- Hey, everyone. Jamieleigh here from BirdTricks.
And today I wanna go over some parrot handling 101.
Some things that I see
very, very common in my video consults
of people doing wrong,
so that if you're doing it,
you can easily correct it with some tips
that I'm gonna show you in this video.
And I'm going to use a demo bird,
which is actually my Camelot Macaw, Tusa,
who is more so my husband's bird,
but Tusa loves to work.
And he trains really great for me.
So I'm gonna demo with him,
because he's actually the one that I used
on my most recent consult
to show how to get handling just really, really nice
and clean.
So let's show.
(upbeat electronic music)
- So the number one most common mistake in parrot handling
is making an undesirable spot,
so like a spot that you don't want your bird,
such as maybe your shoulder, or even your head,
or possibly even your arm or elbow,
making that spot the most comfortable for your bird
to be in.
So what I mean by that,
is birds tend to like high spots.
So as you can see right now,
as I've been holding Tusa,
my hand is at the highest point,
my elbow's in a pretty awkward position,
as far as if he was going to perch on it,
he would be pretty uncomfortable,
same with my wrist and arm.
So if I let go of his feet,
he's likely to just stay on my hand,
because it is the most comfortable position.
Also, he has learned that he gets reinforcement
while on my hand.
So anytime that you feel like your bird
is creeping down this way or creeping over,
always make sure to offer the reinforcement this way,
so it takes their whole body that way,
and kind of keeps the attention over there.
Now, one of the things that I really like to do
is keep my bird on my hand.
This is for just clarity and handling.
If I want to put him somewhere,
I might have both of his feet,
but to communicate to him that I want to put him somewhere,
I let go of one foot.
He knows that I would like him to go somewhere,
and then I let go the other foot,
and I hang on.
So same with this way.
If I want him to go somewhere,
I let go of one foot,
and he knows what my intention is really, really clearly.
A lot of handling is about clear intention
and communication,
just being able to communicate clearly what it is you want,
and what your intention is to your bird,
and making it really easy to understand.
Because my birds are free flighted,
they have learned that holding both feet
means, "I don't want you going anywhere."
Holding one foot usually means,
"I might set you down on something,
or I might pick you up.
I might hand you off.
Just might do, do something with you."
And then holding no feet usually means that,
"Hey, I might ask you to fly.
I might go on a launch.
Or you are just welcome to fly at any point in time,
and go wherever you want."
So if he wants to go to the forging tree over there
with his brother, he definitely can.
He was thinking about it (laughs).
Now,
one of the main problems that I see with people
is they get uncomfortable with a bird,
and especially with a bird
that might have trouble balancing.
And a lot of people will overcompensate for a bird
that they think cannot balance.
So usually birds are pretty good at this,
unless your bird has some sort of handicap,
and is unable to grip.
Maybe it's missing toes.
Maybe it had full nails fall off at some point.
Maybe it's missing a foot.
Who knows? I've kind of seen it all.
So use this at your discretion,
because, obviously,
each bird's gonna be a little bit different
with actual balance problems that it does have.
Most birds are perfectly fine.
And what I noticed with people with birds
is they will handle them this way.
For example, my consult the other day,
she caught her bird great.
But then for whatever reason,
she would tilt her hand forward.
And this immediately makes the bird pull back.
So if you can see with Tusa's demeanor,
I'm gonna try to show you again.
When I pull him forward,
he is immediately pushing back and resisting.
It's uncomfortable for him.
I'm going to treat and reward him
for letting me just do all of this manipulation to him,
because he's being such a good sport about it.
So what usually happens is people go forward,
the bird resists,
and the people end up not getting the feet anymore.
So they end up not being able to hold the toes.
They've completely rotated.
And now they lost control of the bird,
and the bird is awkwardly on top of their hand.
This is usually when people lift up their arm,
because now they're like,
"Oh no, what's happened to my bird?
What have I done?"
And now they have no idea how to get the bird off their arm.
But what happened is they made it
the most comfortable spot to be by rotating,
and then by lifting the rest of the arm
at the same height as the hand.
Then usually what people do is they drop the hand,
and the hand goes limp,
and the bird moves up.
This is something really, really common
that people tend to do.
It's what I call a domino effect.
So it happens from the point that you rotated your hand
in the first place,
because a lot of people, again,
they rotate,
they make the bird feel really awkward,
then they lift everything up to the same height,
and then the bird just ends up wandering.
And a lot of times that's how they end up on our shoulder.
Thanks buddy.
You're being so good (bird squawks).
So that's something that you can easily recognize
of yourself if you videotape your sessions.
You will see what your own habits are
and how they're forming,
and start to be able to recognize
when you're most likely to do it.
Also, you'll be able to enter the session going,
hey, my downfall
is A,
B and C.
So I'm gonna focus on A today,
and just correcting A.
And then you can be hyper aware of it.
You could even have a buddy try to help you
and point out when you tend to do it,
and then you can work on correcting it.
Ahhh! I wasn't ready with my camera.
(bird squawks)
All right, so I am going to show you guys what I feel like
it should look like to catch a bird.
And again...
Whoo!
I don't know if you're in the shot.
Hopefully you're in the shot.
This goes back to catching the bird with your hand,
not catching the bird on your arm,
where it can slip and fall off,
and not feel secure,
but actually catching your bird with your hand,
making your hand the most convenient point for your bird
to land.
I'm gonna try to give myself
a little extra time (Blueberry screeches).
Sorry, Blueberry.
I didn't see you.
And really put my hand where I want Tusa to land
in the frame.
Good.
So you can see he lands right on my hand.
I catch him with his feet.
Not all birds are gonna be okay with you
holding their feet.
But ideally, that is what you'd like to see,
just so that you really have that communication.
I can feel exactly what he's feeling
all through his feet.
I can feel that he wants to work,
or if he's nervous about something,
all through his feet.
Let's do this one.
Change it up a little bit.
What a good boy.
Good job.
So for example,
he doesn't really like flying back to the tree,
and I can feel that in his feet.
I can feel that right now.
So he's resisting.
He's holding on pretty tight.
I can tell he's not going to fly back.
The other mistake that I see with handling is inconsistency.
Now, we talk about being inconsistent quite a bit.
We talk about consistent inconsistency
for stuff as far as when you feed,
and not building a routine,
that your bird has this really high expectation
that you can't live up to day after day.
However, when it comes to handling,
that's one thing that you should always
be really consistent about.
So Tusa's coming back.
I'm gonna make my hand the highest point.
I'm gonna make it the most comfortable point to be.
And that's why he doesn't wander around.
So even though I do have his feet,
I am not holding on super tight keeping him there.
There's no resistance.
He's not trying to pull his feet out from under me.
And if he was, I would know that there was something
that he was uncomfortable with,
or a better place that he wanted it to be,
and I'd be able to accommodate that.
Do you wanna go back to the tree?
Are you coming?
Come on, Comet.
You wanna come?
Come on, Comet.
Come here (Comet squawks).
Oh, good boy.
Good job.
You're joining in on the video.
Comet just wanted to demo that too.
So again, if you flight train your bird,
where you make your hand the most desirable,
comfortable place to be,
all the reinforcement comes when your bird is on your hand.
For example,
I'm gonna try to see if I can get Comet
to wander a little bit.
If I let go of Comet's feet,
and he starts to wander,
all you have to do is place the reinforcement over here,
so that they walk themselves back to your hand,
and you can end up having the bird back on your hand again.
Another thing that you can do,
is you can just switch hands,
and kind of do a little bit of a reset,
where you get your bird back to where you want it to be.
Just remember to offer that reinforcement for,
hey, thanks for the nice stepping up to my other hand,
stepping back to this hand.
Make sure that you're rewarding
for really clean, awesome handling,
especially if you're messing with it a little bit,
and you're currently inconsistent.
- Who is that?.
Is that our little budgie?
Is that our little buggy around the house?
Do you wanna go back to the stand?
(Comet squawks)
Good job, bud.
Good job.
(Jamieleigh laughs)
You're like, "Hey, man,
I wanna train on this too."
All right.
We're getting a little,
brotherly competition over here.
Who's coming?
Thought it would be you.
All right.
Okay. So the other thing is being able to use both hands.
I know. Just get one hand down at a time, guys.
But you should be able to use both hands,
and this is just because,
sometimes in our house,
we're not always gonna be ready
for when our birds are coming,
and we need to be able to catch them with both hands,
and not end up with a bird on our head.
So let's try this.
So the other hand should look identical.
It should look the same.
Okay?
We should be able to hold our birds on both hands,
not have them any hand specific.
I do know that birds who have had specific injuries
and prefer to step up on certain hands,
and that is, you know,
really a case by case basis.
But for your average bird,
you should be able to use both hands.
Okay?
So let's demo the left hand a little bit more.
Comet, you look like you want to play in this game.
You're just showing him up, dude.
You're showing him up.
No, you're not coming.
All right.
(laughs)
You coming?
Oh, Tusa is so rude.
You know that Comet wanted to come.
Comet.
(Comet squawks)
Good boy.
Good job.
Good job, bud.
You wanna go back? You can go.
Ready? Go (Comet squawks).
Good job.
Tusa.
Can you do that?
It's a little difficult.
Short.
Come on.
Not quite.
Not quite
Good boy.
Good job. Good job.
All right, so I am now gonna show you guys
what it looks like to set a bird on and off of stuff,
how you can do it really intention-based,
whether you want your bird to step off of something
with his foot,
or if you want him to step onto something with his beak.
Sometimes we're nervous that a bird might bite us,
and so sending them off beak first is just kind of nice,
because know that it's an incompatible behavior
to be able to balance with their beak,
and not bite us at the same time.
Okay.
Let's show them, Tus.
So if I want him to step up with one foot.
If I'm going to set him down on something,
I let go of one foot and then the other.
And he knows that my intention was to put him down on that.
Okay?
If I want to put him down beak first on something,
I'm gonna show you what that looks like.
Here we go.
Beak first.
(Blueberry screeching)
Blueberry.
Blueberry hanging out again.
All right.
Let's try that again without Blueberry interfering.
So here's another example of the beak first.
I'm making it most comfortable for him to grab
with his beak.
Okay.
I'm gonna show you guys some more examples
of putting a bird down where you want them
to put their foot first.
So here I let go of the foot.
It's very obvious I want him to go down foot first.
I'm gonna show you again
where I want him to go be beak first.
Good boy, bud.
And that's where I'd wanna go beak first.
And that might be a method that you use with a bird,
again, like I said,
where you're nervous that they might try to bite you
or nip you.
So knowing that their beak is occupied
kind of gives you a safety net.
Good job.
So I'm gonna show you with Tusa, beak first.
And it's almost making it so that their beak
kind of helps them balance.
Comet's like, "Let me demo this.
Let me demo this. This is easy."
All right, bud.
I'm going to show you on the counter
with Comet.
- So if I want him to go down foot first,
letting go of a foot.
Good job, bud.
If want him to come up.
Good boy (Comet squawks).
Tusa just joined us.
And going down kind of beak first on a flat surface
is a little bit more difficult.
I feel like I've done it before,
but hang on.
Okay, come here, you.
There you go.
All right.
(Tusa squawks)
I think the surface might be a little too slippery
to go beak first.
But beak first is best for in the cage
or onto a T-stand or branch.
(upbeat electronic music)
Just so you guys can kind of see what my body language is
when I'm putting them on these stands,
and doing feet first versus beak first,
I'm gonna show you what it looks like for,
just so you can see what I'm doing.
So feet first is kind of setting them above something,
so they can step up onto it,
or step down onto it.
Beak first is gonna look more like they can go up onto it,
climb up onto it,
and their beak goes on first to kind of help them.
All right, bud.
I'm gonna show you with beak first.
Yep.
He's like, "I don't wanna go."
And then feet first.
That's pretty much it.
Do you want to do it?
Come on, before Tusa gets jealous.
Are you jealous?
(Tusa squawks)
Yeah. All right.
So beak first,
climbing up onto something.
You guys are like,
"Where's my money?"
(wings flapping)
(Comet squawks)
And then foot first would look like this.
Right?
Where it's most convenient for them
to step off with their feet instead of their beak.
Okay?
You guys good?
You guys good on the handling?
You guys good on my handling?
(laughs)
They're like you're obsessive right now.
Tusa, you just wanna work.
(Tusa squawks)
Well, I hope this video helped you, you guys.
If it did, please make sure to give it a thumbs up.
And if you guys still have some basic handling questions,
leave them in the comments below,
and I'll maybe consider doing another video
showing some more handling clarification.
And thanks to my boys, Comet and Tusa,
for being such good helpers in this video.
(Comet squawks)
(laughs)
Bye, guys.
(rock music)