Clicker Training for Birds

[Kari]

Hi everyone.
I went to a site on clicker training for birds. It seemed to be very interesting. I am curious to know if any one has trained that way. (I have never read any posts about it.) What are your thoughts on the subject. Any response is appreciated. Thank You

[4HAND]

One of our members,Jenseits,has posted quite often on the subject.In the training techniques forum she currently has a video of her sun conure Stewie.
Tena

[naomibeak]

Originally Posted by Kari

Hi everyone.
I went to a site on clicker training for birds. It seemed to be very interesting. I am curious to know if any one has trained that way. (I have never read any posts about it.) What are your thoughts on the subject. Any response is appreciated. Thank You

i seen the same thing you did on the clicker training , i think the advise i seen was a good idea to train your bird.

[jenseits]

Originally Posted by 4HAND

One of our members,Jenseits,has posted quite often on the subject.In the training techniques forum she currently has a video of her sun conure Stewie.
Tena

Ooh, Stewie is a celebrity!

It's a little funny since I'm a terrible trainer and Stewie doesn't do anything super fancy. In that video he's actually doing most of the stuff wrong. ROFLMAO. When he was supposed to bring the blue ring to the woman in the sweater, he gave it to the woman in the jacket. When he was supposed to pick up his ball and put it in the cup, he turns around and gives it to the woman in the jacket. Then he spent quite a while trying to give kisses to the woman in the jacket... without having been given the cue

But the reason why I'm always promoting clicker training is that it's a wonderful way to build a good relationship with your bird. It's not really important that Stewie be able to put a ball in a cup... but using clicker training to work on that trick was a great way to build trust. Stewie started to learn interacting with me could be fun and rewarding and that it was possible to communicate with me in ways that didn't involve biting.

If you join that Yahoo Bird Click list you'll see some really inspiring stories about wild/mean birds who have a complete personality change in just a matter of weeks because of clicker training.

Even if your bird is tame and loving, there are great benefits to clicker training. I think birds are a lot like children - you need to challenge them, keep their brains working, make them keep learning ... otherwise they get bored and/or get into trouble.

Here's a cute video of woman who trained her caiques to put their toys away
Clicker Training a Caique « Best in Flock - Blog About My Conure Parrot

[jenseits]

Wanted to add, since there's often confusion about this, there's nothing magical about the clicker itself. You could do "clicker training" without a clicker even, but the click serves as the event marker telling your parrot (or dog or cat or mouse, whatever) that that precise thing right there is the desired behavior. It helps them learn faster since it takes some of the guess work out of it ("wait, which thing gets rewarded? Was it when I did this? Or this thing here? what the heck, how do I repeat whatever I did that got me the treat before?"). The clicker signals that they just did what you wanted and that a treat is on the way as a result.

[NaniOokami]

:) I've heard that clicker training isn't necessarily good for young birds - is this true? Or can I start at any age?

(Trink is super sweet and loving, but it sounds like we could have lots of fun together with this!)

[LyndaM]

Originally Posted by NaniOokami

:) I've heard that clicker training isn't necessarily good for young birds - is this true? Or can I start at any age?

(Trink is super sweet and loving, but it sounds like we could have lots of fun together with this!)

Awww...Trink is absolutely adorable; congratulations! I am researching conures right now. I think the nandays and blue crowns are my favorites!

[jenseits]

Originally Posted by NaniOokami

:) I've heard that clicker training isn't necessarily good for young birds - is this true? Or can I start at any age?

You can't start until after they're fully weaned, but other than that any age is appropriate.