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FREE Captive Foraging Resource

C.Harris

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Chris Harris
Hi there, years ago some people associated with Harrison's Bird Foods produced a great (in my opinion) DVD video called Captive Foraging. Captive Foraging is a powerful form of enrichment and now Harrison's has discontinued the DVD and made it available - for free - on YouTube. I am not affiliated with the film or Harrison's, I just thought some of you could benefit from it as they have some great ideas. In the start of my practice working with vets to help birds with behavior challenges it was shocking to see how simply making changes to how the bird is fed had such powerful results. So, I hope you give the video a try.

Here's the Linky:

 

expressmailtome

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Thank you very much for sharing this video. I am sure that many people will find the video informative.
 

moothepoo

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I have so many ideas now. Thanks for sharing.

I am curious to see if my little bird is as dextrous as the Cockatoo in that video with foot toys. My bird can hold nutriberries with his toes.
 

aooratrix

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Some good ideas. Makes me want to build a foraging tree. Ideas are slowly percolating.
 

C.Harris

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Glad you guys liked it! In my experience they are really correct when they say in the video that every bird is different, they can all do it eventually but some "get it" at faster or slower pace. I used to use this a lot with my former training clients and also with my own birds. At one point I moved to Los Angeles from Las Vegas and acquired multiple medium to large birds from a sanctuary client of mine here that decided they didnt want some of the birds that people wanted to give up for health issues, etc. They had almost all come to me with "problems". That really changed when they were gradually switched to predominantly feeding through foraging, supplemented with brief training sessions daily (instead of mainly feeding from bowls). It took time but every one of them really "got it". At first I used to worry about the majority of my bird's food being served in the more complicated contraptions like the foot toys (like those they demo in the video) so I did always keep some natural pellets available in the cage and the foot toys were also available. Anyways, now I believe it is mentally beneficial for a bird to get most of their food through interaction with their environment or keeper and as long as they are getting the proper nutrition at the end of the day we should ideally make these food-getting-behaviors take up as much time as possible, especially since 50%+ of a wild birds time is spent foraging. Of course we can't really fill up THAT much time for our captive birds and it still doesn't compare to how much foraging they do in nature, but if we combine things like +R training WITH the foraging we start to really offer our birds a quality of life that makes our living rooms more of a suitable home for them :)

The trick is: GO SLOW :)

P.S.
An odd bit of trivia in case some of you are into the psychology of this stuff, there is a phenomenon with animals working for food rewards through training and/or foraging that is called "Contra-Freeloading", and it is a very interesting discovery. Basically, once a bird gets the hang of "working" for their food, studies have shown that they will still work to earn the food items even if there is a full bowl of food sitting right there next to them. It appears that they are definitely "getting" more than just nutrition from feeding this wag, and it is mentally enjoyable (and even preferred) by the birds to "earn" their foods. Cool huh? Learning this made me see topics such as training with food rewards (which some people oppose) in a totally new way.

I actually get excited about this stuff, is that weird?

-Chris
 

Mockinbirdiva

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Thank you for sharing, there were some good ideas for foraging. I will say though….. because I can't let it go… I was shocked that in the beginning of the video the suggestion was made to trim the wings to keep the bird on the foraging tree. That is not so.. If they like it they'll stay on it.
 

C.Harris

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Chris Harris
I always say, the first thing to train as far as flight is concerned is staying put :b

Good eye, @Mockinbirdiva. Yes, training the bird to "station" first (stay) would be a more positive/less intrusive solution for many owners of flighted birds. Besides, recall on cue and stationing on cue are fundamental for flighted birds to learn anyway.
 

Lady Jane

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What a wonderful video with lots of ideas. I have small birds who are not good at holding foot toys. I wish the video had some information for the smaller birds we have.

Thanks for posting.
 
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