training time amount?

hsb_birds

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Dec 4, 2014
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horseshoe bay, tx
Parrots
9 MACS, 2 U2, 2 DHYA, 1 CAG, & 1 SC. (plus 1 chilean flamingo & 5 sulcata tortoises)
hi. so i work at a resort with 14 different birds. we are looking to have a show of sorts come summer (test date is spring break 2015). my co-worker and i have only been alotted 40/week, she lead so she gets 30 hours while i get 10 hours. we have 9 birds that we are planning to use for the show, with various training that i know we're needing to do with them. it's anything from command clicker training that we're working on, to possible free flight. i know it's really hard to give a certain amount of hours, but i'm trying to convince my boss that we're needing more hours as training takes a long amount of time. if a bird hasn't been trained, just handled, how long would it roughly take to get any sort of training done?
 

weco

New member
Nov 24, 2010
3,342
12
USA
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Nanday, suns, parrotlet, Patagonian
What kind of training are you interested in doing? Spring break is only about 90 days or less away, isn't it? What kind of birds do you have to work with? How much time have you and your friend spent with these birds?
 
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hsb_birds

New member
Dec 4, 2014
72
Media
1
0
horseshoe bay, tx
Parrots
9 MACS, 2 U2, 2 DHYA, 1 CAG, & 1 SC. (plus 1 chilean flamingo & 5 sulcata tortoises)
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spring break is currently 78 days away. i don't have my paperwork and lists with me, but we have 4 macaws, 2 cockatoos, 1 african grey, 1 sun conure, and 1 flamingo. she has 30 hours per week, and i have 10 hours per week. we currently are working on a block schedule, where we have 7 birds we train and work with on one day, then the other 7 the next (we have 5 others that aren't planned to be used for the show as of now). with all of this, our boss has estimated that we should have 30 minutes for each bird for training. all of the training is different with everyone, i'll break it down maybe ya'll can help.


apple (green wing) -- we're working on him being more friendly, he makes tons of grumpy noises when he's touched and handled, and he's one of the birds pass (under supervision) for photographs with guests.
sunshine satan (capri) -- mainly for show, as she's really not very nice (i've been told it's the breed in general) but i'd personally like to handle her more without her getting nervous or anxious.
buckaroo and jekyll (green wing pair) -- both have a large vocabulary, we're looking just to incorporate that as we're trying to do a walking type tour to keep everyone participating. they'll hopefully make silly noises and talk back when we're talking about them.
gracie (umbrella cockatoo) -- variations of hi and hi there. would love to get her to know foreign hi's and hellos.
ralph (umbrella cockatoo) -- ralph jumps and dances, and says a handful of words, we're wanting various things on command too.
scooter (sun conure) -- free flying on command. i'm wanting him to fly to guests heads for photos.
joseph (african grey) -- he does animal noises, we're working on old macdonald right now.
mingo (chilean flamingo) -- unless someone knows how to work with a flamingo? :p



yeah, it's a lot of stuff. the other aviculturist and i are working to show our supervisors and all the others who cut our paychecks that salary would be so much better money wise, that way we can work with these birds as much as possible without having to deal with the dreaded overtime. the other five birds are also needed to be worked with each day, many of them haven't been worked with at all as the old trainer had so many birds she just left them in cages. it's like starting from scratch with at least 5 of these birds!
 

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