After so long, I finally manage to upload to YouTube and share with everyone Kiki’s Cups Stacking Trick. That’s definitely a long wait, but hope this is a worthwhile one and everyone should enjoy watching the trick performance.

It’s fairly simple trick for Kiki. There isn’t much difficulty for her to understand the whole sequence and master the whole trick.

How do I teach?
Before I can really introduce Kiki into this trick, she must be able to master some of the basic trick component like the Retrieval/Fetching Trick.

Kiki had mastered the Fetching Trick and the Coin Depositing Trick, thus it’s definitely no difficulty for her to complete the task. The only differences is the prop. Like I always said, the first thing to do before moving into actual training, is to introduce the props.

Once proper introduction of the props have been conducted, the actual training commenced with teaching Kiki to pick up the cup upon cueing. When she achieve that, I slowly added another cup labeled with a green label identifying it as my master cup. The objective is that Kiki have to stack the cup onto the master cup.

This portion of the training can be the most challenging one, as Kiki had no idea how to stack the cup. Thus I had to conduct a live demo in front her, thereafter when she holding the cup I had to guide the cup slowly push it onto the master cup. Once she achieved it, I praised and rewarded her. I continued to assist her and complete the sequence several times until she truly understand that she had to stack the cup in order to be rewarded.

At the stage when she’s able to stack the cup on her own, I moved on adding 2 other cups to add challenge to the training. Every successful tries of stacking the cups, I praised and rewarded her.

Below I’ve highlight the breakdown sequence on how to train Kiki to accomplish the whole trick.

The Breakdown Process of the Cups Stacking Trick

1. Introduction of New Props (The Cups)
2. Learning How to Hold/Lift the Cup (Restrict to one Cup)
3. Learning How to Stack the Cup (Restrict to 2 Cups)
4. Add-on of 2 others cups into the training (Total of 3 Cups to stack into the master cup)
5. Full Training Sequence

Remember always be patience, be consistent in your training. Some parrots might take quite a while to understand and master the trick. Good luck to all parrot owners!

Related Posts:
The Cup Stacking Props
New tricks for new year

Many of friends asked me how do I train Kiki and Kermit to be an ultimate performer? There’s no secret on how train them to be like one. Many parrot owners will suggest best to start training since young. Does that mean if I have a adult bird, the bird will never be an ultimate performer?

Many experienced trainers and even parrot books suggested to start off training from a young age. Frankly speaking, age is not the key issue to parrot training. Even an African Grey which is in its mid-20s is still learning new things. But it’s always good to start training early, as it’s one best method to prevent and eliminate behavioral problems.

When I got Kiki and Kermit, I started basic training as soon as they get settle down to the new environment. To date (based on 18th April 2008), Kiki had already mastered 14 parrot tricks and Kermit mastered 4 basic parrot tricks. That’s an achievement! Both of them are still learning new things, so I expect the figures to grow!

So start off quickly with some simple training like step-up command. This is the first basic command, that I introduced to my parrots when I first go them. Then from there, add-on with other basic tricks like Turn-A-Round. Always be consistent with your training and train daily.

It’s always good to allocate a specific time when to conduct training session. Both of my parrots have their own specific time for training, once in the morning and the other at the evening. I always try to allocate 2 training sessions per day, although the morning slots are usually optional. You can have training sessions as much as 3 per day of 10-15 minutes, but no longer that.

Conclusion, the golden words to the success in parrot training:

1. Start training early
2. Be consistent in training
3. Train daily
4. and Patience!

Good luck and happy training your parrots!

Related Posts:
Kermit’s First Basic Tricks Collection
Kermit’s Turn-A-Round Trick
Introducing Clicker Training
Clicker & Target Training for Kermit
Introducing Target Training
Kiki performing the Turn-A-Round Trick