever I am eating if bird healthy.
This most recent batch consisted of: Mustard greens, red kale, dandelion greens, yellow bell pepper, courgettes, carrots, quinoa, a bean mix, millet, dried amarillo chili peppers, dried goji berries, dried apricot, dried pineapple, dried mango, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, pine nuts, chamomile, red leaf raspberry, hibiscus, spearmint, flax seeds, OptOmega oil and Palm Oil. All organic of course.
The thing I really love about doing it in this way is that it can be made of whatever organic produce you can get at the time; No mustard greens? Use some collard greens instead. Can't find fresh chili peppers? Use dried instead. This way not only can you support seasonal produce, but you can also provide your bird with something new every batch. Indeed, every meal they get of it will be different in it's balance of ingredients.
You can increase the enrichment factor by not making all the ingredients of uniform size. Carrots for example can be put in whole, sticks, chunks and circles. Each requiring a slightly different approach from the bird to eat.
My top reason for doing this chop? My birds on the kitchen counter "helping"! In the case of my CAG Marnie it is stealing large amounts of goodies and then getting mad when I make her give most of it back to put in the mix. Lucha the amazon will instead gently take small pieces of chopped up foods and eat it off to one side. A highly enriching past time for both!
When doing this chop mix I always put some of the ingredients to one side for separate enrichment uses. Today a couple of mustard green leaves and carrots were kept back and hung on a stainless steel skewer.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Hand Fed Offers No Guarantees
I have been hearing a lot lately of people saying "I don't want an older bird because it might have been wild caught, I want a hand fed one so it will be friendly"
Sitting here watching Marnie ( 8yr hand fed CAG), Puff (10 yr hand fed CAG) and Lucha (30+ yr wild caught Lilac Crowned Amazon) on the playscape, it strikes me that this is a hugely over simplified view.
Hand fed does not guarantee a friendly bird, no more than being wild caught means a mean one.
I have three excellent examples right in front of me; Puff, Marnie and Lucha.
The easiest and without doubt "friendliest" bird is Marnie, who was hand fed, was treated well all her life and is friendly with others (as long as I am not there).
Now if one followed the quote in the opening sentence then the next "friendliest" bird is Puff... WRONG! The next one would be Lucha, who was wild caught, brought into the USA and had not had the best of lives... however with patience and positive reinforcement is a very sweet bird, who actively seeks attention and whose idea of heaven is a beak rub. Now I'll admit he will bite if you ignore his extended warnings and touch him below the shoulders, but on the whole that's not a major thing.
The least "friendly" bird is Puff, who was hand fed and then had a series of mistakes and bad attempts at "training" which saw him turn from an inquisitive little grey ball of fluff into a mistrusting, bite first find out what the human wants later guy. This is not his fault, and he is making slow progress now he's in a calm, enriching environment where he is allowed to make choices in his interactions with humans. The other day the stood on his door perch waggling his leg and saying "step up?" while I was getting the others out onto the playscape. Needless to say I wanted to ruffle his head feathers and kiss his beak (just as Marnie loves)... but I contained myself knowing that with Puff such an action would result in removal of one or more features of my face.
Now I know some folks are now saying "Ahh but these were rescues, a hand fed baby is something completely different"... well not so! My friend Emily's female Eclectus Cah'ya was a hand fed baby and was far from a sweet hand tamed baby... and she was raised by a first class breeder.
So what is the whole point of this post?
People should judge each bird on it's own personality, behavior etc... not by whether it was wild caught, hand fed, old, young, rescue, specific species, brand new baby or for any other generalised catch all.
By being open and allowing each bird to stand on it's own merit and get to know you, you will greatly increase the chance of finding the best companion bird for you... and maybe where you would least expect it
Sitting here watching Marnie ( 8yr hand fed CAG), Puff (10 yr hand fed CAG) and Lucha (30+ yr wild caught Lilac Crowned Amazon) on the playscape, it strikes me that this is a hugely over simplified view.
Hand fed does not guarantee a friendly bird, no more than being wild caught means a mean one.
I have three excellent examples right in front of me; Puff, Marnie and Lucha.
The easiest and without doubt "friendliest" bird is Marnie, who was hand fed, was treated well all her life and is friendly with others (as long as I am not there).
Now if one followed the quote in the opening sentence then the next "friendliest" bird is Puff... WRONG! The next one would be Lucha, who was wild caught, brought into the USA and had not had the best of lives... however with patience and positive reinforcement is a very sweet bird, who actively seeks attention and whose idea of heaven is a beak rub. Now I'll admit he will bite if you ignore his extended warnings and touch him below the shoulders, but on the whole that's not a major thing.
The least "friendly" bird is Puff, who was hand fed and then had a series of mistakes and bad attempts at "training" which saw him turn from an inquisitive little grey ball of fluff into a mistrusting, bite first find out what the human wants later guy. This is not his fault, and he is making slow progress now he's in a calm, enriching environment where he is allowed to make choices in his interactions with humans. The other day the stood on his door perch waggling his leg and saying "step up?" while I was getting the others out onto the playscape. Needless to say I wanted to ruffle his head feathers and kiss his beak (just as Marnie loves)... but I contained myself knowing that with Puff such an action would result in removal of one or more features of my face.
Now I know some folks are now saying "Ahh but these were rescues, a hand fed baby is something completely different"... well not so! My friend Emily's female Eclectus Cah'ya was a hand fed baby and was far from a sweet hand tamed baby... and she was raised by a first class breeder.
So what is the whole point of this post?
People should judge each bird on it's own personality, behavior etc... not by whether it was wild caught, hand fed, old, young, rescue, specific species, brand new baby or for any other generalised catch all.
By being open and allowing each bird to stand on it's own merit and get to know you, you will greatly increase the chance of finding the best companion bird for you... and maybe where you would least expect it
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Training with Positive Reinforcement is Positive Reinforcement to Me!
I really love working with my animals using positive reinforcement.
Although working out how to reinforce my leopard geckos in such a way that they associate the behavior with the food is a challenge, it's still a lot of fun. I'm working on training my fat boy leo Samir to walk onto a scale at the moment. So far I've been concentrating on desensitizing him to the scale in his tank, but eventually I plan to feed his mealworms only on the scales surface, so he associates going on the tank with yummy, wiggly mealies.
Today I was working again with my African Grey Marnie. I have been slowly working on recall with her as she has finally grown in some primaries on the damaged wing. She normally picks up behaviors quickly, but for her this behavior has been a challenge. She normally only flies because she's spooking at something, so the concept of flying because she wants too is foreign to her. Still we have slowly been working on her stepping out onto my palm and gradually increasing the distance my palm is from the training perch. Now she is leaning forward and catching her beak on my thumb and helping herself over to the hand with a little flap of the wings.
Marnie works best with a lot of excited verbal encouragement when she is hesitating, so my neighbours quite often hear me through the screen on my patio saying "Hi Baby! Marnie Baby! Ready!! Come Here!!!!!" in a high pitched squeaky voice.
Lucha was already put up for the night when I was working with Marnie (he's an old man who likes to go to sleep with the sun), Puff ended up alone on the playscape. It was interesting to see him with his eyes glued on Marnie and I.
When he first came he was fascinated by Marnie interacting with me, and I credit this version of the Model/Rival method with teaching him to trust me and to step up.
He's been a little disinterested for a while, and has been a little sticky in training. For example he has been holding out for an almond in the shell before he would step up from the playscape.
Tonight however I put Marnie up for the night after our training session and heard repeated "step up?" coming from the playscape. Without getting any treat, I walked over to the playscape. Puff rushed over to where I was standing and presented his foot, stepped up and went back to his cage with zero clicking or eye pinning!
All in all today has been hugely rewarding for me, and yet another reason why I will continue to work with my animals using positive reinforcement.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Introductions and Updates
Well, I must apologise for how long it's taken for me to get back posting here.
For nearly two months I have barely been online due to a very nasty ear infection that due to my medications, health issues and history, I was not able to overcome.
I had surgery a couple of weeks ago to hopefully fix the problem. This means I can now get online without getting nauseous! WOOHOO!
Sooooo here are some updates on the birds and their training... I will admit that training took a back burner when I was sick as I noticed that my observation and reaction skills were poor and I was hampering new behavior training efforts.
Marnie
Marnie has been maintaining her already learned behaviors well and is always ready to offer a wave if there is a pecan in sight.
She's been doing well with learning veterinary behaviors and was recently used as demo bird at a meeting of the Austin Parrot Society which concentrated on avian emergency care.
She has also been getting better about stepping up for other people.
Lucha
Lucha is still the King of the Puffy Dance. Training sessions with him have to be very short as after any more than 5 minutes the feathers start fluffing and the whining starts and within a few seconds I am being displayed at.
We have made some small handling breakthroughs though! Lucha has never allowed me to touch him below the neck without a warning growl followed by a bite. But recently he has been tolerating quick, gentle touches of the back without giving any warnings.
Darwin
Darwin is one hot mess of a bird.
After having weekly seizures of varying severity and lots of testing he has been officially diagnosed as having idiopathic epilepsy. Normal treatment is phenobarbitol, but we are trying to steer clear of that for as long as possible.
Close observation helped me realise that the seizures were normally following a stressful situation like the big birds squabbling, a loud noise or a blood draw. So, I have been trying to maintain a calm, stress free environment in the home to prevent the seizures. So far I have been somewhat successful, although it's hard to do as Darwin can be an instigator of stress a lot of the time.
Training new behaviors has become a challenge. If he gets to that point where he is not sure what you are asking of him and starts throwing out behaviors to see what gets him reinforced, it seems like he overloads his brain and he will have a small seizure. Established behaviors are not an issue and Darwin still recalls like a champ if there is a treat available.
And introducing...
Pip
Pip is a Black Capped Caique that I am fostering for Wings of Love Bird Haven. He came to me because he allegedly hated men... but I have not seen this at all! Infact Pip is one of the most social birds I have ever met. He happily steps up to everyone (male or female) with a cheery "Heeelooo".
Good news is that since being with me he has stopped the over preening and is slowely filling in his feathers.
A typical Caique he is very active and loves to hair surf... he also eats ANYTHING you offer him.
Pip is available for adoption through Bird Haven.
Puff
Puff was originally adopted from Bird Haven to a home in Austin last year. Unfortunately a combination of his fear, some bad advice and health problems in the family meant that he was returned to the Haven.
I picked him up about 6 weeks ago and have been slowly working with him since.
I first met Puff at Barbara Heidenreichs Workshop in Austin last year and he was already avoiding being handled. He responded well to Barbara targeting him around the cage though... so I was confident that he would learn to step up and have more trust in humans.
For the first couple of weeks I let him relax in his new big cage and get used to foraging and toys. Every time I entered the room I would walk over and offer him a treat. I then started leaving the door open so he could climb out... at first every time I came in the room he would run back in the cage, but after a couple of days he would stay on his door to get his treat.
A real breakthrough happened when I moved him into the bird room opposite Marnie... He was FASCINATED! Every interaction with Marnie was closely studied. I soon noticed this and thought here was a chance to use an adapted model/rival technique.
I started by offering them the same foraging toys. I would carefully load up Marnie's toy and then Puff's. He would watch her closely as she got out the treats and then use the same method to get into his own toy.
Normally I don't reinforce Marnie with a treat every time she steps up (because petting and spending time with me is also reinforcing for her), but with Puff watching I consitently cued, bridged and reinforced her (with his fav treat) for stepping up and down, making sure he could see well. I would then go to him and attempt the same. If he gave me his warning double click I would remove my hand and replace it with a perch (he showed no fear to this perch from the start), then repeat the cue. With in a couple of days he was jumping up on the perch on cue and from there we repeated the process onto my arm. He then went to spend the day on the play gym with Marnie and Lucha, carefully watching what Marnie was doing and eating. After about a week I started asking him to step up straight onto my arm from the play gym with immediate sucess.
Then surgery happened and Puff decided I was terrifying again (I did have a bandage around my head).
So for the past two weeks we have been slowely working back to where we were and this week he has been stepping up from the cage.
He's gradually regaining his confidence and I hope to be able to give him scritches in the future
For nearly two months I have barely been online due to a very nasty ear infection that due to my medications, health issues and history, I was not able to overcome.
I had surgery a couple of weeks ago to hopefully fix the problem. This means I can now get online without getting nauseous! WOOHOO!
Sooooo here are some updates on the birds and their training... I will admit that training took a back burner when I was sick as I noticed that my observation and reaction skills were poor and I was hampering new behavior training efforts.
Marnie
Marnie has been maintaining her already learned behaviors well and is always ready to offer a wave if there is a pecan in sight.She's been doing well with learning veterinary behaviors and was recently used as demo bird at a meeting of the Austin Parrot Society which concentrated on avian emergency care.
She has also been getting better about stepping up for other people.
Lucha
Lucha is still the King of the Puffy Dance. Training sessions with him have to be very short as after any more than 5 minutes the feathers start fluffing and the whining starts and within a few seconds I am being displayed at.We have made some small handling breakthroughs though! Lucha has never allowed me to touch him below the neck without a warning growl followed by a bite. But recently he has been tolerating quick, gentle touches of the back without giving any warnings.
Darwin
Darwin is one hot mess of a bird.After having weekly seizures of varying severity and lots of testing he has been officially diagnosed as having idiopathic epilepsy. Normal treatment is phenobarbitol, but we are trying to steer clear of that for as long as possible.
Close observation helped me realise that the seizures were normally following a stressful situation like the big birds squabbling, a loud noise or a blood draw. So, I have been trying to maintain a calm, stress free environment in the home to prevent the seizures. So far I have been somewhat successful, although it's hard to do as Darwin can be an instigator of stress a lot of the time.
Training new behaviors has become a challenge. If he gets to that point where he is not sure what you are asking of him and starts throwing out behaviors to see what gets him reinforced, it seems like he overloads his brain and he will have a small seizure. Established behaviors are not an issue and Darwin still recalls like a champ if there is a treat available.
And introducing...
Pip
Pip is a Black Capped Caique that I am fostering for Wings of Love Bird Haven. He came to me because he allegedly hated men... but I have not seen this at all! Infact Pip is one of the most social birds I have ever met. He happily steps up to everyone (male or female) with a cheery "Heeelooo".Good news is that since being with me he has stopped the over preening and is slowely filling in his feathers.
A typical Caique he is very active and loves to hair surf... he also eats ANYTHING you offer him.
Pip is available for adoption through Bird Haven.
Puff
Puff was originally adopted from Bird Haven to a home in Austin last year. Unfortunately a combination of his fear, some bad advice and health problems in the family meant that he was returned to the Haven.I picked him up about 6 weeks ago and have been slowly working with him since.
I first met Puff at Barbara Heidenreichs Workshop in Austin last year and he was already avoiding being handled. He responded well to Barbara targeting him around the cage though... so I was confident that he would learn to step up and have more trust in humans.
For the first couple of weeks I let him relax in his new big cage and get used to foraging and toys. Every time I entered the room I would walk over and offer him a treat. I then started leaving the door open so he could climb out... at first every time I came in the room he would run back in the cage, but after a couple of days he would stay on his door to get his treat.
A real breakthrough happened when I moved him into the bird room opposite Marnie... He was FASCINATED! Every interaction with Marnie was closely studied. I soon noticed this and thought here was a chance to use an adapted model/rival technique.
I started by offering them the same foraging toys. I would carefully load up Marnie's toy and then Puff's. He would watch her closely as she got out the treats and then use the same method to get into his own toy.
Normally I don't reinforce Marnie with a treat every time she steps up (because petting and spending time with me is also reinforcing for her), but with Puff watching I consitently cued, bridged and reinforced her (with his fav treat) for stepping up and down, making sure he could see well. I would then go to him and attempt the same. If he gave me his warning double click I would remove my hand and replace it with a perch (he showed no fear to this perch from the start), then repeat the cue. With in a couple of days he was jumping up on the perch on cue and from there we repeated the process onto my arm. He then went to spend the day on the play gym with Marnie and Lucha, carefully watching what Marnie was doing and eating. After about a week I started asking him to step up straight onto my arm from the play gym with immediate sucess.
Then surgery happened and Puff decided I was terrifying again (I did have a bandage around my head).
So for the past two weeks we have been slowely working back to where we were and this week he has been stepping up from the cage.
He's gradually regaining his confidence and I hope to be able to give him scritches in the future
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Training Update 03/08/2009
Time for a training update... it's been long enough!
Lucha is still in his hormonal amazon season and is very difficult to work with. I was lucky to get a few repetitions in of the taking liquid from a syringe behavior the other day before the eyes and tail flashed and the whining started.
Darwin is still working on his recall... he's still a little hesitant, but I am happy to say that with patience and a few repetitions of the request he is coming down from the very top of the playscape every time. I will of course be continuing to work on recall, but would like to add specific areas to cue him to.
Marnie surprised me today. Normally when I attempt to target with her she gives me the "why?" look. So when I decided to start the taking liquid from a syringe behavior with her I was unsure of how well we'd progress.
So I showed her the syringe, she touched it with her beak, I bridged and reinforced. After a couple of slow repetitions I decided to add liquid to the syringe (some lukewarm chamomile tea, one of her favs). Well that turned out to be great for Marnie. The first time she touched the syringe tip with the liquid, she lost all interest in the chopped almonds in my hand and proceeded to drink the whole 1cc of chamomile tea in one go! I refilled with water and got exactly the same reaction :)
Thinking back this should have been obvious, as Marnie often demands a taste of whatever I am drinking and hissy fits are thrown if I am drinking something like coffee and deny her request. So even though the liquid was in a syringe and not a cup, it was still hugely reinforcing for her to get the contents...
... but with sucess comes failure. I asked her for a turnaround and she stared at me...
Marnie giving her patented "Why?" look
Lucha is still in his hormonal amazon season and is very difficult to work with. I was lucky to get a few repetitions in of the taking liquid from a syringe behavior the other day before the eyes and tail flashed and the whining started.
Darwin is still working on his recall... he's still a little hesitant, but I am happy to say that with patience and a few repetitions of the request he is coming down from the very top of the playscape every time. I will of course be continuing to work on recall, but would like to add specific areas to cue him to.
Marnie surprised me today. Normally when I attempt to target with her she gives me the "why?" look. So when I decided to start the taking liquid from a syringe behavior with her I was unsure of how well we'd progress.
So I showed her the syringe, she touched it with her beak, I bridged and reinforced. After a couple of slow repetitions I decided to add liquid to the syringe (some lukewarm chamomile tea, one of her favs). Well that turned out to be great for Marnie. The first time she touched the syringe tip with the liquid, she lost all interest in the chopped almonds in my hand and proceeded to drink the whole 1cc of chamomile tea in one go! I refilled with water and got exactly the same reaction :)
Thinking back this should have been obvious, as Marnie often demands a taste of whatever I am drinking and hissy fits are thrown if I am drinking something like coffee and deny her request. So even though the liquid was in a syringe and not a cup, it was still hugely reinforcing for her to get the contents...
... but with sucess comes failure. I asked her for a turnaround and she stared at me...
Marnie giving her patented "Why?" look
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Training During Breeding Season
It's that time of year again and last week marked the first puffy dance of the season for my Lilac Crowned Amazon Lucha. The recipient was my African Grey Marnie, who as usual looked blankly at this dancing amazon and walked away when he started regurgitating for her.
Of course Marnie is not the only recipient of puffy dances. Toes and feet are also displayed for regularly if he can get close enough, no matter if you have socks on or are hiding your feet in your pants leg, Lucha dances away before giving them a present.
With Lucha's crate up training this is causing a problem. I don't have a dining table (the birds cages take up the dining area), so I had been setting the crate on the floor (tile, he has problems walking on carpet or bedding) and sitting on the floor to target Lucha into the crate... which worked well until last week. Unfortunately I have not worked out a way of sitting on the floor which completely hides my feet. So now while I am attempting to target Lucha, he is far more interested in serenading my feet... and as reinforcement is in the eye of the bird, he finds my feet of infinitely higher value than even an almond in the shell.
So how does everyone else deal with training their hormonal bird?
For those of you who have not had the pleasure of an Amazon puffy dance then I have a little photo story below. You'll have to imagine the growling, clucking whine he makes.
First you puff up all over, but paying special attention to the cheeks and trousers. Begin flipping wings and waddling back and forwards...
With a flip of the head change direction...
And the other way...
One more repetition...
And REGURGITATE!
Of course Marnie is not the only recipient of puffy dances. Toes and feet are also displayed for regularly if he can get close enough, no matter if you have socks on or are hiding your feet in your pants leg, Lucha dances away before giving them a present.
With Lucha's crate up training this is causing a problem. I don't have a dining table (the birds cages take up the dining area), so I had been setting the crate on the floor (tile, he has problems walking on carpet or bedding) and sitting on the floor to target Lucha into the crate... which worked well until last week. Unfortunately I have not worked out a way of sitting on the floor which completely hides my feet. So now while I am attempting to target Lucha, he is far more interested in serenading my feet... and as reinforcement is in the eye of the bird, he finds my feet of infinitely higher value than even an almond in the shell.
So how does everyone else deal with training their hormonal bird?
For those of you who have not had the pleasure of an Amazon puffy dance then I have a little photo story below. You'll have to imagine the growling, clucking whine he makes.
First you puff up all over, but paying special attention to the cheeks and trousers. Begin flipping wings and waddling back and forwards...
With a flip of the head change direction...
And the other way...
One more repetition...
And REGURGITATE!
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Training Update 01/20/2009
Training has been a little slow the past couple of days, but there are still updates!
Marnie has been learning to target to an acrylic wand. I have been bridging and rewarding her for touching the target and so far she's doing pretty good. She does have a few moments where she fixes me with one eye and stares for a second before touching the target... I think she's just trying to work out why I want her to touch the target. The targeting behavior is going to be step one of teaching her to "Crate Up"
Lucha has also been learning to target. He has learned to target to the syringe for his last medical behavior, but now I have replaced the syringe with the acrylic wand. Lucha really gets into this behavior and will move all along the T-stand to touch the target. Interestingly during the last target session I failed to notice I was holding the pecan (from which I was breaking his reinforcer) in plain view, in the hand with the target wand and within reach of his beak. But Lucha being a good boy who loves to train would glance at the pecan, before reaching out and touching the target anyway. So rather than go straight for the pecan, he preferred to perform the behavior for a smaller reinforcer!
Yesterday I introduced the carrier. Lucha has been in this carrier before to the vet, so is familiar with it. Handily it has a door on the top as well as the end, so I was able to to open that to get a better angle. Lucha was happy to follow the target as far as perching in the open doorway before he showed signs of nervousness in his body language. So a good start from which to build on.
Darwin has been working well on his recall and has recalled from across the room on a number of occasions. I will continue to work on recalling from a variety of locations around the house. Although we may have a problem in the future as I have recently heard Marnie saying "Come Here" in my voice, which is Darwin's recall cue LOL
On a slight aside: Things are still moving forwards for the Austin Parrot Society. We now have a blog set up at http://www.austinparrotsociety.blogspot.com for updates on the planning processes and for information on meetings.
Marnie has been learning to target to an acrylic wand. I have been bridging and rewarding her for touching the target and so far she's doing pretty good. She does have a few moments where she fixes me with one eye and stares for a second before touching the target... I think she's just trying to work out why I want her to touch the target. The targeting behavior is going to be step one of teaching her to "Crate Up"
Lucha has also been learning to target. He has learned to target to the syringe for his last medical behavior, but now I have replaced the syringe with the acrylic wand. Lucha really gets into this behavior and will move all along the T-stand to touch the target. Interestingly during the last target session I failed to notice I was holding the pecan (from which I was breaking his reinforcer) in plain view, in the hand with the target wand and within reach of his beak. But Lucha being a good boy who loves to train would glance at the pecan, before reaching out and touching the target anyway. So rather than go straight for the pecan, he preferred to perform the behavior for a smaller reinforcer!
Yesterday I introduced the carrier. Lucha has been in this carrier before to the vet, so is familiar with it. Handily it has a door on the top as well as the end, so I was able to to open that to get a better angle. Lucha was happy to follow the target as far as perching in the open doorway before he showed signs of nervousness in his body language. So a good start from which to build on.
Darwin has been working well on his recall and has recalled from across the room on a number of occasions. I will continue to work on recalling from a variety of locations around the house. Although we may have a problem in the future as I have recently heard Marnie saying "Come Here" in my voice, which is Darwin's recall cue LOL
On a slight aside: Things are still moving forwards for the Austin Parrot Society. We now have a blog set up at http://www.austinparrotsociety.blogspot.com for updates on the planning processes and for information on meetings.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Entertainment and Enrichment is in the Eye of the Bird not the Bird Holder
Today was one of those days where I woke up coughing (remains of a chest infection and vindictive asthma) and decided to do as little as possible. After a quick trip to the store I set about doing some work on enrichment.
It had occurred to me the night before that it had been a while since I had moved the toys on the playscape around, so I set about taking them all down, cleaning and refilling foraging toys and coming up with new places to hang them. I make up a mix for my out of cage foraging toys which covers a number of different enrichment areas including tactile, olfactory, visual and taste. Because my GCC Darwin has access to these I have to be careful of ingredients (he's on an allergy diet at the moment) so my mix is made up for the following:
2 pounds Avian Naturals House Select Cage Mix
1-2 oz organic dried German Chamomile flowers
1-2 oz organic dried hibiscus flowers
1-2 oz organic dried red leaf raspberry
1-2 oz organic star anise
1-2 oz dried spearmint
I find most of my birds will search out the star anise, with the other herbs being picked at.
In my foraging toys I also like to include organic dried chili peppers which are especially popular with Lucha (just make sure to double wash your hands!) and organic almonds in the shell.
To enrich the birds aurally while I worked, I put on the Pollyvision II: Parrots of the Americas DVD which Lucha really enjoys. He will usually stop whatever he is doing and chatter at the wild amazons in the first section of the DVD.
As soon as I finished putting up the newly filled foraging toys I sat down for a quick cup of coffee and observed my birds.
Lucha, normally a simple forager, headed straight for the furthest away foraging toy which was hung at the top of a boing, which was hung from the ceiling. For some reason it was more enriching for him to climb up the play stand and then precariously inch his way up the boing (remember, he has poor balance) to reach the foraging toy at the top, than to climb down one level to a much closer and easier to access foraging toy.
Marnie also decided to do things a little differently. I had one toy I had hung near a mid level perch to encourage Lucha, which Marnie headed for. But instead of going to the mid level perch, she went to the ring and ladder part of the play gym and hung upside down from one foot to reach the same toy.
Now both of these birds could have taken the easy route with their search for food, but instead they went the most difficult way. Contra freeloading at it's best!
A few days ago a new bunch of toys arrived, with a foot toy I had gotten especially for Marnie. It was a SS ring with acrylic stars on it (she loves acrylic). After training time I brought her to the couch and presented her with her new toy... which she promptly dropped on the floor and then legged it along the couch and grabbed what then became her new favorite toy... a clicker. A few years ago I had bought a clicker to use as a bridge for training, but after a couple of tries I found that it was one too many things in my hands and that for me a verbal bridge was more effective. So Marnie has had one lesson with the clicker as a bridge, a couple of years ago, but today she seemed to remember exactly what it was for.
After playing with it for a few minutes she worked out how to make it click. A couple of clicks later I heard her say "Marnie goo pretty bird?" she then clicked the clicker and said "Goo pretty!".
So what did I learn this week from my birds?
That the easiest food is not always the "best" even when the bird is foraging for all it's food already. This is true for me too, waiting a few minutes to get take away salad with fresh organic veggies from a good restaurant is better for me than going through the drive through window, even if it does take longer.
I also learned that just because I don't think it's a parrot toy, does not mean that it can't be in the beak of an interested parrot.
The playscape today after it's move around
It had occurred to me the night before that it had been a while since I had moved the toys on the playscape around, so I set about taking them all down, cleaning and refilling foraging toys and coming up with new places to hang them. I make up a mix for my out of cage foraging toys which covers a number of different enrichment areas including tactile, olfactory, visual and taste. Because my GCC Darwin has access to these I have to be careful of ingredients (he's on an allergy diet at the moment) so my mix is made up for the following:
2 pounds Avian Naturals House Select Cage Mix
1-2 oz organic dried German Chamomile flowers
1-2 oz organic dried hibiscus flowers
1-2 oz organic dried red leaf raspberry
1-2 oz organic star anise
1-2 oz dried spearmint
I find most of my birds will search out the star anise, with the other herbs being picked at.
In my foraging toys I also like to include organic dried chili peppers which are especially popular with Lucha (just make sure to double wash your hands!) and organic almonds in the shell.
To enrich the birds aurally while I worked, I put on the Pollyvision II: Parrots of the Americas DVD which Lucha really enjoys. He will usually stop whatever he is doing and chatter at the wild amazons in the first section of the DVD.
As soon as I finished putting up the newly filled foraging toys I sat down for a quick cup of coffee and observed my birds.
Lucha, normally a simple forager, headed straight for the furthest away foraging toy which was hung at the top of a boing, which was hung from the ceiling. For some reason it was more enriching for him to climb up the play stand and then precariously inch his way up the boing (remember, he has poor balance) to reach the foraging toy at the top, than to climb down one level to a much closer and easier to access foraging toy.
Marnie also decided to do things a little differently. I had one toy I had hung near a mid level perch to encourage Lucha, which Marnie headed for. But instead of going to the mid level perch, she went to the ring and ladder part of the play gym and hung upside down from one foot to reach the same toy.
Now both of these birds could have taken the easy route with their search for food, but instead they went the most difficult way. Contra freeloading at it's best!
A few days ago a new bunch of toys arrived, with a foot toy I had gotten especially for Marnie. It was a SS ring with acrylic stars on it (she loves acrylic). After training time I brought her to the couch and presented her with her new toy... which she promptly dropped on the floor and then legged it along the couch and grabbed what then became her new favorite toy... a clicker. A few years ago I had bought a clicker to use as a bridge for training, but after a couple of tries I found that it was one too many things in my hands and that for me a verbal bridge was more effective. So Marnie has had one lesson with the clicker as a bridge, a couple of years ago, but today she seemed to remember exactly what it was for.
After playing with it for a few minutes she worked out how to make it click. A couple of clicks later I heard her say "Marnie goo pretty bird?" she then clicked the clicker and said "Goo pretty!".
So what did I learn this week from my birds?
That the easiest food is not always the "best" even when the bird is foraging for all it's food already. This is true for me too, waiting a few minutes to get take away salad with fresh organic veggies from a good restaurant is better for me than going through the drive through window, even if it does take longer.
I also learned that just because I don't think it's a parrot toy, does not mean that it can't be in the beak of an interested parrot.
The playscape today after it's move around
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Training Update 01/15/09
Things have been going well on the training front in my flock :)
Marnie has had two sessions learning "Shake" and had gotten the hang of it quickly.
I started off by offering my right index finger pointed at her left leg at a 45 degree angle and gave the cue "Shake". I bridged and rewarded her first for lifting the leg
Then for touching her foot to my finger
Then for touching the base of her foot on top of my finger
Then for touching it a little longer
Then wrapping her toes around it slightly
Then for wrapping them all the way around.
The last approximation we worked on today was holding onto my finger for 10 seconds.
Tomorrow I plan to work on holding on to my finger while I move it up and down.
Lucha is now willing to drink almost a whole 1 cc of water before looking for his reinforcer. Tomorrow I plan to start on training him to crate up. While he is okay with me putting him into the crate. It would be great to be able to train him to walk in on his own.
Darwin was in a very friendly mood today and stepped up from his door perch quickly so I decided to start recall training with huge success. I put him on the training T-stand and used chopped pecans as his reinforcer (my birds are really into pecans at the moment). The closest approximation he already new was step up.
I first held my finger a few inches from him, about an inch above his feet, held the pecan behind my hand and gave the cue "come here". He stepped up immediately and I bridged and reinforced him. I repeated the same distance and cue, and again immediately bridged and reinforced him.
I then moved my finger another inch away and each time he stretched out on the cue "come here". I increased the distance slowly till I was 6 inches away and then the big test came. He could no longer reach out with a foot or beak to get to me. He would have to fly. For extra encouragement I showed him the whole pecan and he ran up and down the T-stand a few times, squeeking as he does when he wants something, he also bobbed up and down and opened his wings slightly. After a minute of trying to work it out he flew to my wrist, I bridged and gave him a jackpot of a big bite out of the pecan and returned him to the T-stand. Again I offered my finger and the cue "Come here", this time there was less hesitation and again he landed on my wrist. From this I deduced that he preferred my arm as a landing spot, maybe because it's a broader platform? So I stopped offering the finger and offered my arm again.
I continued approximations of moving my arm slightly further away from the T-stand each repetition. The final repetition was made with my arm two feet away from the perch.
On the whole I am very happy with his progress today both in his behavior around the cage and in his recall training. Tomorrow I hope to continue the recall training with further approximations regarding distance. I also hope to continue to work on his aggression around the cage.
It occurs to me that the recall training may be of aid to this as I can give him the recal cue "Come here" when he is being aggressive around his cage and I need to get in it for house keeping purposes, to remove him from the cage, without triggering an aggressive act.
Darwin hanging around
Marnie has had two sessions learning "Shake" and had gotten the hang of it quickly.
I started off by offering my right index finger pointed at her left leg at a 45 degree angle and gave the cue "Shake". I bridged and rewarded her first for lifting the leg
Then for touching her foot to my finger
Then for touching the base of her foot on top of my finger
Then for touching it a little longer
Then wrapping her toes around it slightly
Then for wrapping them all the way around.
The last approximation we worked on today was holding onto my finger for 10 seconds.
Tomorrow I plan to work on holding on to my finger while I move it up and down.
Lucha is now willing to drink almost a whole 1 cc of water before looking for his reinforcer. Tomorrow I plan to start on training him to crate up. While he is okay with me putting him into the crate. It would be great to be able to train him to walk in on his own.
Darwin was in a very friendly mood today and stepped up from his door perch quickly so I decided to start recall training with huge success. I put him on the training T-stand and used chopped pecans as his reinforcer (my birds are really into pecans at the moment). The closest approximation he already new was step up.
I first held my finger a few inches from him, about an inch above his feet, held the pecan behind my hand and gave the cue "come here". He stepped up immediately and I bridged and reinforced him. I repeated the same distance and cue, and again immediately bridged and reinforced him.
I then moved my finger another inch away and each time he stretched out on the cue "come here". I increased the distance slowly till I was 6 inches away and then the big test came. He could no longer reach out with a foot or beak to get to me. He would have to fly. For extra encouragement I showed him the whole pecan and he ran up and down the T-stand a few times, squeeking as he does when he wants something, he also bobbed up and down and opened his wings slightly. After a minute of trying to work it out he flew to my wrist, I bridged and gave him a jackpot of a big bite out of the pecan and returned him to the T-stand. Again I offered my finger and the cue "Come here", this time there was less hesitation and again he landed on my wrist. From this I deduced that he preferred my arm as a landing spot, maybe because it's a broader platform? So I stopped offering the finger and offered my arm again.
I continued approximations of moving my arm slightly further away from the T-stand each repetition. The final repetition was made with my arm two feet away from the perch.
On the whole I am very happy with his progress today both in his behavior around the cage and in his recall training. Tomorrow I hope to continue the recall training with further approximations regarding distance. I also hope to continue to work on his aggression around the cage.
It occurs to me that the recall training may be of aid to this as I can give him the recal cue "Come here" when he is being aggressive around his cage and I need to get in it for house keeping purposes, to remove him from the cage, without triggering an aggressive act.
Darwin hanging around
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
The Importance of Humidity for Companion Parrots
In Texas this winter the weather has been imitating a yoyo, with a rotating change between warm weather with relative humidity (RH) around 50% and cold with RH dropping into the twenties and teens. As one who works in the wildland fire business I am used to keeping an eye on RH as it relates to fire danger, but this recently I started playing close attention as to how it effected my parrots.
It all started when I was taking care of a friend’s male Eclectus, Bayu. He would sneeze on occasion without an obvious reason. He had a clean vet work up and there were no environmental triggers which we could put our fingers on. Because of my parrots and my own chemical sensitivities there are no chemical cleaners or other such allergen or irritant products in my house. When he went back to his home his diet was changed to remove potential allergens such as wheat and soy. But still the sneezing continued. The only thing that seemed to help was having his nares flushed with saline solution, but that only lasted a couple of hours.
Months rolled on and one day a happy coincidence led me to explore further the importance of RH.
It was the first cold snap of the year and I was at home surfing the internet when my Lilac Crowned Amazon, Lucha, sneezed… an hour later he sneezed again, but this time out of the corner of my eye I noticed my digital temperature/hygrometer that I had been using to check my leopard geckos tanks. The temperature was 65 F and the RH was 23%. I then sneezed hard and an idea formed. What if the reason for Bayu, Lucha and myself sneezing was the dry air stimulating our olfactory system?
A couple of days later, warm air moved up from the Gulf of Mexico and fog set in bringing the RH up to 90%. Low and behold both Lucha and I stopped sneezing.
Wanting to confirm my theory with a third case, I took my thermometer/hygrometer to my friend’s house and waited for the next cold front to pass through the state. Sure enough I got a phone call telling me that when the cold front passed, the RH in the room dropped into the thirties and Bayu started sneezing.
Consider the tropics and sub tropics where the majority of parrot species evolved. The average relative humidity is 50% or higher, year round, often with extended periods in the 90s. So it is not surprising that periods of lower humidity can cause problems such as itchy dry skin, increased dust in species which produce it and irritation of the olfactory system. This can also aggravate those who already have related health problems such as birds who pluck and in some cases cause the plucking to start. In our homes we can unknowingly increase the problem by using central heating which dries the air even further. I would encourage all parrot owners to pick up a cheap hygrometer and check the RH of their house, with particular attention to the bird area. I think most owners would be surprised to see it's reading. From there they can take steps to increase the RH to a more suitable number and should note the differences in their birds condition from before and after the changes in RH (a couple of weeks should be given for changes to happen of course, nothing is instant).
Fortunately the solution is simple. Humidifiers can be purchased for a reasonable amount in most home stores. Models range from simple ones with a small tank and an on/off button to larger ones with washable filters, large water tanks and humidistat to turn the machine on and off automatically to keep the RH at a set level.
For those who heat their home through radiators a cheap and easy method is to use the wall radiators to dry wet clothes. As the clothes dry the water that evaporates will raise the humidity in the house.
Since purchasing a humidifier (I went for one with a humidistat) I have kept my house at a constant 55% RH or higher. The change in my birds has been quick and obvious. My Lilac Crowned Amazon has not sneezed in a month; his feet which were getting slightly flakey are smoother and his feathers in better condition. My African Grey is significantly less dusty and is spending less time aggressively preening. As keeping the humidity constant was the only change made during this time, I feel that these improvements in condition are as a result of maintaining a minimum RH of 55%.
Interestingly, since the humidifier was set up near the play scape, on days where the RH is low outside, Lucha will spend most of the day on the part of the play scape closest to the humidifier.
Humidity levels are just as important to feather health as a good soaking bath
It all started when I was taking care of a friend’s male Eclectus, Bayu. He would sneeze on occasion without an obvious reason. He had a clean vet work up and there were no environmental triggers which we could put our fingers on. Because of my parrots and my own chemical sensitivities there are no chemical cleaners or other such allergen or irritant products in my house. When he went back to his home his diet was changed to remove potential allergens such as wheat and soy. But still the sneezing continued. The only thing that seemed to help was having his nares flushed with saline solution, but that only lasted a couple of hours.
Months rolled on and one day a happy coincidence led me to explore further the importance of RH.
It was the first cold snap of the year and I was at home surfing the internet when my Lilac Crowned Amazon, Lucha, sneezed… an hour later he sneezed again, but this time out of the corner of my eye I noticed my digital temperature/hygrometer that I had been using to check my leopard geckos tanks. The temperature was 65 F and the RH was 23%. I then sneezed hard and an idea formed. What if the reason for Bayu, Lucha and myself sneezing was the dry air stimulating our olfactory system?
A couple of days later, warm air moved up from the Gulf of Mexico and fog set in bringing the RH up to 90%. Low and behold both Lucha and I stopped sneezing.
Wanting to confirm my theory with a third case, I took my thermometer/hygrometer to my friend’s house and waited for the next cold front to pass through the state. Sure enough I got a phone call telling me that when the cold front passed, the RH in the room dropped into the thirties and Bayu started sneezing.
Consider the tropics and sub tropics where the majority of parrot species evolved. The average relative humidity is 50% or higher, year round, often with extended periods in the 90s. So it is not surprising that periods of lower humidity can cause problems such as itchy dry skin, increased dust in species which produce it and irritation of the olfactory system. This can also aggravate those who already have related health problems such as birds who pluck and in some cases cause the plucking to start. In our homes we can unknowingly increase the problem by using central heating which dries the air even further. I would encourage all parrot owners to pick up a cheap hygrometer and check the RH of their house, with particular attention to the bird area. I think most owners would be surprised to see it's reading. From there they can take steps to increase the RH to a more suitable number and should note the differences in their birds condition from before and after the changes in RH (a couple of weeks should be given for changes to happen of course, nothing is instant).
Fortunately the solution is simple. Humidifiers can be purchased for a reasonable amount in most home stores. Models range from simple ones with a small tank and an on/off button to larger ones with washable filters, large water tanks and humidistat to turn the machine on and off automatically to keep the RH at a set level.
For those who heat their home through radiators a cheap and easy method is to use the wall radiators to dry wet clothes. As the clothes dry the water that evaporates will raise the humidity in the house.
Since purchasing a humidifier (I went for one with a humidistat) I have kept my house at a constant 55% RH or higher. The change in my birds has been quick and obvious. My Lilac Crowned Amazon has not sneezed in a month; his feet which were getting slightly flakey are smoother and his feathers in better condition. My African Grey is significantly less dusty and is spending less time aggressively preening. As keeping the humidity constant was the only change made during this time, I feel that these improvements in condition are as a result of maintaining a minimum RH of 55%.
Interestingly, since the humidifier was set up near the play scape, on days where the RH is low outside, Lucha will spend most of the day on the part of the play scape closest to the humidifier.
Humidity levels are just as important to feather health as a good soaking bath
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Training Update 01/13/2009
I am continuing to work on getting Marnie to pay closer attention to the specific behavior I am asking for as opposed to just offering the first one she thinks of.
Doing two 10 minute sessions a day she is improving greatly, and getting the correct behavior 90% of the time. She seems to be favoring the Wave behavior at the moment, and will occasionally shift her weight as if to start the Wave, before turning.
I plan a few more days of this sharpening of skills before moving on to a new behavior.
Darwin is going through an increase in aggressive behavior around his cage at the moment, although he is still very sweet out of the cage. This increase in aggressive body language and behavior means I am going back to basics with him and working on targeting around the cage. Although I am not sure exactly why he has changed his behavior, I am determined to work through this by using positive reinforcement, at the same time as examining his environment for any differences which could have set him back. I am giving him 3 short sessions a day of targeting around the cage at the moment.
Lucha is still a little on the hormonal lovey side. In an effort to get by this I returned to working on the Taking Liquid from a Syringe behavior, which he already knows fairly well, to see if he would focus better on this than the new behavior (the Turaround).
Lucha is pretty good at this behavior and quickly targets the tip of the syringe when he sees it. However, I had gotten poor results when water was added to the syringe. So this time I thought a little more about setting him up for success. Because Lucha consumes more water than the average bird, I decided to remove water from his play gym a few hours before the planned session. Sure enough as soon as he realised that water was in the syringe he started drinking it from the tip and in essence receiving reinforcement from the water as well as the verbal and pecans. Next time I plan on doing the same, but take the water away an hour before training, with the end view of not needing to remove the water at all in a few more sessions as I will be able reinforce when he takes the water now.
I have also been thinking more about his difficulty with the Turnaround. I am wondering if part of the reason why he's slow in picking up this behavior, is that he really does not want to do it because his balance is poor. He has been a little unsteady since I have had him, and often walks using his beak first or has problems maintaining balance while climbing... and here I am asking him to turn in a circle on a perch. This hardly seems like setting him up for success.
So I think maybe the best option with Lucha is to examine the behavior from his point of view before deciding whether or not to teach it to him, and to work on something that is more focused on improving his daily life.
Lucha takes a well deserved post training session nap
This blog is turning out to be a very useful way of working through my thoughts and making sense out of them for the benefit of my birds:)
Doing two 10 minute sessions a day she is improving greatly, and getting the correct behavior 90% of the time. She seems to be favoring the Wave behavior at the moment, and will occasionally shift her weight as if to start the Wave, before turning.
I plan a few more days of this sharpening of skills before moving on to a new behavior.
Darwin is going through an increase in aggressive behavior around his cage at the moment, although he is still very sweet out of the cage. This increase in aggressive body language and behavior means I am going back to basics with him and working on targeting around the cage. Although I am not sure exactly why he has changed his behavior, I am determined to work through this by using positive reinforcement, at the same time as examining his environment for any differences which could have set him back. I am giving him 3 short sessions a day of targeting around the cage at the moment.
Lucha is still a little on the hormonal lovey side. In an effort to get by this I returned to working on the Taking Liquid from a Syringe behavior, which he already knows fairly well, to see if he would focus better on this than the new behavior (the Turaround).
Lucha is pretty good at this behavior and quickly targets the tip of the syringe when he sees it. However, I had gotten poor results when water was added to the syringe. So this time I thought a little more about setting him up for success. Because Lucha consumes more water than the average bird, I decided to remove water from his play gym a few hours before the planned session. Sure enough as soon as he realised that water was in the syringe he started drinking it from the tip and in essence receiving reinforcement from the water as well as the verbal and pecans. Next time I plan on doing the same, but take the water away an hour before training, with the end view of not needing to remove the water at all in a few more sessions as I will be able reinforce when he takes the water now.
I have also been thinking more about his difficulty with the Turnaround. I am wondering if part of the reason why he's slow in picking up this behavior, is that he really does not want to do it because his balance is poor. He has been a little unsteady since I have had him, and often walks using his beak first or has problems maintaining balance while climbing... and here I am asking him to turn in a circle on a perch. This hardly seems like setting him up for success.
So I think maybe the best option with Lucha is to examine the behavior from his point of view before deciding whether or not to teach it to him, and to work on something that is more focused on improving his daily life.
Lucha takes a well deserved post training session nap
This blog is turning out to be a very useful way of working through my thoughts and making sense out of them for the benefit of my birds:)
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Training Update 01/11/2009
Well having a chest infection is getting a lot done at my house. Not only have I finally got this blog up and running (I've only been putting it off for 6 months), but I have been able to do a lot of little training sessions.
Lucha is headed into hormonal mode, so training is getting harder with him. He would much rather get some beaky rubs and do some puffy dancing than learn how to turn around. Because of this I am going to try and go back to some behaviors he already knows like taking liquid from a syringe and improve the quality of that behavior as opposed to attemtping to teach him something new. I'm not sure whether this will help or not, but it's worth a try.
As for Marnie, well she's coming along leaps and bounds.
Yesterday evening we did another training session focusing on the "Wave" behavior. I introduced a visual cue in the form of my index finger, paralell to my body and waggled from side to side along with the verbal cue "Marnie Wave". She picked this up straight away :) So in response to using the verbal and visual cues she will lift her left leg and waggle it up and down.
This mornings session started with a recap of the Turnaround behavior. It took a few goes to get her back into it as she would offer the Wave behavior instead. However, with consistent ignoring of the Wave behavior and reinforcing the Turnaround behavior when paired with the verbal and visual cues for Turnaround, she soon got the idea.
This made me realise that I needed to work on getting her to differentiate between behaviors, so that she learned that she had to offer a specific behavior for a specific cue to get the reward. To do this I switched up which behavior I asked for and only reinforced the correct one. First I would ask for a turnaround, then a wave, then a turnaround twice in a row, followed by a set of waves. By the end of the session she was watching my hand closely for the cue and was performing the correct behavior with only the occasional slight hesitation.
This is obviously something that needs to be worked on. So for the next few days I plan on doing the same kind of mixing it up session as this morning, before moving on to another behavior.
Lucha is headed into hormonal mode, so training is getting harder with him. He would much rather get some beaky rubs and do some puffy dancing than learn how to turn around. Because of this I am going to try and go back to some behaviors he already knows like taking liquid from a syringe and improve the quality of that behavior as opposed to attemtping to teach him something new. I'm not sure whether this will help or not, but it's worth a try.
As for Marnie, well she's coming along leaps and bounds.
Yesterday evening we did another training session focusing on the "Wave" behavior. I introduced a visual cue in the form of my index finger, paralell to my body and waggled from side to side along with the verbal cue "Marnie Wave". She picked this up straight away :) So in response to using the verbal and visual cues she will lift her left leg and waggle it up and down.
This mornings session started with a recap of the Turnaround behavior. It took a few goes to get her back into it as she would offer the Wave behavior instead. However, with consistent ignoring of the Wave behavior and reinforcing the Turnaround behavior when paired with the verbal and visual cues for Turnaround, she soon got the idea.
This made me realise that I needed to work on getting her to differentiate between behaviors, so that she learned that she had to offer a specific behavior for a specific cue to get the reward. To do this I switched up which behavior I asked for and only reinforced the correct one. First I would ask for a turnaround, then a wave, then a turnaround twice in a row, followed by a set of waves. By the end of the session she was watching my hand closely for the cue and was performing the correct behavior with only the occasional slight hesitation.
This is obviously something that needs to be worked on. So for the next few days I plan on doing the same kind of mixing it up session as this morning, before moving on to another behavior.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Meet The Flock: Lucha
Here's a little bit about the green man whose name graces this blog... Lucha
Lucha came to me in December 2006 and was not in the best of condition.
He had been living in a tiny cage which was best suited for a single lovebird. His only amusement was a dirt encrusted mirror, a concrete swing and a single wooden perch which he had chewed all the way through. For the past 25 years he had been fed a diet of chicken scratch, sunflower seeds, oranges and the occasional handful of bird seed. His nails were grown almost into a circle and his feathers were very dirty. He was terrified of hands and was generally a not very happy birdy, which given his history was completely justified.
Lucha was bought out of the back of a van in South Texas 28 years ago as a mature adult. Apparently the man who sold him was very proud of the fact that his birds were smuggled in from the wild in Mexico and therefore would not have been exposed to to sick birds in quarantine. The only thing was, Lucha was already sick. The lady who bought him took him to a vet who gave him some meds. Lucha then lived with her for 25 years until she died. He then lived with her daughter for a year before he came to me.
His health is an ongoing concern though. Thankfully, until he moved away recently, my Avian Vet was Dr Scott Echols who has helped so much in working out his health issues. Although after a lot of hard work on his diet all his blood tests now come back whithin normal ranges, but he still has polyuria/polydypsia. Numerous tests have been done inlcuding water deprivation and blood pressure, but there is still not an obvious cause. But as the next step is an endoscope we have decided that as long as his bloodwork keeps coming back good, we will hold off on such invasive tests. Since Dr Echols left town, Dr Ginger Davis (also of Westgate Pet and Bird) has taken over the veterinary care of my flock, and she does a wonderfull job.
Lucha has come along leaps and bounds since he first came into my house as a scared bird by making his own choices about his life. He now steps up, allows touching on the head as far down as the base of his neck, and he loves his beak rubs.
After much encouragement, and some teaching by my African Grey Marnie, he now actively forages for all his food (except the spoilable stuff) and will move heaven, hell and clear acrylic foraging toys for an almond in the shell.
Lucha also loves to train with positive reinforcement!
His favorite training treat is pecan pieces with an almond in the shell as his final jackpot reward.
So far he has learned to step down onto a scale for weighing, take liquid from a syringe (this behavior was started at a Barbara Heidenreich workshop) and we are working on a turnaround. This is of course in addition to step ups and learning to trust hands enough to be touched.
In the future I would love to work on his acceptance of touching on parts of the body other than his head and from there to more readily accept a physical exam.
Lucha came to me in December 2006 and was not in the best of condition.
He had been living in a tiny cage which was best suited for a single lovebird. His only amusement was a dirt encrusted mirror, a concrete swing and a single wooden perch which he had chewed all the way through. For the past 25 years he had been fed a diet of chicken scratch, sunflower seeds, oranges and the occasional handful of bird seed. His nails were grown almost into a circle and his feathers were very dirty. He was terrified of hands and was generally a not very happy birdy, which given his history was completely justified.
Lucha was bought out of the back of a van in South Texas 28 years ago as a mature adult. Apparently the man who sold him was very proud of the fact that his birds were smuggled in from the wild in Mexico and therefore would not have been exposed to to sick birds in quarantine. The only thing was, Lucha was already sick. The lady who bought him took him to a vet who gave him some meds. Lucha then lived with her for 25 years until she died. He then lived with her daughter for a year before he came to me.
His health is an ongoing concern though. Thankfully, until he moved away recently, my Avian Vet was Dr Scott Echols who has helped so much in working out his health issues. Although after a lot of hard work on his diet all his blood tests now come back whithin normal ranges, but he still has polyuria/polydypsia. Numerous tests have been done inlcuding water deprivation and blood pressure, but there is still not an obvious cause. But as the next step is an endoscope we have decided that as long as his bloodwork keeps coming back good, we will hold off on such invasive tests. Since Dr Echols left town, Dr Ginger Davis (also of Westgate Pet and Bird) has taken over the veterinary care of my flock, and she does a wonderfull job.
Lucha has come along leaps and bounds since he first came into my house as a scared bird by making his own choices about his life. He now steps up, allows touching on the head as far down as the base of his neck, and he loves his beak rubs.
After much encouragement, and some teaching by my African Grey Marnie, he now actively forages for all his food (except the spoilable stuff) and will move heaven, hell and clear acrylic foraging toys for an almond in the shell.
Lucha also loves to train with positive reinforcement!
His favorite training treat is pecan pieces with an almond in the shell as his final jackpot reward.
So far he has learned to step down onto a scale for weighing, take liquid from a syringe (this behavior was started at a Barbara Heidenreich workshop) and we are working on a turnaround. This is of course in addition to step ups and learning to trust hands enough to be touched.
In the future I would love to work on his acceptance of touching on parts of the body other than his head and from there to more readily accept a physical exam.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Why Lucha's Choice?
Welcome to the blog!
This blog is called Lucha's Choice, because Lucha (that's the handsome Lilac Crowned Amazon in the picture at the head of the page) came to me scared of pretty much everything. He has had a hard life, so I made the decision early on that he would live out the rest of his life in a way in which he makes his own choices in what he wants to do (with the small exception if he's in a dangerous situation). To do this, I have relied heavily on the Positive Reinforcement methods used by Barbara Heidenreich and a lot of looking at the world from his perspective.
The result has been well worth it. He is now a contented amazon who happily lives his life and has the decency to allow me to be a part of it. While I may not be able to flip him over in my hands like my African Grey Marnie, he does actively seek out my attention... and that will do for me!
I plan to use this blog to not only document the life I live with my flock. But to comment on parrot care, training etc as I see it, and to track my own ambition to become a Parrot Behaviorist.
This blog is called Lucha's Choice, because Lucha (that's the handsome Lilac Crowned Amazon in the picture at the head of the page) came to me scared of pretty much everything. He has had a hard life, so I made the decision early on that he would live out the rest of his life in a way in which he makes his own choices in what he wants to do (with the small exception if he's in a dangerous situation). To do this, I have relied heavily on the Positive Reinforcement methods used by Barbara Heidenreich and a lot of looking at the world from his perspective.
The result has been well worth it. He is now a contented amazon who happily lives his life and has the decency to allow me to be a part of it. While I may not be able to flip him over in my hands like my African Grey Marnie, he does actively seek out my attention... and that will do for me!
I plan to use this blog to not only document the life I live with my flock. But to comment on parrot care, training etc as I see it, and to track my own ambition to become a Parrot Behaviorist.
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