Birds – Teaching Your Parrot To Talk – Part II

In this article in our continuing series on teaching your bird
to talk we’re going to start with how to get ready and prepare
your bird for his first words. This should help make it a lot
easier when you teach your first child to speak.

The best place to keep your soon to be talking parrot is in the
kitchen. The reason for this is that families spend a lot of
time in the kitchen, especially during meals and your parrot
will be exposed to a lot of talking, granted not all of it good
or something you want your bird repeating in mixed company. The
atmosphere in the kitchen is very relaxed which is good for your
bird. A tense bird isn’t going to say much. The smells in the
kitchen from all the food is something that will also appeal to
your bird and make him more prone to speak. Most people, while
in the kitchen, because they are doing something they enjoy,
eating, are relaxed. This in turn will make your bird relaxed.
Once in this surrounding, give your bird at least a few weeks to
get used to it before you even attempt to teach him to talk. If
your bird is not shy, give it plenty of attention. If it is shy
try to tame it before trying to get it to talk.

The key to getting a parrot to talk is to let it interact with
people. Parrots are birds who are normally in large flocks. So
depriving your parrot of company is going to make it unhappy. An
unhappy parrot is not going to talk.

The way parrots learn to talk is through a one on one
relationship with their owners. Never have more than one parrot
in the room or even in a room nearby. Your parrot must be the
center of your attention. It is almost impossible to teach two
birds to talk at the same time. If you do have more than one
bird then work with each one separately and make sure they are a
good distance from each other so they are unaware of the other’s
presence.

If you want to have the best chance of getting your bird to talk
you must feed it properly. Proper nutrition is not a luxury. It
is a must. Birds that are fed a steady diet of sunflower or
safflower seeds are always duller and not as aware of their
surroundings as birds fed pelleted diets. This is because seed
diets are poor nutritionally. If you want your parrot to live a
long healthy and happy life gradually shift its diet from seeds
to a name brand pelleted diet. The way you do this is by mixing
pelleted diet food in with the seeds at the start and then
gradually removing the seeds completely. You will be absolutely
amazed at the change this makes in your bird’s disposition and
health.

In the next article of this series we’re going to cover the
actual training of your bird.