Need your opinions.

I don’t know if this is in the right section of the forum or not, sorry.
So I went to the PetExpo thinking it would help cheer me up after losing Blue and it did a little bit. I met a lot of bird owners there and had fun in general but I had a few questions.

There was a bird show there by the Bird Man, I forget his real name but he had a green winged macaw, a double yellow headed amazon, an eagle, a condor, and a vulture, all of which performed in his little show that he had. I was impressed by his green wing macaw, he said that this Macaw was abandoned in somebody’s home when they moved away and the next door neighbor had to call animal services to come and rescue the bird then animal services contacted him and the rest is history. This macaw was so sweet and perfectly trained but he had said he had to towel her in the beginning because she could not be handled at all.
So now he has this gorgeous green winged macaw who is trained but used to be violent.

I decided to wait till after the show and ask how he trained her and taught her how to step up and gain his trust and he said simply “the use of food”. I nodded, I understood giving treats was very helpful in training but I asked him how to really gain my bird’s trust such as Maverick, my pattagonian, my Maverick was abused by his last owners who cut his tail and didn’t socialize him much, now Maverick and I have a little bit of trust but not fully, he will let me pet him but hesitates to step up if my hand is in front of him, if my hand is behind him he will step up backwards.

The Bird Man, who has trained many birds and has a lot of experience tells me to not use clicker training or point touch training but food training. A lot of food in my hand, if the bird is hungry he’ll do anything for the food. Of course by this point in my head I’m asking “Are you suggesting no food in my bird’s cage? Just in my hand?” and so i ask him that and he says “No food in the cage. Just in your hand.”

Eventually I’m confused because I don’t know if he was telling me to not provide a food bowl at all or not and obviously I won’t really listen to this advice because Maverick and I have been making progress, its not tht much progress but its something. Now this man is obviously good at what he does to work with all the birds that he does but I just don’t agree with the whole “No food in the cage” part

So as someone who has trained her own birds, does anyone agree with this advice or no?

He would have a weak or dead Macaw if he never put food in the cage. I think he meant (I hope) to withhold a treat until the bird does what you want her/him to do.

eagle18 said:

He would have a weak or dead Macaw if he never put food in the cage. I think he meant (I hope) to withhold a treat until the bird does what you want her/him to do.

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I got so confused though because I asked what to do during training and then i said I feed Maverick in the morning when i wake up and he said to not feed him in the cage but outside the cage with my hand

Sounds potentially dangerous. Food deprivation can cause an increase in water consumption and reverting in adult behaviors - among other things.

If you want to read a couple of articles on it from Barbara Heidenreich
Weight Management in Animal Training: Pitfalls, Ethical Considerations and Alternative Options
Weight Management Revisited


Now, I have gained birds' trust through offering food by hand, but I never deprived them of food, forcing them to eat from my hands. I fed them enough food to last for one day and they always received fresh food the next day! Now, before offering them fresh food, I'd offer the some food by hand. If they ate it, great! If not, that's okay, too! They don't have to! After 5-15 minutes or when the food was gone, they'd get the fresh food in the cage. Repeat daily.

Using favorite treats can also help move the process along faster!

I even have one video of feeding a *very* hesitant bird by hand. "Behind" her, there's food available and another bird is eating from the dish. Clearly, she didn't *have* to eat from my hands, but she *chose* to!

If there is one thing I have learned on this forum is try everything once, the things you and your bird like, try them twice.

Now that doesnt mean you are going to have success on the first try.

What it means is to try everything repetitively, notice the nuances. I have a bird from the likes of Birdmans training of me!! I am sure there are things i do with Rudy and other things that I learned from others. Rudy is extremely well adapted to everything. He is not an adult yet and I know there will be changes. Detailed and Subtle behavior changes can be frustrating. I dont believe in any one solution to any problem. Perseverance pays off! You have the best advice by doing what you are doing.

Best Wishes!

Oh! And Monica. Be careful with Barbaras advice. I have read her stuff. Rudy will be entering into a more extreme form of training in that I hope to be graduating him to a transmitter for true free flighting. He is going to the next level with a 40' flight line. On those days food will be limited near completely prior to heading out to the field and then rewarded substantially for flying to me. Maybe not so much in the event of an errant flight.

Barbara Heidenreich teaches free flight training so has experience doing it and I'm sure without food deprivation that leads to the undesired behaviors she explained in her articles.


[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFzkUm7oRqE"]Free Flying Parrots at The Positive Parrot Retreat - YouTube[/ame]


[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQYydrhD0jk"]A Flock of 42 Macaws Flies in the Park - YouTube[/ame]

Thanks Monica, Still my approach to feed or not feed is very specific to how I plan to try and see what works best with free flight training. I am confident with Birdmans suggestion, not so much Barbaras. Rudy has his favorites. He is going to see that on his big fly days. Would I still allow him to have some food before he goes out to fly? Yeah, maybe, however if I do it, it will be in a limited moderation of showing him that i have his favorite snacks.

AND OH! LOL.. .I have a male.... didnt your mother teach you that the way to a mans heart is through his stomach?

Jferrand526 said:

II decided to wait till after the show and ask how he trained her and taught her how to step up and gain his trust and he said simply “the use of food”.

The Bird Man, who has trained many birds and has a lot of experience tells me to not use clicker training or point touch training but food training. A lot of food in my hand, if the bird is hungry he’ll do anything for the food. Of course by this point in my head I’m asking “Are you suggesting no food in my bird’s cage? Just in my hand?” and so i ask him that and he says “No food in the cage. Just in your hand.”

Eventually I’m confused because I don’t know if he was telling me to not provide a food bowl at all or not and obviously I won’t really listen to this advice because Maverick and I have been making progress, its not tht much progress but its something. Now this man is obviously good at what he does to work with all the birds that he does but I just don’t agree with the whole “No food in the cage” part

So as someone who has trained her own birds, does anyone agree with this advice or no?

Click to expand...

IMO, No, no, and no! While a hungry bird *may* do anything for food, I believe it manifestly cruel to withhold food simply to force compliance with human desires. When a creature of flight is forced (by capture, breeding, or circumstance) to live with humans, the least we can do is provide the three bottom layers of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. (reproduced below)

I do not free-flight my birds because the locale is rife with raptors. Consequently I am not well versed with training methods, but the practice of withholding food to foster a return smacks of using a sentient being for self enjoyment. Sorry, that is my opinion - macaws fly wild in their native environment, but once parronted, the bar is condiderably raised. I understand food deprivation motivates a return to the parront, but that brings us to square one.

The triangle does not mention specific training. I think more in the category of enrichment and enticement. There are are hours of time when Rudy doesn't eat and quite frankly not even his favorites, I suspect he is full.

The denial of food is or should a very minimal at best IMHO of course!

I’m glad to see that everyone agrees that food deprivation is not right. Till this day I don’t really understand if he was telling me to deprive my birds of food or not. I definitely would never use food depeivation, it’s cruel. I don’t want to do anything to make Maverick more angry or scared. He had been plucking when his last abusive owner sold him to the store for a quick buck and he grew all his feathers back and now he has begun again and honestly I spend so much time with him and he’s out all day except for nighttime and he has so many toys that he annihilates. Thankfully I scheduled an appointment for Maverick to go see the avian vet soon. I didn’t notice he was plucking till he raised his wings and the bottom of his wings are bare again, not completely but almost. The vet said that it could be hormones going crazy.

deprivation is a harsh word. I reread your 1st post. Drop that word and that practice. I suspect that people are misunderstanding several things Birdman may or may not have said by the way your written words were then replied to. Its possible that your whole conversation with Birdman has been taken out of context.

I could go on about this whole subject, I'll end with, this is a constant problem with "social" media.

Everything in moderation.... Try everything once, the things you like try them twice.

Plucking is insidious, and often occurs without apparent cause. This is a wonderful thread discussing plucking: http://www.parrotforums.com/behavioral/52217-plucking-search-answers.html

There are certain bird people, or bird trainers, who use the "food deprivation" method on a very regular basis with all of their birds, and I'm thinking of one person in-particular who uses this method extremely strictly, to the point that they actually weigh the pellets that they give their birds each morning on a scale, and I've seen this person do this in many of their videos, and this person only puts pellets/food in their bird's bowls once a day, first thing in the morning, and we're talking like the most minimal number of pellets, to the point that they take pellets away one by one while the bowl is on the scale in the morning...the rest of the food their birds get is all given while training during the day. And their birds pretty much train all day long, every day, or at least they used to, I don't know if this person still does this, but they had some very "impressive" birds that did very "impressive" tricks over and over and over and over again....I'm hoping that my feelings of disgust are coming through in my typing...

This to me is just terrible, and not the point at all to adding birds to your family. There is absolutely nothing wrong with training your birds to do tricks by rewarding their behavior with treats. It's a great way to bond with your bird, great exercise and stimulation for the bird, and positive-reinforcement is a great training method...HOWEVER, depriving a bird or any animal of regular meals and ONLY feeding them when they do a trick or something that you ask of them, as if food is not a necessary part of the bird or animal living a healthy life, but is rather just a special reward that is given when you do something your human asks of you, that in my own, personal opinion is animal neglect/abuse...

I immediately took it to read not, "don't feed him in the morning" but when you feed him in the morning, instead of putting food in the cage, feed him from your hand in the morning. The same amount of food, not food deprivation, but a different method of delivery.

Scott said:

IMO, No, no, and no! While a hungry bird *may* do anything for food, I believe it manifestly cruel to withhold food simply to force compliance with human desires. When a creature of flight is forced (by capture, breeding, or circumstance) to live with humans, the least we can do is provide the three bottom layers of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. (reproduced below)

I do not free-flight my birds because the locale is rife with raptors. Consequently I am not well versed with training methods, but the practice of withholding food to foster a return smacks of using a sentient being for self enjoyment. Sorry, that is my opinion - macaws fly wild in their native environment, but once parronted, the bar is condiderably raised. I understand food deprivation motivates a return to the parront, but that brings us to square one.

Click to expand...

The main reasons I do not recommend "two trainers". (well, 4 altogether)


"One" (consists of 3 people) are sales people. Thankfully, they are moving away from their old methods and adopting new methods, but I'm still not in agreement with their sales tactics. I'll admit they do enjoy helping people out, but when it comes down to it, they are still sales people. I think they still sell their old material as well...


The other one... well, he learned from the first ones mentioned. He has sadly put out a lot of bad advice and does use food management. Used to be pro-free flight as well until he lost one of his birds... I can only hope he becomes more open minded and better learns how to train his birds.



I don't consider myself to be an expert by any means, nor "better" than these people, but I can easily see where they are going wrong and how they could correct or change things. I know I myself still have a lot to learn also in regards to training!

with-holding food is a large no-no to me. what I preferred to do was instead of not giving food I would simply wait until before breakfast or dinner times for the more structured training which felt the fairest. all I would do is before those times I would use some treats to encourage learning and paying attention with immediate rewards. Once the training was done it was time for dinner and the food bowl would be filled with the main meal regardless of what they did. Though if they were good they would get an added treat to their dinner, if they were bad the treat would be with held. The veg and fruit would still be there to eat but the much sought after treat food (raisins for me) were only for when the little goober was doing well.

to give some added clarity the way I would feed is a full meal in the morning kept in the cage for roughly 30 minutes, then a bowl of pellets with some seed hidden in places around, then there would be another meal in the cage in the evening much like the morning meal, so as you can see even though I was with holding treats and food that was preferred there was still good food in the cage at all times offering choices to my bird, he could come to me get on my hand learn to step up or give kisses or fly over and get something he really loved or he could do his own thing but not get the things he loved. I feel personally this is the fairest way I can offer (different strokes for different folks) but quite possibly it could be a method for others to try and maybe it could work.