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

Ever thought why your parrots stoned at times? To my knowledge and experiences, parrot stoned when they were alarmed (e.g. other noise or any other threats) or even out of fear.

During the late afternoon when I was in the kitchen doing some household cleaning and leaving Kermit on his playstand. It’s an unusual afternoon, usually Kermit will established contact calls with me whenever I’m out of sight. Strangly enough he was totally quiet. I tried initiating a contact call by whistling to Kermit, he didn’t response any of my calls. I didn’t feel quite comfortable about this, thus I went to the living room to check whether Kermit was alright.

Kermit was on the play-stand but he looked really stoned. He was completely stoned with a pine nut shell in his beak and not doing anything. I observed the surroundings whether there’s any things, wild birds or insects that triggered him to going to this state. Apparently there wasn’t! This went on for nearly 15 minutes, I immediately reached for my camera phone to capture this rare moment.

I’m still wondering whether was there really things that caught his attention which resulted him to stone, or was he really indulging to the classical music that I played in the background?

I think only he has the answers to the questions.

I’m back again to share with everyone a new trick from Kermit. I’m proud to present to everyone Kermit’s very own Somersault Trick.

As Senegal Parrots are very acrobatic by nature, thus the trick shouldn’t post much difficulty to these african queens. Kermit learned the trick almost instantly.

Basically I used the similar steps and techniques that was used when teaching Kiki, my lovebird, the somersault trick. The only difference is that I used a wooden dowel pole as the hand perch, soon after Kermit was able to perform confidently under my hand and vocal cues, I replace the hand with perch with my right hand. Kermit progress really well during the trick training.

Any parrot owners interested in teaching this trick to your parrots, can refer to my previous post labeled Kiki’s Somersault Trick. The post highlighted the clear steps on how I guided Kiki into doing the somersault flip.

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Kiki’s Somersault Trick

Finally got to showcase Kermit, my Senegal Parrot’s first prop trick, the Kermit’s Retrieval Trick. Compared to Kiki, Kermit took a longer time to understand and master the trick, but he didn’t disappoint me in the end.

In comparison, Kiki seems to be a fast performer in her retrieval trick whereas Kermit seems to be a little laid back, slow but steady. Overall I’m still impress with Kermit’s performance, it’s already a big step and great progress in his trick training.

This round, I used the usual training techniques and similar teaching concept that was enforced on Kiki, instead of using the clicker method. Initially, I planned to use the clicker method on Kermit for this prop trick, but I found it rather difficult to manage. Difficult as in, I will appear to be “handicapped” during the training. A use of clicker in the training means an additional hand required in the training, thus I decided to use back the usual training techniques I’m more familiar of.

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Kiki doing the Fetching Trick
Introducing Clicker Training
Clicker & Target Training for Kermit
Introducing Target Training

Kiki’s back again with her new trick. Although it is not possible for Kiki to drive a car, but I’ve managed to teach her how to pull a car instead.

It’s definitely fun watching her so into doing this. It’s like Kiki cruising around with her own Formula 1 Race car.

How do I teach?
The Pull a Car Trick is rather a simple trick, that any parrot owners can teach their parrots. The trick share the similar principle of a Retrieval or Fetching trick, the only difference is the prop. Kiki easily understand the whole concept mastered the whole trick after 2 sessions in a day.

First Step, like I always do for a new trick training, props introduction for Kiki. Kiki totally had no issue of accepting the red ring, but I met some problems with the purple race car. Kiki was totally fearful and frightened by the Purple Race Car, perhaps due to the irregular dimension of the object.

With the help of the target stick and treats, I managed to get Kiki to overcome her fear factor. She soon willing to touch and play with the 2 new props.

I moved on with teaching Kiki on how to retrieve the red ring only. She had no difficulty in achieving the task, because she had learned the Retrieval/Fetching trick some time ago.

As she had achieved on the retrieval of the red ring, I then tied the string to the red ring and the purple car. I began the training with a short distance right in front of the prop. Upon my “Fetching” cue, Kiki retrieved the red ring and place back on my hand. I praised and rewarded her immediately. I repeated the sequence several time.

I slowly add-on the distance at every session to add challenge to the training. Now, Kiki is able to perform and retrieve the car that is few inches away. It’s definitely exciting enjoying the sessions.

I’ve highlighted the breakdown of the steps below on how I guided Kiki on to accomplishing the Pull a Car Trick:

The Breakdown Process of the Cups Stacking Trick

1. Introduction of New Props (The Red Ring & Purple Race Car)
2. Learning How to Retrieve the Red Ring only
3. Learning How to Retrieve the Red Ring tying with the Purple Race Car
4. Continue training Retrieval of the Red Ring with the Purple Race Car

I probably going to teach Kiki on how to flag raise on her next trick training. Good luck to me and Kiki!

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Kiki’s new F1 ride

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!

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Kiki did it again! Remember on my last post, I mentioned that Kiki is a boy when “she” was caught doing “that thing” again. Perhaps the right word to use to explain “that thing” should be MASTURBATION!

Last Evening, I caught “her” on tape, doing “that thing” to a face towel. “She” has been doing that so frequently, partly due to maturity and triggered into breeding behavior. High sexual drive and simply hard to stop for “her” from doing it, I guess. “She” just one horny freak!

Till now we still assume “her” as a female and still calling her Kiki, although should be time to rename “her” to boyish name. We are so used to calling “her” Kiki. I’m also sure that “she” is already conditioned to the name, Kiki for so long. Changing to a new name, will just make “her” more uncomfortable.

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Kiki might be a Boy!

Kermit, my Senegal Parrot is back in action with his nasty destructions again.

This afternoon, I was drinking Iced Water from my cup with a straw, when Kermit suddenly dashed over targeting at my straw.

He’s attracted to this new “toy”, look at how bad the damages done to the straw! The straw was simply useless, and I can hardly slurp up my drink with this badly shaped straw.

Kiki is a real talent in becoming one of the best Escape Artist. Don’t be surprise, she’s able to open the cage and free herself in less than 20 seconds. Totally no joke, I caught her on video this afternoon doing the stunt:

She still challenging herself in setting a record of shortest time to free herself. Not only is a challenge for her , but also a challenge for me and my mum, because we have to be extra careful to ensure the cage is fully secured with an additional lock/cable tie before leaving the home for work.

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Kiki’s attempt to lift open the cage door

Have you ever thought of why parrots love to wipe their beaks on their perches and other hard objects?

I happened to capture another a short clip of Kiki, my lovebird wiping her beak after a water bath earlier on. It’s really funny to see her doing it.

All parrots do this. It’s a normal behavior and a natural thing to do, usually happens after eating and bathing. Wiping their beaks on the perch will help them wipe off foreign objects (like food) that stick on their beaks. They also do that to wipe off excess water when their beaks are wet.

I had read before an article highlighting that wiping of beaks can be an indication to mark territory for some parrots. It usually happens when parrots are introduced to new faces and new bird in their area.

Never knew that such simple action of beak wiping can interpret so much meanings.

By the way, did you notice something at the end of the video clip, when Kermit, my Senegal Parrot in the background?

He doesn’t seem happy at all, because the food bowl on the play-stand belongs to Kermit. Furthermore, Kiki is happily rewarding herself with the premium seed mixes on the play-stand. You can’t blame him for giving the stare. Poor thing!

What a deliberately “hijacking” of the food bowl by Kiki. That’s really daring stint from her. However, indeed an adventure for a hot sunny afternoon!

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