[NotEnoughTime]

Hmmm - my edit time expired...

I don't recommend punishment as a training technique - neither positive nor negative punishments... I much prefer, and strongly recommend, positive techniques.

What is perceived as a negative technique (a time-out for instance) can actually become a positive punishment technique since the parrot must be removed or the environment changed. The conditioned stimulus of a "finger" can be paired with the negative punishment (a time-out) and becomes a conditioned punisher. This can lead to avoidance behaviours that can be very hard to change.

However, in order to get a parrot to simply *stop* a behaviour, a positive or negative punishment technique may have to be used. This is a situation of last resort in my opinion... Not something I would normally or even occasionally do... Rarely it has happened that I've had to resort to this technique... But when I have it has always been combined with a positive technique - so chewing on a toy is rewarded while the chewing on feathers stops. Perseverative behaviours are extremely hard to correct and are very resistant to extinction - and sometimes there is simply no other way to stop the behaviour and this is the *only* time that a negative reinforcement technique makes sense IMO.