(beep)
- Blue Blue.
Blueberry.
(kissing noises)
- Blue.
Totally ignoring me.
(beep)
- Hey everybody.
Jamieleigh here from BirdTricks
and today I'm going to talk about how to bond
with two birds who are housed in the same enclosure.
I know that this can be kind of a tricky one,
especially for small birds
that are really flighty and fearful,
and neither one want to come close to you,
it can be really difficult.
And then when we get into large birds
usually they're kind of both getting aggressive
and defensive and protecting each other
and so you're dealing with a whole other scenario
between those birds,
so I have a solution for both of those scenarios
so stay tuned.
(mellow music)
- My number one tip for working
with two birds in the same enclosure
is to actually focus on just training one.
Now this happens and presents itself
by just naturally understanding
that one bird is going to be braver than the other.
In my experience usually this is the male bird,
but not always
so it can really differ.
When I worked with some pairs of Toco toucans
on an island in the Bahamas with my husband,
we were crate training these toucans
and we found that instinctively
the males were much braver than the females
and these were paired off in couples for breeding,
and we needed to be able to train these toucans
to go into crates in case of an emergency
because a lot of the time
island weather is very unpredictable
and people have to get under cover
depending on that unpredictability.
So in our efforts of crate training these toucans,
we found the males were a lot braver
and they would actually come into the crates
a lot more easily,
so we decided to just focus on training the males.
What actually happened is the males would come,
they would get the blueberry as a reward
for going on in the crate,
they would jump back out and go deliver the blueberries
to the females.
It was pretty sweet
but it was very sabotaging as well (laughs).
But my point to all this
is that there's always one bird
that's more willing to interact,
that's braver than the other one.
Focus on that bird
and kind of chalk it up to the second bird's
going to learn
from watching that first.
But the faster progress you an make,
the more incentive that second bird is going to have.
So really just pick one bird
and focus on that bird.
When you're dealing with untamed birds
you want to start with hands-off training
so that the bird never feels threatened
and doesn't feel like it has to
A- retreat
or B-bite and attack to defend itself.
You never want to provoke those responses
so we work in a hands-off way
so that it's very non-threatening.
This can be just you walking by,
having an empty dish
as one of the dishes in the cage
and just dropping a treat inside.
For big birds where you're dropping a seed or a nut
and they hear it go into that empty dish,
it's going to really resonate with them
and almost become a queue where they run over
and get that treat.
For birds that maybe you can hand
the treat through the bars,
do that and just start there.
You want to just associate yourself positively
in a non-threatening way
and in a very hands off way,
so if you can hand the bird the treat
that's awesome.
If you can't,
simply drop it in an empty dish.
The birds will start to anticipate seeing you
instead of getting nervous about seeing you
and feeling like they need to flee
or freak out in the cage.
Once you have your bird really conditioned
to understanding every time they see you
they're getting something awesome,
such as a treat,
you want to gently phase that out into target training.
Now target training is just simple teaching a bird
to touch the end of a stick.
It's not attack that stick,
it's not bit it aggressively,
it's just simply to touch it,
and the reason that we use this
is because we can get the bird
to go anywhere we want it to go
with this technique that includes out of the cage,
inside the cage
and eventually flight training I you want.
Now initially if you've been using louring
and your bird is only interested in the treat,
you may need to us a little bit of louring
to transition to target training,
and what that looks like
is holding the end of the stick
and the treat
really close together
so that when your bird goes to get the treat
it accidentally bumps the end of the stick,
gets a click and gets that treat,
and then you slowly phase it out,
so where the treat's a little further back,
the stick is more present
and the bird will eventually understand
that touching the end of the stick
equals that treat reward.
You want to get to the goal
of being able to have that treat
completely out of use so that
that bird understands what
the actual behavior is that you want,
and isn't relying on louring anymore of seeing that reward.
Target training is a great method
because you don't have to worry about getting bit
and the bird doesn't have to worry
whether or not the situation's going to escalate
to a point of needing to bite you,
so that's why I really recommend using this technique,
especially when you eventually phase out
of just training inside the cage
and you want to come
and train the bird outside of the cage.
So please make sure that you set up target training
so your bird is 98 percent awesome at it
and hopefully that second more timid bird
is learning through observation
watching that first braver bird
touch the end of the stick
and maybe comes over and tries it too.
So keep in mind even though you're focusing
on the braver bird,
if that second bird comes and offers the behavior,
definitely take it up on it.
Just don't wait around.
So I that second bird looks a little interested
but is hesitating
and hesitating
and hesitating,
you don't want to just wait and wait and wait
on that bird,
just keep focusing on the main braver bird.
The cool thing about observational learning,
like I was explaining with those toucans,
is that you can train one bird
and that,
just that alone,
will train the second bird
through observational learning of just watching
and observing that bird
and how,
how it gets that treat,
that second bird will start doing that same behavior
to also get a treat
so it's pretty cool.
Instead of training each verdin-,
each bird individually,
you just focus on the one
and the second one just kid of follows suit.
The next phase of this training
is actually placing perches outside of the cage
so that you can eventually transition
to moving your bird outside of the cage
and working with it there
in a larger environment.
I would still keep this environment pretty condensed down,
I wouldn't do it in a huge open room,
especially if these birds are flighty
and flighted,
but you could just close a bedroom door
and work in a specific little bedroom.
Putting perches on the outside of the cage
is going to really help keep your bird comfortable
because it's going to be close to it's zafe-
safe zone which is the cage,
but it's also going to slowly expand
that safe zone bubble
outside of the cage
and be able to give you opportunity
to interact with your bird a little bit more
outside of the cage.
Some more options for this
besides just putting perches on the outside,
are kind of pushing up play stands
or foraging trees,
tea stands,
anything that you can kind of prop up against the cage
to use to expand that bubble,
is going to help you work outside of the cage,
so make sure that when you implement this
maybe your birds are out and away from the cage
so it doesn't possibly scare them
or just move really slow
when you do go to implement this phase.
So the next thing that you need to do
to make sure that you're really successful
at this next phase of training,
is designate a specific perch or tea stand
as your main interaction spot.
That's the spot that you want
to eventually target train your bird over to
so that you constantly interact
and start really doing a lot of things from there.
Your bird will learn that as soon as the cage opens,
he will go to that spot to,
to communicate to you like,
"Hey I want to interact with you human"
and it's a really really cool form
and clear form of communication
between you and your bird.
The main spot that people go wrong with this
is forgetting to target train the bird
back in the cage
and then out
and then in
and then out.
Don't just target train the bird back in the cage
when you need it to go in there
and then shut the door for hours.
That's what makes birds not want to go back in the cage,
is that predictability that they're going
to be there for a really long time
because you've set up a pattern.
Stay away from patterns like that.
Other than your bird getting 12 hours of sleep
and getting a healthy diet,
those are the only patterns you should have (laughs).
So be really really mindful of this
because your bird will start to refuse
to either go in
or refuse to come out
based on what patterns you have established.
So make sure that when you target your bird
back in the cage,
you're also asking it to come out,
and make when you're asking your bird
to target out of the cage,
you also ask it to go back in.
You can practice shutting the door for three seconds,
shutting the door for one second,
shutting the door and letting your bird open the door again,
it really needs to have a lot of variety in it
so that it doesn't become predictable.
Keep in mind with fearful birds
the value of going back in the cage
is going to change.
So initially birds that are incredibly fearful
are not going to want to come out of the cage
to interact with you.
It's going to take a lot more incentive,
a lot more treat value to get your bird to come out,
but as your bird establishes bravery
and starts liking to interact with you,
it might actually turn around
and be different for your bird
to now be resisting going back in the cage.
So keep in mind how you play
with that treat value and reinforcement
and hoy you play with that cage value
as it changes.
Once you're at that phase
where your bird's actually resistant
to go back in the cage
and wants to stick around an hang out with you,
use that designated space we talked about earlier
to start trick training,
to form a bond
and to really get to know that bird a lot better.
So there's three common mistakes
that I see people make
with this entire
scenario of what I usually recommend
to people on my consultations.
One is trying to take a really big step
or make a lot pf progression
at the end of a training session
instead of at the beginning.
So for example,
if target training is going amazing inside the cage
and you're getting towards the end of your session
and you decided to open the cage for once last rep
or the last three reps,
you might be looking at a dead end
because if the bird gets out
and then spooks,
you don't have any more treat value
or bravery value
or anything that you've actually worked up to
to be able to get the bird safely back in
without putting hands-on
sort of techniques in there,
so you don't want to,
you don't want to do those really big milestones
or break through moments
at the end of a session intentionally,
you want to do those at the beginning,
so keep in mind that if you get to that point
and target training is awesome,
save it for your next session
to start maybe with the cage door open next time.
Don't do it at the end of the session
when you're running out of treat value and motivation.
The second mistake I see people make
is really large reactions to behaviors.
So for example if the bird's incredibly aggressive
and tries to bite,
if people go "Whoa!"
or "Naughty boy!
Don't do that!"
And they just have some sort of big reaction
where your tone changes,
your body language changes,
it's really big and obvious,
you want to keep your reactions,
which is hard cause they're reactions,
not responses,
you want to try to keep your reactions
really monotone.
Real chill.
You kind of want to have non-reactions for this stuff.
That way the bird isn't accidentally reinforced
or accidentally punished by your reaction.
The third mistake
and final mistake I want to leave you guys with
that I see people commonly make
is not being set up for the training session
before it happens.
A lot of people try to set up
for the session as it's going.
They might go towards the bird
and then having to scoot a perch closer
or scoot a chair closer
and dragging it across the ground
or whatever you're having to do to set up for your session
might distract or scare your bird
and throw off your entire session.
Make sure that you're set up for success
ahead of time
and so is your bird (laughs).
You want to make sure
that you have you treat pouch ready to go,
you have your clicker,
you have your training stick
and you understand what you're trying
to accomplish in that session.
So just be really ready for that
and think about those last minute things
as really derailing your success.
So I hope this video helped you guys
and gave you some tips and tricks,
especially some starting points
for how to work with two birds in one cage.
Keep in mind that observational learning
is really powerful.
Don't think of this as ignoring that second bird,
think of it as progressing much faster with the first
and giving the second one opportunity
to learn at it's own pace
which may be much slower,
but once it gets there
I'm sure they'll both kind of have a jive and a groove
of catching up with each other.
A lot of the times when I've tamed two birds at once,
one just has strengths in different areas
than the other one
and you wouldn't have thought it
because that one was kind of second to,
to catch up
but birds have a lot to offer
and they're capable of so much
so please don't give up on them.
If you find this video helped you
please don't forget to like,
share,
and subscribe
and I will see you guys all
next time.
(mellow music)