dollfish
Rollerblading along the road
As some of you may know, I have started a Youtube channel to better educate my country's parrot lovers on proper care and training and I have become more and more interested in the process. I am now doing a lot of reading on psychology and parrot behaviour in general. I have also been speaking to some psychologist friends who are very knowledgable on behavioural psychology of organisms. I have also been observing Astro more.
I don't believe it is entirely possible to stop screaming as some articles and trainers suggest. The reason is that it is simply against the animal's natural instincts. You cannot extinguish an instict. Parrots need company and they feel the need to flock call. Denying the response to these calls is denying comfort that they seek in hearing us thus feeling comfortable. It is possible to reinforce nicer vocalisation and to decrease the frequency with proper training and adequate toys and other enrichment though.
Astro has an aviary that is the size of a bedroom. She has several swings, perches, natural branches and ropes and what not. Toys swapped every week. Different textures, foot toys, hanging toys, foraging toys, puzzle toys you name it. She gets fresh vegetables hung in her aviary everyday and gets all kinds of enrichment. She only spends up to 6 hours in any given day in her aviary. She still flock calls for about 45 minutes to an hour or more when she goes in the aviary to have her breakfast in the morning. There is just no stopping that. I never leave immediately after putting her in and I always put the tv on. I have come to the conclusion that it is just the way it is. She doesn't feel comfortable however big of an aviary she is in or however many toys are available and trying to change that is going against nature.
The other thing I suspect is making it even worse is the fact that the house is not a controlled environment at all. She gets randomly reinforced for her screams unintentionally all the time. The phone rings and I answer it, so there's me talking in response to the screams. I have to teach lessons so I go in a lesson and chatter away for an hour, while she screams. Or just friends come over and we talk while she is screaming. In order to be able to fully eliminate the reinforcement, I would have to put Astro in an isolated area where she cannot hear me at all. So I have come to accept this. She doesn't feel at ease on her own. I wonder if it has anything to do with her being only a year and a half old. I don't know the answers yet.
I don't believe it is entirely possible to stop screaming as some articles and trainers suggest. The reason is that it is simply against the animal's natural instincts. You cannot extinguish an instict. Parrots need company and they feel the need to flock call. Denying the response to these calls is denying comfort that they seek in hearing us thus feeling comfortable. It is possible to reinforce nicer vocalisation and to decrease the frequency with proper training and adequate toys and other enrichment though.
Astro has an aviary that is the size of a bedroom. She has several swings, perches, natural branches and ropes and what not. Toys swapped every week. Different textures, foot toys, hanging toys, foraging toys, puzzle toys you name it. She gets fresh vegetables hung in her aviary everyday and gets all kinds of enrichment. She only spends up to 6 hours in any given day in her aviary. She still flock calls for about 45 minutes to an hour or more when she goes in the aviary to have her breakfast in the morning. There is just no stopping that. I never leave immediately after putting her in and I always put the tv on. I have come to the conclusion that it is just the way it is. She doesn't feel comfortable however big of an aviary she is in or however many toys are available and trying to change that is going against nature.
The other thing I suspect is making it even worse is the fact that the house is not a controlled environment at all. She gets randomly reinforced for her screams unintentionally all the time. The phone rings and I answer it, so there's me talking in response to the screams. I have to teach lessons so I go in a lesson and chatter away for an hour, while she screams. Or just friends come over and we talk while she is screaming. In order to be able to fully eliminate the reinforcement, I would have to put Astro in an isolated area where she cannot hear me at all. So I have come to accept this. She doesn't feel at ease on her own. I wonder if it has anything to do with her being only a year and a half old. I don't know the answers yet.