Don’t worry if you missed Kiki’s performance at The Best Trick Competition, one of the segment in the National Day Parakeet Competition 2008 held at Lim Chu Kang, Farmart.

I’ve managed to get hold of a short preview of Kiki performing one of her favorite trick - Pull a Car Trick, in the event. Apologised for the poor quality and fuzzy images of the video.

As I mentioned on my previous post that Kiki’s agility level during the event was pretty low. Apparently in the video, you could see slight delay in the performance, but she managed to accomplish the task I cued for.

Thanks Karen for providing the video.

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Kiki won 3rd in Best Trick Competition
Kiki will be in National Day Parakeet Competition

Hi Everyone! I’m back again bringing updates about Kiki.

Many had read about Kiki participated in the Best Trick Competition 2 weeks ago, and were really excited to know whether Kiki manage to secure an award for herself.

I’m please to announce the good news, Kiki won herself the 3rd Position in the Best Trick Competition in the National Day Parakeet Competition 2008 Event held at Farmart last Sunday. Here is the list of the winners in the National Day Parakeet Competition 2008.

Here are the lists of Tricks & Commands that Kiki performed:

1. Up & Down Command
2. Turn-A-Round Trick
3. Fetching Trick (a.k.a Retrieval Trick)
4. Wing Flapping Command
5. Coin Depositing Trick
6. Ring Tossing Trick
7. Somersault Trick
8. Waving Hello Trick (Left Leg)
9. Open & Fetch Trick (A Component of Shell Game)
10. Cups Stacking Trick
11. Pull a Car Trick
12. Basketball Trick

Although the agility level on the day wasn’t pleasing, but she managed to perform the tricks that I cued for with some slight delays. Personally I felt that Kiki had already done very well on that day. With scenarios like new environment, crowds, strangers’ stares and interference (from the microphone, vocalizations from other parrots), these greatly affect Kiki.

Remembering the moment when I brought Kiki to the event venue, she was really nervous. It took me quite a while to really calm her down.

Anyway, Kiki really deserved to be crowned the 3rd position. She really met strong competitors like Sunshine, the Sun Conure who is the winner of the event and Darling, the Sulphur Cockatoo placing second.

Although Sunshine and Darling only performed two to three tricks in the competition, but they all performed with great agility. Both of them really deserved winning the placings. It’s also a great pleasure for Kiki to meet them and catch their performances in the event.

Notice the two pictures in the post? The picture on top is the 3rd Position Winning Badge to be placed on Kiki’s Cage. Kiki also received a Bronze Trophy (picture on right), new cages, parrot diets and electrical appliances (the appliances are more applicable to the owners) from the event sponsors.

Kiki surely has done us proud!

I will be sharing more pictures of the event on my coming post, so do stay tune!

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Kiki will be in National Day Parakeet Competition

Today it’s Singapore’s 43rd Birthday. Happy Birthday Singapore! Everywhere in Singapore is flooded with the red and white decoration, the National Day ambience is definitely strong.

Kiki and Kermit were definitely happy because everyone in the family is not working today. They knew that we can keep them in company and play with them throughout the whole of National Day.

Anyway, tomorrow I will be bringing Kiki for a big national event, the First Ever National Day Parakeet Competition to be held at Lim Chu Kang Farmart. Kiki will be contesting other parrots in the Best Trick Competition to be held at 12 noon tomorrow. She will be performing some of her best tricks on that day, so come down and support both of us!

Kiki and I are definitely excited and nervous for the upcoming event tomorrow. Furthermore, it’s the first biggest parrot event that both me and Kiki attended at the moment. Thus it’s going to be an eye-opener for the both of us.

My primary concern is whether Kiki can overcome his stress and nervousness on the day. I’m wondering whether the big crowd, new environment, unfamiliar faces and curious stares will affect Kiki’s behavior and performance. No matter how I hope she will do her best, even if she didn’t win the competition I will still be proud of her.

By the way, there will be other activities going on the day like the Hamster Race, talks and dialogue with Dr Thiruchelvam, the well-known avian vet in Singapore. So it’s going to be a fun and fruitful day for the whole family. Do come down, who know you might be able to meet me and Kiki at the event! Cheers!

Many must have read about Kermit’s visit to the vet last Saturday. Thanks to everyone for your concerns about Kermit’s condition. He’s doing perfectly well and I’m confident that his current condition will improve.

Although Kermit is still undergoing medication, he still remain active and positive. Everyday seems like a new day of adventure and he is full of surprises.

Indeed, he did surprise me again yesterday with his new mischievous act.

Notice the blue and yellow colored rings on the playstand in the picture (By the way can you spot Kiki in the picture?) on the left?

Those are actually meant to be foot toys for Kermit and Kiki. Apparently, Kermit had devised a new way of playing them. I truly adore his innovation of “Play Hard 101″. So for now, let me unveil Kermit’s new innovating way of playing the toys rings - “Splash-O-Slam Dunk”.

It’s Kermit’s own verse of Slam Dunk - removing the rings and dunk them in the water bowl. It’s fun watching him doing it and he enjoys doing it, but hard on me! He created a whole lot mess and splashes around the playstand!

Weather has been bad lately. Either it can goes as hot and humid than usual or rainy and wet throughout the whole day.

The big phenomenon in the climate does bring some worries whether Kermit and Kiki can really handle the change.

Yesterday was just another hot and sunny afternoon. Kiki will just perch on the playstand enjoying her usual day meal while I’m working on project and returning email from my work desk nearby.

About 45 minutes later, I noticed a complete silence in the activity room. Surprisingly, I spotted Kiki tugging in and napping on the crock cup. I tried to capture at that very moment, but apparently the “clicking” sound from the camera had woke Kiki up accidentally. I felt really apologetic for causing the disturbance.

Talking about bird sleep, I’m sure almost all bird owners have noticed that birds are very sensitive to surrounding even they asleep. The slightest sound or movement of the surroundings can alarm and work them up immediately. The interesting part, birds don’t really close both eyes during sleep. I noticed Kermit and Kiki while napping they tend to open their eyes on one side, perhaps to maintain vigilant to watch out for any dangers.

Guess it’s just their natural instincts!

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Previously I wrote about ethoxyquin found on some of the commercial seed mixes that can posed dangers to parrots’ health. Although there are some commercial seed mixes are free from ethoxyquin, naturally preserved and truly organic, but they still have one thing in common that I hated most.

Sunflower Seeds! Well not the sunflower seeds that rose the hatred but just that commercial seed mixes are flooded with too many sunflower seeds. The picture of the big pack of sunflower seeds, are actually sunflower seeds extracted from 1.5kg of quality commercial seed mixes and I stored them in Zip-lock bags as treats for future training purposes.

Reasonably amount of sunflower seeds can be healthy in providing the required vitamin E and fatty acids that are essential to parrots. Anything that are excessive or too much can be unhealthy. We all know that parrots are programmed to love seeds especially SUNFLOWER seeds. Parrots just “worship” them.

Whenever sunflower seeds are abundant, parrots have the tendency to be engrossed, enjoying sunflower seeds and ignoring other healthy grains. In fact, they will be just too full (crop totally filled up by sunflower seeds) and lazy to try other foods. This can be one reason why most parrots are overweight or malnutrition. In the long run, this can be a potential health hazard.

In fact I’m planning to prepare my own seed mixes. This way I have to the option to restrict the amount of sunflower seeds or safflower seeds, creating a healthier seed mixes. It can be lots of work, but I think it’s worth investing the time and money. It can be cost effective in a way as I won’t have to throw away the excess sunflower seeds anymore. Furthermore, I won’t have to spend time extracting out the excess sunflower seeds.

Back to the basics again. This round no fancy props, but common empty paper towel roller that can be found in almost every household. So what Kiki going to perform this time with the empty roller?

Just like what the title says, it’s her own Tunnel Trick. A relatively simple trick, but interesting and fun trick that able to kill any boredom and motivating her to continue to learn new things.

Kiki mastered this trick within minutes. She had no difficulty in understanding and performing the trick, because she had did something similar before. Remembering the hoop trick that I shared with everyone on my previous posting. Both are actually the same, the only difference is the prop. The hoop trick is with a metal wire hoop whereas the current Tunnel trick is with the empty paper towel roller.

When I was updating Kiki’s trick list, I found something shocking and surprising. With Kiki mastering this trick, I can humbly highlight that she has mastered a total of 17 tricks and commands. Impressive? I guess it can definitely be an alarming figure for a small parrot like Kiki.

Thus a pea-brained is not necessary stupid. The size of the parrot not necessarily denote the intelligence and the ability of the parrot after all.

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Last Friday was Kiki’s one year old birthday. Although I wasn’t really sure about Kiki’s actual hatch day, even the breeder who I got Kiki from wasn’t sure too, but I decided to make 27th June as an official date for Kiki’s birthday.

Neither did I throw a party for her nor invite other feathered friends to the celebration, but a simple one.

Kiki was offered a big treat for the day, offered “Junk” foods only for that day just to please Kiki. She’s certainly a happy and lucky parrot!

Not forgetting about Kiki birthday presents. I made two presents for Kiki, sunflower seeds and the whole spray millets sealed in green packets respectively.

I managed to capture a short video on Kiki scavenging for millet from her birthday present. I still pondering why Kiki insisted to enjoying the treats from these tiny hole shred open by her. Why didn’t she just tear up the green packet and opened up everything? It’s always hard to understand a bird’s mind.

Kiki was really enjoying herself throughout the day. Especially Kiki enjoyed the spray millet alot, because I rarely offer the spray millet as a whole. She’s toally delighted. To her millet are everything, it’s like french fries so “addictive”.

After the main course (which is the seeds and millets treats), it’s time for some healthy salad. I prepared some alfafa sprouts, diced carrots, grapes, corn cob and sweet peas in her salad bowl, but she always goes for the sweet peas and leaving the rest untouched. But it’s didn’t really matter, since she’s the boss of the day!

Happy Birthday Kiki! We are really happy to have you for the past twelve months. You bring us fun and laughters! Days are never boring with your presence!

Love you always.

For past few days when replacing the Kiki’s cage linings, I noticed quite a number of feathers (mainly primary and secondary) lying at the bottom of the cage. The feathers are complete with no sign of any plucking and picking. Kiki seems to be going through a serious feather molting process, definitely a tough period for Kiki.

Furthermore, many of Kiki’s flight feathers were fully regrown. She definitely in for another grooming session to have her flight feathers trimmed.

By the way this coming Friday will be her one year birthday. Three more days to the big day, I’m still deciding what treat I’m going to prepare for her. Everyone in the family is truly excited, especially my mum.

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Last Sunday after I posted the article titled “Are Punishments Accepted in Parrot Training?”, I received a few emails about their honest opinions on negative punishment.

Rick, one of my reader brought up some points. He indicated he also uses negative punishment in parrot training with his lovebird, and found that using punishment did eliminate unwanted behavior effectively and almost instantly. Furthermore, he indicated he had yet to see any behavior problem arise from his lovebird. He felt that since negative punishment seems to work out pretty well in his training routine why consider stopping this technique?

Well true, I do admit negative punishment can be effective at a stage and it does eliminate the unwanted behavior instantly. I saw the effectiveness when I conducted negative punishments on Kermit and Kiki before, but I also see other problems start to surface like increase in excessive vocalization (i.e Screaming Problem).

What we see are just the surface, a temporary remedy to the problem. In a long run, we are bound to see numbers of behavior problems arising. I will still insist don’t take the risk, try making all trainings positive will be ideal.

I’m sure many readers might be asking isn’t there any workaround for the negative punishment? There is a workaround which is to enforce the punishment without your presence. That means giving the punishment where your parrot cannot see you giving the punishment. By doing so, the parrot will link you up with all the hatred and fear caused by the punishment, thus this will not put the relationship and bond at risk.

In fact, I shared this technique on previous post labeled “Curb that Kermit Scream“, I highlighted on the steps how i carry out the workaround method in the post under section labeled “Method 2 - With Negative Reinforcement”.

Just to summarize, in the post I was trying to use negative punishment to reduce Kermit’s arising screaming problem. I tried a technique to enforce the punishment with a negative reinforcer without my presence, by doing so it will not put my relationship with Kermit at risk. In this technique, I use a desk bell (as Kermit is very afraid of the distinctive sound from the bell) as a negative reinforcer. Whenever Kermit start to scream, I will sound the bell from the other room. He will stop almost instantly, he understands that everytime he screams the bell will sound off. That’s the workaround I’m trying to emphasize.

Every technique come with pros and cons including this workaround. The benefits of this technique is that it remedy the problem instantly with a negative reinforcer without putting the relationship bond at risk, so you don’t have to worry that he will hate you for ringing the bell. In fact, he even didn’t know that you are the one ringing the bell. The disadvantage is that the technique can only be used in certain situations (e.g. you can’t be running back to your room and ring the bell when your parrot is already biting you). Next, using the technique in long run can result in a more fearful and less confident parrot.

The constant fear instilled in the parrot, will result in anxiety. Worst still, instead of improving the behavior problem this might lead to a screaming problem due to stress and anxiety.

Remember there’s no 100% fool proof method where you can remedy a problem almost immediately and instantly. The only best recommended by animal trainers and effective way to remedy a behavior problem permanently is to use proper positive techniques with time, effort, love and care, this way will bring you a more well behaved, lovable and a happy parrot!

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