PetKnows

A guest post by Best In Flock

After you’ve eliminated any and all physical explanations for your bird’s excessive screaming (i.e., your bird is in pain, your bird is sick), there are several things you can do to teach your bird not to yell (as much).

1. Boredom Can Cause Screaming. Stop the Boredom.

Many problem behaviors arise in parrots who are simply bored. You can’t, and shouldn’t, be their only source of entertainment, so your birds need to have plenty to keep them occupied when caged.

In the wild, parrots spend a lot of time and energy looking for food. In captivity, their food is conveniently provided in a bowl right in front of them. This leaves them with very little to do all day long and it’s easy for that frustration to turn into screaming. Toys and foraging activities can absorb a lot of bored energy and pet parrots should be encouraged to play with toys inside and out of their cages. When you’re not around, you can also try leaving the TV or radio tuned to your parrots’ favorite channel.

2. Ignore the Screaming. Be Consistent.

Teach your parrot that you don’t respond to screaming. But if screaming doesn’t get you to pay attention to her, what else can she do? You can’t stop an animal from needing or wanting something. What you can do, is to teach them the proper way to express that need. You should seek to replace the loud, screeching vocalization with another sound. It’s much more difficult to teach an animal not to do something than it is to teach them to do something else. What your parrot can learn is that using her “inside voice” gets rewarded, whereas screaming doesn’t. If your bird talks, you can teach her to use appropriate words to express what she wants (still using her inside voice, of course. No one wants a bird repeatedly screaming “Come HERE!” at the top of her lungs).

The longer the bird has been positively reinforced to scream for attention, the more difficult it will be and the longer it will take to un-teach it. In fact, expect your bird to scream a lot more for a while before she stops - she’s going to throw everything she has at the technique that’s worked best for her in the past before she finally gives up. That’s called an extinction burst.

3. Except When You Don’t Ignore the Screaming: Responding to Contact Calls.

But you just said that I need to be consistent about not acknowledging the screaming, right? Yes and no. There’s a difference between screaming for attention and a contact call. A contact call is your parrot’s way of assuring herself that her flock is close by. When you don’t respond, she’ll keep calling more and more frantically, probably working herself up into a fit. All she wants is an acknowledgement that you’re still there. For most birds, simply calling back to them will shut them up until they need to check in again. If you don’t like the sound of the contact call, work on changing it to something else: a whistle, a beep, or a “Marco?” to your “Polo!”.

What Not to Do:

• Don’t yell back at your bird. More than likely, your parrot will think this is fun game and keep yelling.

• Don’t expect your parrot never to yell. Parrots yell, that’s a fact of nature. You’re only trying to curb excessive screaming.

• Don’t keep your bird covered up all day. While reasonable people can disagree whether putting a cover over your bird’s cage for a few minutes is effective, you absolutely should not cover your bird for hours at a time (except at night). Being covered all day is very isolating and can lead to many bigger problems down the road.

• Don’t run to your bird whenever she gets loud, even if all you’re doing is telling her to “Be QUIET!” all you will accomplish by doing that is teaching her that you go to her when she yells.

For more information about dealing with a screaming parrot and other parrot behavior issues, click here.

This guest post was written by the human slave to Stewie the sun conure and Mika the white capped pionus. (Want to know what a screaming sun conure sounds like? Check out this video). Her parrot blog (Best in Flock) covers a variety of issues relevant to pet bird ownership.