forum update

Hello all!

I just wanted to address some of the going-ons that have been happening over at caiqueforum.com. We run Vbulletin software to power the forum, and recently Vbulletin announced a software update. This software update marks the change of the current Vbulletin ‘way of life’ - not only are many many many additions being added to the new software, but gone are the yearly fees for licensing. A one time fee has been implemented, raising the initial cost of the software. The software is on pre-sale at a heavily discounted price until the 30th of this month.

I approached our forum members about this opportunity, explaining that I don’t have the funds to cover the entire costs myself. The community was AMAZING and kicked in to cover 110% of our software costs. Now I’m just waiting for the software to be officially released so it can be downloaded and implemented.

The new software has many new features that I can’t wait to implement. This includes user blogs, photo albums, the ability to instant message people on your buddy list through the forum, and much more. The software also contains a CMS- content management system- that will allow us to branch out our forum even more!

With the advent of the CMS contained in the new software, I’m pleased to announce this means more advertising opportunities for caiquecrazy. Also in the works I have plans to implement a classifieds ad section: post your ad for a minimal price (.50 per ad!) and have it get exposed to hundreds of hits a day.

I hope you are all excited about this as I am. More information to be available soon!

Aiding Flight Skills Interpretation

Seeing how the ages old argument about flight skills in baby-fledged vs unfledged birds is being beaten to death debated again, with the assertion that said skills can be determined through still photos [ed. comment: ?!] Carly and I have decided to assist the experts.

Clearly what the bird is in the process of doing, and what its intent is, is a key component to determining the skill of the flyer from the photo. To that end, we offer these photos to which thought bubbles have been helpfully added. I assure you, the utmost care was taken in conferring with the subject so as not to introduce observer bias into ascertaining the private behavior (thoughts) of the subject.

Oh, and Carly would like to invite y’all over to dis joint she knows at the beach where they pour the killer margs. Only wait til after flying, cuz it makes ya go kinda goofy.

Photographs © Hillary Hankey (top 3) and Grace Innemee/CityParrots.org

Acclimation adventures, cont.

I don’t always take Piper into stores like I do with Carly, because of his tendency to freak out at things.  I try to pick times when it’s not too busy.   But late last night, making a quick stop at the neighborhood liquor store (greeting: “Hi Bird!” — whether I have a bird with me or not) I took both kiddos in with me.  The 5 police cars in the parking lot should have been a tip-off.  There were not just MEN in the store, in a tight space (recipe for freakout), but Many. Big. Loud. MEN. With guns.

Which according to Piper is fine.  Just no big loud men with beers please.

• other acclimation posts

The Baby Parrots Take a Trip

What an adventurous day. The baby parrots took a small excursion….. planned of course. So far both Wrigley and Beni have had the chance to spend time in each room of my house and also the back yard. They now appear relaxed and comfortable in these environments. This means it was time for us to push the envelope and try a completely new environment. I had done quite a bit of training to get both birds ready for spending more than just a few minutes in a crate for travel. And it paid off. Both birds entered their crates without hesitation. I had already worked on walking them around the house in the crates, and also placing the crates in the car and taking a short drive around the block. Today we took it a bit further and drove to my friend’s house.

I packed a familiar perch, lots of treats and a few toys. My friend had recently hurt her ankle and was stuck in her room with her foot propped up on a pillow. Time for some feathered entertainment! I placed the crated parrots on the bed. I set up the portable perch. Now it was time to open the crate doors.

One of the things that never ceases to amaze me is how what you think will be so predictable often ends up being exactly the opposite. I was so sure Wrigley the double yellow headed Amazon would be calm as a cucumber and Beni the blue throated macaw would be wide eyed about the new environment. Instead Beni could have cared less. He was just thrilled to be hanging out with people and sucking up tons of attention. He flew with confidence to the perch, to my hand and to the top of the crate. To him it was just another room.

Wrigley on the other hand had to take a moment to observe his new environment. He then launched into a few loops around the room before finally landing on his familiar perch. But once that moment passed he was all about exploring, flying to my friend for treats and playing with toys. That was actually my favorite part. The fact that both parrots were comfortable enough in just a few minutes to play with toys was a great sign. It also meant all that time spent practicing behaviors in new environments was working. Beni and Wrigley are learning to generalize their behaviors. This is an important goal for these future ambassadors for their species.

Although they did really well in the new environment we did have one small set back. The crate training suffered a small breakdown. Beni was not so eager to enter the crate for the return trip home. This means the short drive was too big of an approximation for him.

Training Beni to crate has been a challenge from the start. I think this is because his first experience in the crate was a 4 hour drive from the breeder’s place to mine. This was more than he was ready for at the time. This has meant a lot of work on this behavior, and no doubt we will spend another session just practicing some repetitions of going in and out of the crate for our next sessions, and building our approximations from there. Even though there was a slight glitch, the good news is we can get back on track. Thankfully, even less than perfect situations can be turned around with a little positive reinforcement.

Barbara Heidenreich
www.GoodBirdInc.com
Copyright Good Bird Inc 2009

“Travelling the Training Maze with Carly Lu”

Welcome new readers from West Valley Bird Society in Los Angeles county where I spoke last night about my journeys down the bird training maze. After a loonnnng maze through 4 1/2 hours of Friday afternoon traffic, followed by an uncooperative AV projector partnership, it was a fun talk to give. (Intimate, shall we say?) Always delightful to have lots of audience input and questions.

I also enjoyed seeing so many social birds (Carly approves!) and especially enjoyed meeting Francis, the friendly Fancy Fan-tailed pigeon. What a beauty, and an expert beak wrestler. I’m sure I will have another pigeon again someday!

I will post a link to the presentation on this page when I have it uploaded.

(I also got the cool October poster )

Book Review: Rebecca O’Connor’s Memoir LIFT

Caique Calendar 2010

Well folks the long awaited caique calendar 2010 has been released and is now available for sale at http://zazzle.com/caiquecrazy*

I’d like to thank everyone that entered their photos into the contest, it was so much fun to wade through all the caique photos, yet so hard to only select a few!

New caique merchandise will also be released within a couple days. Merchandise includes binders, postcards, greeting cards, and much more. If you have any special requests, please send an email to emily@caiquecrazy.org and I’d be more then happy to help!

Parrot Training in New Environments

If you are a parrot training fan, you have probably already trained your bird to do a few cute things like maybe wave or turn around on cue. Have you ever tried to ask your parrot to present those behaviors in a new environment? Such as a bird club meeting or at a friend’s house or maybe the veterinary hospital. For some parrots this can be very challenging. Suddenly your outgoing social butterfly freezes up and seems to have forgotten all the things you have taught him to do.

In truth he probably hasn’t forgotten, he is just not yet learned to present behaviors in other environments. The process of teaching an animal to present a behavior under many different conditions is called generalization.

Beni, the blue throated macaw has done so well with harness training it was time to let him experience some new environments while wearing his spiffy blue harness. First we visited different rooms in my house. The bathroom was particularly fun. He got quite excited by his reflection in the mirror. I think he even tried to say “hello” in macaw language.

He did well in each of the rooms of the house. They weren’t much different from what he was used to. He would take treats, and fly to me and other perches on cue. However when we ventured into the back yard, it was a different story. This environment was quite unusual for him. So we took it slow. For the first few days I kept the sessions short and gradually walked him to more areas of the yard. He accepted a few head scratches and treats after some initial looking around, but did not look quite as relaxed as I wanted.

Finally today he started to seem a bit more comfy. I thought now would be a good time to try a favorite strategy of mine. One great way to help a bird move onto the next steps toward generalization is to cue a super simple behavior over and over a few times. This gives the bird something to focus on that he knows earns some positive reinforcers. What Beni does best is fly to me. I grabbed a familiar perch and placed it in the yard. With the leash safely wrapped around my wrist, Beni recalled like a champ. Next thing you know his body language looked much more relaxed and he began to show an interest in exploring this new world with confidence.

For Beni, recall is an easy behavior. For your parrot it might be something like saying “hello” or lifting his wings or foot when cued. Any behavior your parrot offers readily is ideal for this strategy. Your bird may need some time to desensitize to the environment first before he will present behavior, just like Beni did. But after just a few sessions of looking around, Beni was ready.

Once Beni has a few more days of relaxed body language in the back yard, it will be onto another new location and a repeat of the process. Eventually Beni will learn that presenting behaviors in any environment is easy and earns you favorite things like head scratches and treats.

Barbara Heidenreich
www.GoodBirdInc.com
Copyright Good Bird Inc 2009

Helloooo!

Well howdy folks from your UK correspondent!

Isn’t that funny?  I thought so…. I know I’m sad.

So I’m a UK contributor, I’m Net and I’m Mummy to two yellow thighed caiques.  Harry who was 5 in July and Tinker who was 2 in June.  I’d read that these could be naughty birds, how so I thought?  These sweet babies?  Boy have I found that out!  A hen caique in full hormones is quite a monster!  Well mine is anyway.  Fortunately Tinker hasn’t experienced that yet!  However I still love Harry even when she bites me hard - I just love her from a distance, its safer.

So any questions on how we care for our birds over my side of the pond?  Its a bit different to what you guys do on your side!

Oh please excuse me if I break this blog!   Its my first time on Wordpress, I’m a Blogger kind of gal myself!

Harness Training Your Parrot

Ah, the harness. So many people want to train this behavior. And for many parrots this is a very difficult behavior, and for trainers a behavior that can try your patience. However this doesn't mean a caregiver should give up on positive reinforcement to get there. It just means preparing to take some time, maybe a lot of time.But for me that is absolutely A-OK.

For those of you who have been to my seminars and seen video clips of parrots sitting for blood draws and perched patiently while they receive an injection, you no doubt realized those are behaviors that were trained with tiny, tiny approximations and took some time to train. I recently read the manuscript to a friends book in which she said "you can be sure that shaping with the smallest approximations is what is behind the most impressive behaviors"

We have a tendency to take for granted that our parrots should do things we want, when we want. Especially when it comes to behavior we accomplish easily with other species such as our dogs.

I implore people wanting to train this behavior to take a moment to pause and relax and say "it's OK if it takes me two years to train this behavior" It probably wont take you that long, but it will let you calm down and not feel pressured to get the behavior done right this second. Go at the pace your bird dictates works for him.

I often tell people what if this was a lion or a porcupine....what would you do if that animal did not want to go in the harness? : ) (I mention the porcupine because at one zoo where I consulted we did work on training a porcupine to wear a harness) Force will likely cause aggressive behavior or an animal that wont come near you. And as has been mentioned before, our goal with positive reinforcement is to create an eager participant and in turn continue to foster that wonderful relationship we can have with an animal.

I too have been working on this behavior. I started maybe 1 year ago with one of my amazon parrot's and have worked on the behavior off and on. I went through a lot of experimentation. Different harnesses, different shaping plans, etc to try to find the easiest methods. I have also worked on this behavior with the two young parrots currently at my house. One has mastered the behavior and one is still learning. Once everyone (and another one I want to start on this behavior) is trained I will have a comprehensive teaching tool for this behavior. However here is a sneak peak to get people started. It doesn't have all the steps outlined, but it may help you get some ideas.

The bottom line is that difficult behaviors require small approximations, using high value reinforcers, training when the animal is most receptive to those reinforcers, going at the animals pace.....and time. Be patient. You have many years ahead of you with your parrot.

PS The harness I am using is the Aviator Harness.

Barbara Heidenreich
www.GoodBirdInc.com
Copyright Good Bird Inc 2009

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