- [Announcer] Parrots are the third most popular pet
in the world but the number one most re-homed.
Help us put an end to this.
Listen to the Parrot Training podcast.
Brought to you by Bird Tricks.
- Hey everybody.
Welcome to another session of the Parrot Training podcast.
I'm your host, Dave Womach.
- And I'm Jamie Womach.
- We are from Bird Tricks.
- So, this week I asked you guys in my YouTube community
tab for some podcast topics,
and you guys definitely delivered.
So, one of the questions that we are asked are what are our
opinions on cageless homes.
So, birds that are living without a cage in a home.
And, this is an interesting concept.
At first we were thinking about it
from a different perspective.
And then I realized it is actually something that I
implement with project birds quite often.
And, most recently, with Lefty and Touche.
So, Lefty was a sixteen year old Quaker parrot,
and Touche was a two year old Indian Ringneck.
And, the reason that I was able to have them cageless
was because they both lacked confidence
in their environment.
So, obviously, it was a brand new environment
bringing them home.
I had them for a few months, and I was able to keep them
cageless almost the entire time.
The only time I put them in an aviary was when
we were gonna be gone for an extended amount of time.
And, obviously there's no way to 100 percent bird-proof
your home, which is what we'll kind of get into.
And so, I didn't want to risk anything happening
while we weren't able to supervise them.
So, cageless is one thing when you're there to supervise.
Cageless is another when you're not.
And I don't really have a lot of experience doing this just
forever.
- I also think it works until it doesn't.
And we'll jump into that too.
But, I think really the bigger thing to look at this from
is the whole pet-shaming that's happening.
And where people are like, hey, you're a crappy bird owner
if you don't let your bird out of the cage for
X amount of hours every day.
That's a wrong reason to let your bird out of the cage.
Because,
we can jump into this, but
if you have a super confident bird,
you might run into issues where your bird
becomes very aggressive.
And being out of the cage is no longer a good thing.
It's actually similar to having a wild bird in your house,
and then you can't get him in the cage.
And, is your relationship with the bird better
because he's cageless?
Or is it worse?
Or is there no impact on your relationship?
And I think that's kind of where a lot of that needs
to be looked at too because if you're approaching this
from, you know, someone saying you need to have your bird
out a certain amount of time,
that's not necessarily the right thing.
Where cageless can be really enriching for the bird.
- Yeah, and I actually have a blog post on this
it's a blog article on our website
at birdtrickstore.com.
If you just use the little search feature and search
cageless.
I'll also put it in the video description
about some different people that we interviewed
and talked to that actually do keep their birds cageless.
And we've seen some amazing setups.
Do you remember that one that was actually part
of a rescue?
Where her own birds were indoors.
- Yeah
- And she had literally used the entire wall
of the upstairs and made this amazing jungle gym.
- In Pittsburgh, right?
- Yes.
- Yeah.
- And it was beautiful and fantastic and amazing,
and it was for Macaws.
Now, the other thing is the personality in birds.
So, we have birds like Comet who's our lazy boy.
He will hang out.
He's not very destructive as far as household things.
He's very destructive in his aviary when he has his toys.
But, he's not super destructive just out.
And, he will be happily out on play stands
for quite a while.
- Most of the day.
- Whereas our Cockatoo, Bondai,
she'd last like point two seconds
before she's onto something.
And anything, whether it's negative attention or positive
attention, she's all for it.
So, she'll start chewing on something just to get you
to come over and make her stop or to give her attention.
- Or just because she wants to chew on something.
- Yeah.
- It's really, like, having a Galah in your house, cageless,
would be foolish.
- It would be awful!
- You might as well like, live in a cement box.
- I would not live in the house.
I think it would be fun as long as you don't live
in the house too.
- Well, that's the thing is do you want to live
in the bird's cage?
'Cause that's what it is, right?
- In the birds house?
Yeah.
I think the other thing is it's easier,
in my personal opinion, to have very small birds cageless.
Because, one, they're way less destructive.
Two, their poops are itty bitty tiny, and then they just
get hard, and you flick them off.
- It totally sounded like you said, "Boobs."
- Boobs?
- Yeah.
- Instead of poops?
- Yup, poops, okay.
- Oh no!
Their boobs are itty bitty tiny.
(laughs)
- Until you just flick them off.
- Oh my God!
This podcast, I'm sorry guys.
- This is why it's a podcast, folks.
- Apparently, nobody understands me.
Not even my own husband.
But, anyways, I don't know where I was going with that.
But just that little birds are easier to have cageless
for larger amounts of time.
In my opinion, with our birds, because they are less
destructive,
and they're less
less messy.
They make a mess, but nothing compared to Kressie.
- Oh my gosh, Kressie cageless, there would be like
food slopped, soup splattered everywhere.
- She would find everything to eat.
Yeah, so, I just think it really comes down to,
it would be a totally different story if we went through
our entire flock and just said,
what would it be like to have Tousa cageless?
What would it be like to have Jinx cageless?
Oh man, no.
You know what I mean?
- Some would be a disaster.
- Some would be a total disaster.
- You know having our Budgie cageless is a joy.
- Yeah.
It's fun.
- He's fun.
He just roams the house,
and it's such a neat thing.
But, like you said,
his poops are tiny, and you can just flick them away.
(laughs)
- I think this is a to each their own sort of thing.
For me, personally, I don't see how you would 100 percent
parrot-proof your home.
Because there's paint,
there's outlets.
There's just normal things that build a home
that a bird shouldn't be able to access that could
really hurt it.
So, for me,
I can't figure out a way that it would
be okay.
I do love the idea of a bird room.
Were it's not necessarily in a cage, but it actually has
its own room which makes it's environment.
- Well, Ashlynn and David have a phenomenal picture.
You did a blog post on that, right?
- Yeah.
But, the whole thing with them even, they still have a cage.
So, for sleeping, Tango still has a cage.
But, this is kind of a way for him to exert his energy
and be able to destroy things.
And he has a full room for enrichment.
So, I love the idea of bird rooms.
I think that's awesome.
And if we could have our birds, how I always think about it,
is cageless, but you guys are probably gonna be like
that's not technically cageless,
is a huge environment outside
where it would be netted
somehow in a way where it would be enclosed.
But, it's mostly enclosed to keep scary things out
versus keeping them in.
But, you know what I mean.
That's how it would act.
So, you'd walk in and not feel like you're enclosed
in anything.
But technically, still an enclosure.
- Well, and that's, if you look at it your house is
still a cage, right?
It's just not bars, so maybe it doesn't feel bad.
But, you're still keeping your bird in a cage.
It just happens to be 2000 square feet or whatever
your house is, right?
So, the whole concept of a bird being cageless is really
an interesting thing to interpret because
what you think is great, but at the end of the day,
you still have a wild bird in an enclosed area.
So, are you a better owner because it's not in its cage?
Or are you doing more damage because you're constantly
having to correct behavior because he's eating
the electrical cord, or destroyed the lamp or your couch,
and you've gotta go over and...
- Or ingested part of a blanket or a towel.
For me that's where it becomes just an ultimate safety
issue.
And although you're trying to improve the quality of life,
if the bird doesn't have a life,
you've improved nothing.
You just need to be really, really mindful
of how bird-proofed is your home?
And speaking of which, we could add in the description
our household dangerous download because there's a lot
of stuff where people don't necessarily think of it.
I was actually going back through it the other day,
and we list safe and unsafe lists of foliage and branches.
And it's in alphabetical order for those of us that really
need that.
But, also it lists just household things that you may
not think of like certain cleaning supplies and certain
things you use on your own body, and all that kind
of stuff that you probably aren't even thinking about
with your bird, but you need to be mindful of
especially if you're considering doing a cageless lifesytle.
So, overall did we agree or disagree with the cageless
lifestyle?
I think it's just kind of a...
- I think it just comes down to a personal decision.
'Cause your house is still a cage.
You just are living in it with your bird.
- I like my cage.
- And I like it not covered in poop.
- Good thing you don't watch the other videos
on the channel.
- I've sat in your chair before.
It's disgusting.
- I don't know why they prefer the chair.
(laughs)
So, one of the epiphomys, piphmy? Piphony?
- Epiphany.
- Epiphany?
(laughs)
I want a different word.
Can I buy a different vowel?
(laughs)
Can I use a different word.
It reminds me of the tv blooper where she's like
precipa, purse, percepa, perc,
it's gonna rain!
(laughs)
That's me!
Okay.
Anyways,
- I had a breakthrough idea.
- A breakthrough idea of
why a cageless lifestyle
temporarily is really, really successful.
So, one of the things that I did with Lefty and Touche,
as I mentioned, was I originally had them cageless.
And that was to build confidence and encourage exploration.
So, they didn't have a cage to retreat into, to become
territorial about.
Any of the things that I always had read or had heard
from other people having this sort of species
stemmed from having cage issues.
And so I was like, well if I eliminate the cage,
I eliminate running into those issues.
What I wish I would have done for those of you
on the YouTube channel, please go check it out on my series
on Rasta.
He was an Alexadrine Parakeet, and he did this.
He didn't want to come out of his cage.
He didn't want to interact.
He hated hands.
And getting him to come out,
I basically built an
environment attached to his cage that expanded his
boundaries of comfort in this comfort zone.
And I slowly built that out.
But looking back,
what I wish I would have done,
is what I did with Lefty and Touche,
and just had him cageless from the get go.
I wish I would have just set up a really cool environment
play stand,
and had them out all the time.
Because I think it would have sped up his progress
of his confidence building, of his flight skills,
all of the things I wanted to work on,
even his telling me he wanted to interact.
I think it would have sped everything up
if I would have done the cageless thing.
- Yeah, and you know looking back at Touche,
we ended up changing his name to Torpedo.
- Well, we just called him Torpedo.
- He got really
as he got more confident he would torpedo over to us,
crash land on the table,
steal our steak,
and fly away with it.
We're like, Dude!
- One time, it was so funny.
We were not expecting it,
because, like I said,
he didn't have confidence yet, and then just one day he did.
Which is why it comes back to Dave saying a cageless
lifestyle is great, and it works, until it doesn't.
And that was the day that it totally changed,
and we were at the dining room table, which is where
we're at now.
He was all the way on the other side of the room.
We didn't even think he could fly that far.
And he flew all the way to the dining room table.
We were laughing, and we were astonished.
We didn't think that he would go for our steak,
and he literally took a chunk of steak.
And we were like, "No!"
And before we could do anything, he just flew back with it.
- So, we're not advocating feeding your birds steak,
by the way.
Let's be crystal clear.
- Yeah, no.
That was not intentional.
- But, that's on of the things with having your bird
cageless, so to speak, is that as they build confidence,
they're going to get into things that you didn't expect.
And, it's the same with Blueberry.
He, when he wants to interact, he'd like...
- Or she.
- Yeah, we don't know yet.
But,
one of the nights,
because he sleeps out of the cage on the stand that
you might be able to see behind us there,
behind Jamie's head.
Yep, on that stand.
And so we're sleeping, and we just hear, on our hardwood
floors you hear tick, tick, tick,
- Pitter-patter.
- And he was like, "All right guys, I'm ready."
And as he's building confidence he's like
telling us he wants to interact.
He's telling us when he's hungry.
That communication's really great.
And you see that the confidence is there, where if
he was in a cage he wouldn't be able to communicate
that he needs something or wants something.
And so, if that was
a Macaw
that could be a disaster.
And I think it really comes down to what bird.
- Yeah.
Well, even Touche and Lefty I had stands everywhere.
I have them in every room.
And so they were able to move themselves to each and every
room.
And Touche, whenever I let him sleep in our master bedroom,
I would always wake up with him on the bed.
Always.
- I remember that.
(laughs)
- It was hilarious.
So, there's a lot of opportunities
for cute and getting somewhere with training is when
I use the cageless lifestyle.
To build confidence
and supercharge it so it happens faster.
I really, really believe in it, and it's something that
I like to utilize early on.
And especially project birds because they're usually
just lacking confidence.
And, they're not acting like birds.
And, so it's a really great technique.
I would almost call it a technique,
like a training tool or technique that you can use
and implement in a really good way,
but it's not something that I would ever do as a long-term,
forever, 24/7 lifestyle.
For me, personally.
- Well said.
Well, if you guys are getting value out of this,
please help us with our mission to saving parrots
on person at a time, while Jamie checks her phone.
- I was just gonna see if we missed anything, if we should
have said anything else.
(laughs)
I knew that you were gonna say that I'm not paying
attention, but anyways.
I think it also goes back to our mission in the podcast
where you mention does your bird have too much freedom.
- Yeah.
That's a good reference to go back to that podcast.
Are you giving your bird too much freedom?
And, yeah, if you're getting value out of this,
help us do our part by doing your part by sharing this
with somebody who may or may not get value out of this,
but that you hope they get value out of it.
- What in the world?
And let us know how you keep your bird.
If you keep it in a bird room,
if you keep it in a cage,
if you keep it in your house,
how you do it.
I wanna know, and I'd love to hear more about it.
(upbeat music)