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- [Dave] 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.
- I guess, I'm a co-host, Jamie Womack.
(Dave laughs)
What am I?
- And we're from Bird Tricks.
You nailed that intro, perfect.
Today, we're gonna be talking about...
- Sleeper cages.
- Nailed that one, too. (laughs)
- Sounds lame, but it's really important,
and you guys are not nailing it.
It came up because of consults lately,
and we're just like (mimics explosion sound)
- Yeah, so as we're getting into spring, you know,
we've put out the course on spring hormones.
If you guys haven't watch that,
definitely go pick it up, check it out.
But the big thing about hormones is they can be triggered,
as many of you know, by sleep or
lack of sleep. - lack thereof.
And so what's happening a lot
is we're getting a million and two freaking excuses
for why their bird's not getting 12 hours of sleep,
and it's super frustrating because then the question
for the whole consult is like,
"yeah, but my bird's, you know, wanting to hump my husband
"every time he's out," or whatever it is, and,
- Or it's just really aggressive or crabby or whatever,
just all - It goes to--
the behavioral problems.
- Yeah, all the hormonal behavioral problems,
and so, anyway, we wanted to give you some solutions.
As you know, your bird needs 12 hours of sleep.
It needs to be uninterrupted sleep.
If you live in a really small studio apartment
with one bathroom, gonna be honest,
you maybe shouldn't have a bird, all right?
Because your bird needs to have
12 hours uninterrupted sleep,
so unless you also hibernate for 12 hours a night,
your bird is probably not getting that 12 hours of sleep,
so a common thing is, you know, even a smaller house,
we don't have a very big house, but we have two bathrooms.
In our situation, I would recommend for somebody
to put a sleeper cage in one of the bathrooms,
making sure that that bathroom
is still temperature regulated.
Don't make the mistake of thinking like,
for example in hotels, if you close the door
and it's on an outside wall,
that bathroom might almost freeze
or get really really cold overnight,
so be careful of that kind of thing.
But what I'm talking about is like your daily habits,
you know, where can you put your bird
where it's going to get 12 hours of sleep?
Do you have blackout curtains?
That's another big one we just went over.
The gentleman that we were talking with
had all the best intentions, and it was,
I felt bad wasting his whole consult on,
"hey man, just put up blackout curtains,
"because I can't help you until your bird
"is getting that full 12 hours of sleep."
- Yeah, it's really hard to consult on training
when the foundations aren't in place,
where it's a proper diet,
and you're not dealing with a healthy bird.
Like, once you have all the foundations in place
and then you have behavioral problems,
that's something to really analyze and figure out,
but until those are in place,
those are usually what's wrong,
and just fixing those things and lining them up properly
is going to help a lot.
You know, I know a lot of people try to keep their birds
in areas where it's really active
and there's a lot going on,
so the bird feels like it's constantly a part of the family
and a part of the action,
but sleeping there may not be a good idea
because if it's your living room or a den
or a place where you watch TV late
or you just hang out late,
ideally, your bird should be somewhere else
where it can get some adequate sleep.
Also, we've heard from a lot of people
who have funky schedules, and we're used to that.
We have, - We have funky schedules
we have funky schedules, and we always joke
that we have no routine, and it's just because
every day is totally different for us
and especially when we're traveling,
so on the cruise ship,
our schedule was putting the birds to bed at midnight
and waking them up at noon.
Now, there's nothing wrong in changing the sleep schedule
based on what your schedule is,
so those of you, I know that there's a lot of you
that we talked to that work nights.
- It just made me laugh 'cause a lot of the grandparents
on those cruises yelled at us
for having our kid up until midnight,
but we had her on the same sleep schedule as the birds,
so even though you might be in Bermuda,
you might be on a timezone from the UK.
Like, whatever it is for you,
you can move your bird's schedule around to fit your needs.
It's really important.
- It just matters that it's 12 uninterrupted hours of sleep,
so that your bird is getting that, and it feels refreshed.
I know that I'm pretty terrible when I don't get to sleep,
so I think the cure-all would be get some sleep.
- So, this next one's a really interesting concept,
and I had a really great consult with this couple
who the bird was very hormonal towards the husband,
and they did put him in, what they believed to be,
a sleeper cage, but the process of doing that
caused other problems, so what happened is
they would put their galah into the cage
and then they'd roll the cage down the hallway,
and the bird would be lunging at them the whole time,
and so what we suggested,
and I'll find out here hopefully soon how it worked
is just putting a little sleeper cage,
which is a travel cage, or if you have the space
and the money for a larger cage,
you can put a larger cage in another room.
Like, for us during the winter months,
our garage is our birds' sleeping room.
That is their sleeping aviaries.
You know, they have these massive cages
to be able to sleep in,
but if you don't have that kind of space
or potentially don't have that type of cage,
you can use a smaller travel cage,
but here's the thing I just suggested to this couple
to put the sleeper cage in another room,
and give the bird dinner in that cage,
so let's say that their schedule for the bird to sleep
is 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m.
The goal is to go put him in there at like 5:30,
let him have his dinner.
He's going to look forward to going into that cage,
and then, the lights go off on their own.
He gets a solid 12 hours of sleep.
Versus what was happening is
they were putting him in the cage,
it was rattling down the hallway,
and then they were associated with flipping off the light,
and it was starting to cause a behavior problem,
even though they were really doing the best by the bird
by giving it that 12 uninterrupted hours of sleep,
so just a, kind of a more abstract way to look at it,
but don't feel like it has to be a massive cage.
The purpose of a sleeper cage is to enclose your bird safely
in a room that's dark for 12 hours
so that he gets the appropriate amount of sleep.
- We've even heard stories kind of opposite of that
where by using a sleeper cage,
I've heard of birds reminding the humans
that it's time to go to bed - Yup.
and walking themselves over to where they know
their sleeper cage is, so keep in mind,
birds are just happier and healthier
when they're getting that amount of sleep,
and so it's really ideal to give that to them
so that you're dealing with the best temperament possible.
- Yeah, but the big takeaway is
that it doesn't have to a massive cage.
The bird's sleeping, and the other big takeaway of this
is if your bird doesn't like a travel cage,
it certainly will if you start setting up
for that bird eats dinner there every night,
and then it's, you know, two birds one stone, so to speak.
Now, if you need to take your bird to the vet,
it already likes its "sleeper cage," or its travel cage.
- Yeah, it's no longer just associated
with negative experiences, - Yeah.
and how it's awesome and no big deal to go in.
I like that.
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