Exercising Your Parrot
This morning I have been busy uploading my training videos and commentary to my Petron! My Patreon is something that I will be working on more as time goes on. There will be quite a lot of updates over there, so feel free to check it out!
I also am also making a lot of new classes that will be released hopefully by the end of the year! This includes topics like getting your bird to step up, harness training, cage design, and so much more! I have been working with rescues across the United States to help give them supplies, and help them with their education/behavioral needs for their adopters, their residence, and helping their followers learn more about their feathered friends! Keep an eye out on the newsletter for updates about the work I continue to do to help nonprofits and homeless birds.
This week I want to talk about exercising your bird. Parrots in our care are inheritably lazy compared to their wild counterparts. We cannot create an environment to meet our birds daily physical needs. I have free-flown birds and done shows and even that is still not comparable. Understanding that will help decrease the amount of stress and pressure on you as a caretaker trying to meet their bird's needs. Though I am trying to easy the stress of implementing this into your current daily care, I do not want to water down the importance of this!
Bird's need daily exercise in order to remain healthy overall. Decreased exercise can cause a lot of medical concerns. Lack of movement can cause bone weakness in your bird called osteoporosis and metabolic bone disease. Your bird's muscles with atrophy, which will leave your bird weak, unstable, and lead to a host of concerns. It can also cause feet problems, most commonly bumble foot, that can become life threatening. I also love to bring up a hybrid macaw I worked with whose feet were stuck in a specific position only due to lack of exercise and only having one perch. Because of his individual case, he would never have full use and function of his feet at 20 years old.
It can also cause behavioral concerns. With excessive energy, boredom, and frustration due to not being able to meet their minimum exercise needs, birds will showcase a variety of undesirable behaviors. It can increase screaming behaviors, which I talk about in my Scream No More online class. You can also see an increase in biting behaviors. You'll see an increase in stereotypical behaviors like pacing, rout tracing, and abnormal repetitive behaviors. Lack of exercise can also be a cause of feather destructive behaviors. Grooming behaviors in parrots are generally used to help calm a bird after strenuous activity, like flying or foraging. It is also a grooming behavior to help keep feathers in place and looking nice so the bird can function properly. If the bird has a lot of pent up energy without a release, the bird can start to try to calm itself through grooming. It becomes an unnatural grooming behavior because the bird has so much energy it just keeps grooming.
Exercising your bird does not have to be just flying! Due to current breeding standard and dated information, a lot of babies do not even learn to fledge, or live a life with clipped wings never being able to. Maybe another time we can debate wing clipping. But, as a bird is in our care, they may also become disabled due to a variety of reasons and are unable to fly anymore. This is most of my flock! Flying is one of the easiest solutions to exercise, but not the only!
My first suggestion is target training. I teach you how through my Target Training Online Class. Targeting your bird in/around their cage, on and around furniture, or on their trees is a great tool to get your bird moving without flying. You can create complex climbing combinations for your bird to complete while also challenging them physically.
Another suggestion is through baths if your bird enjoys them. If your bird is flapping and spinning, overall moving around in a normal bird bathing behavior, this counts as great exercise! If your bird does not enjoy a bath, like them sitting very still, then this is not a viable option.
Something that is less human-intensive for on busy days is to provide an adequate cage size and play area for your bird to explore. The recommended minimum cage sizes is double your birds wingspan for length of the cage, the length of your birds wingspan for the width, and double the birds height for the height of the cage including the tail. Having a large cage can promote the bird to explore throughout the day, allowing for a large variety of perches, and allows for your bird to do a fully and complete flap without hitting any cage ornaments. It's an extra bonus if you change the entire cage set up including perches and toys weekly to continue to promote exploration. Also, increasing the bird's play area outside of the cage can help increase mobility. Parrot stands sold commercially are often too small, about 3 foot or less of space for your bird to move. These stands are great for training or short uses, but do not provide your bird with the environment they need to be successful! For play areas, go as large as you can financially handle and what space allows. You can make your own play gyms inexpensively, which I may also have to talk about how to in the future.
Parrot toys and foraging is also a great resource to increase your bird's exercise. Not only just providing them, but also being strategic in placement. Instead of placing your bird's toys conveniently in front of a perch or next to one, try putting them in the middle of the cage so the bird has to hang upside down to get the treats from the toy. You can also place the toy on the cage side bars so your bird has to hangout the side of the cage to interact. This method is easier for birds physically. I sell foraging toys on my website, and you can learn more about foraging though the newsletter or through my two webinars on them The Enrichment and Foraging Online class is great for beginners, as the Foraging Made Easy Online class gives amazing ideas!
Training can be great exercise. Training step up and downs can be physically taxing. Just be sure you don't work on this too long, as this can become frustrating to your parrot. A 5 minute session should be as long as you go, not 30 minutes to an hour! Training new behaviors like tricks can also be beneficial. I am working with Alfie on a "fist pump" behavior where he outs his foot on my hand. He has to stand and balance on one leg to do this behavior, which uses different muscles his body.
There are a ton of methods to keep your bird active. If you have any questions, or want to run an idea by me, I am always free to contact! Every bird and environment is individualized, so I am here to help if you need it for your specific situation. Happy training this week!