Blindness in Parrots

               Blindness is an intimidating task to be faced with, especially with a prey animal like a parrot. Birds can already be a lot to care for, to handle, and to train, so adding an impairment could be quite the undertaking. Blind birds are often rehomed, overlooked in shelters, or never let out of their cage. People do not know what to do with them, how to handle them, and how to help them. I want to help change people’s perspectives on blindness. I have worked with quite a bunch of blind parrots in my days, and one of my own birds went blind temporarily after an eye removal surgery due to special conditions. I have worked with unhandled blind birds, blind birds in new environments, and a range of vison impaired birds. In my personal flock, I have four vision impaired birds. Though some things are different, there is a lot we can do to help set the bird up for success environmentally, mentally through training, and changing our perspectives.

               The first things I like to do is look at things from a human’s perspective. Imagine this blind bird is a blind child. What do we teach? What helps them? Well, certainly knowing directions (left, right, forwards, backwards, up, and down) can help to navigate them around obstacles. Navigation, aid with transportation. What about a touch cue where you are about to touch them so it isn’t starling? Keeping the environment, the same so they can map out their environment for confidence in traveling. Schedules, patterns of behavior, auditory cues can always help as well. Blind people do better with a guide in new environments, like a seeing eye dog, a cane, or the arm of a trusted friend. Now think, how can we accomplish these things with our bird? How can we be their guide and trusted friend?

               Let’s start simple. First, the environment needs to stay consistent. If you are getting a new blind bird, ask for the cage it has. I do not care how small, horribly set up, or dirty the cage is, take it with the bird. Clean it, but don’t move anything! The bird is in a new environment with new noises. Allowing some familiarity in the start is crucial. Overtime we can change things up, but if you have a new bird or newly blind bird, consistency is key till we can work on other behaviors and cues that will aid our bird in thriving with change. Furthermore, the environment cannot be changed in the cage, it certainly cannot be out of the cage. Moving large furniture around is not recommended for a bird that comes out of its cage. The reason is because the bird will map out your house. If you move the sofa, that bird is not going to know, and will bump into it, which can be a huge aversive and bounce back your bird’s confidence and progression. Again, we can change things up once other things are taught first. But for some, we cannot ever change their environment.

               Next, we need to start associating cues to behaviors, ours and our birds. I recommend first starting with bowls, opening the cage, and cleaning the cage auditory cues. I start with this because if you can handle the bird or not, these cues can be worked on. These cues need to stay consistent with the delivery or completion of these tasks. When you put the food and water bowls in, what cue could be made? Maybe the stainless-steel bowl banging in the bowl holder making a clink sound? Could it be the jiggle of the lock for the bowl door (think is that lock the same sound for opening the door as well because that could become confusing)? Maybe it’s something we say, “food,” or “let’s eat.” Could it be a whistle? Whatever the cue is, it needs to stay consistent, and you need to be sure that anyone can make this cue in case you go away for vacation or need to transfer care over to someone else.

               The next thing I work on is those directional cues. Though this is easier with a bird you can handle without aggression, you can be 100% hands off for this. If you cannot deliver reinforcers, we can use the pattern of behavior to associate behaviors with auditory cues. I like to teach the directions as well as letting the bird know it has reached the end of the perch. The hands-off approach would be watching your bird. When they move left, just say “left” and keep saying it over and over again till they stop moving left. Same with right, up, down, forwards, and backwards. Ideally, when they stop moving, we would reinforce with food, which can be given to them directly or through a treat bowl that has a cue associated with it. I like using a small screw stainless steel bowl and the cue being tapping a chopstick on the rim when I drop the treat in for a clanking sound. But if a treat is not an option, this can still be achieved, it will just may take longer. With the end of the perch cue, I do the same thing. When they have a step or two more to go before, they reach the end of a perch, I give my auditory cue. I prepare to catch the bird if they fall, but I try to not limit them. They need to be able to learn how to feel with their feet the end of the perch. They need to learn that when I say “you are reaching the end” they stop. I need them to learn how to map out their environment. I also need to keep them safe, so I am ready to catch, but not stop. If your bird allows you to handle them, you can put your hand up to create a wall so they never start to fall, but do a little trip realizing there is no more perch under them. This can also be achieved with a large piece of wood being held up if your bird is not friendly. They need to trip; they do not need to hurt themselves. It’s hard and not ideal, but they need to learn that there are some more serious, natural consequences to their blindness. We never want to remove the perch to make them fall to learn, but a trip flutter and possible catch or a pillow waiting on the floor is a real learning curve for these animals. It will only happen a few times before they learn, so do not expect for this to be an often occurrence.

               Some other methods for helping your bird learn directions is by touching them. There are methods for a bird that can be touched and a bird that cannot. For a bird that cannot be touched, lightly blowing on the bird is a great option. Blowing on a bird can be aversive, so we have to be careful in how we blow. Start with a very light blow and slowly increase blow strength till your bird notices. To start, I would put the blow to a touch cue for the bird to know something is going to touch it. You can also teach a touch cue when your bird is about to run into a toy or an object that will touch their body. For a bird that can be touched, we can use two things. First, we can use a target stick to extremely lightly touch the bird. That way if there are startling behaviors, we are not getting bit, and we can readjust our approach, as biting would mean it is too scary and aversive to use. I would always recommend to have a touch cue already enlisted to help with the start of the target stick touching the bird before we start working on those directional cues by touching. I like to teach the touch cue then add the direction; “touch” for contact, then if I touch their left side “touch left” and we can even differentiate body parts “touch left foot.” We can also do the same with our hands, which if the bird is used to being handled and not used to a target stick, this might be the best option.

               Once the bird understands auditory cues for the necessities for survival, body awareness, directional cues, and touch, the options are endless! We can teach beak pressure so the bird can learn this is something to be gentle with and something like a toy they can really tare their beak into. We can teach play, which for a lot of blind birds is initiated by the human unless enrichment stays in the same spots. We have a few auditory enrichment pieces that can be given to your bird found here. We can rearrange things and help guide them through their new environment.

               You will be amazed all a blind bird can do and learn, similar to a sighted bird. You can still have those beautiful relationships with your bird. It can be argued you may have an even stronger relationship with a blind bird because the bird will learn to put all of its trust into you, on you, and depends on you. Birds do incredibly well vision impaired or blind. They are not bound to their cage. They are not to be only hands off creatures. Some birds will need some training to help them overcome and learn to trust, sure, but I work with clients doing that plenty with sighted and visually impaired birds. With a correct approach and education, blindness is nothing different than training your normal parrot. If you ever need help with training your vision impaired or blind bird, need tips or suggestions, or are possibly wanting to add a blind bird to your family and flock, feel free to contact us for any questions or help you may need! Fluff and Feathers works internationally with all species.