Teach Your Bird to Take a Bath | Spray Bottle Training
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 ก.ค. 2024
- It's incredibly important for a companion bird to take regular baths - but what do you do when your bird won't bathe on their own and is terrified of the spray bottle? You can help your bird see that the spray bottle isn't scary using positive reinforcement!
Bathing keeps your bird's skin and feathers in good condition. A bird that never bathes may get itchy, irritated, and in extreme cases even infected and/or cracked skin. Itchy, painful spots can cause a bird to begin plucking their feathers over the affected area. Powder down birds such as cockatoo species (including cockatiels) can also become so dusty from not bathing that the dust can begin irritating their airways. To prevent this, you'll want your bird to bathe a minimum of one time every two to three weeks as a general rule. Before attempting to train a scared or hesitant bird to bathe with a spray bottle exhaust all other methods for encouraging them to bathe.
Try running a vacuum cleaner, the shower, playing thunderstorm sounds, white noise, or any other sound that mimics rainfall to encourage them to bathe. Some birds also feel like taking a bath with some gentle air blowing on them (but be sure they are allowed to dry off somewhere free of drafts to prevent illness). Place a wide, heavy glass dish full of room temperature water (about 1" deep) on a flat surface. Most birds will happily jump in and take a bath when they're in the mood - those types of birds do not need to be trained to bathe! You can also try setting a clean, rinsed sink to a light trickle and allowing your bird to play (supervised) near the sink. Some birds will happily bathe on their own under running water - those birds do not need this training!
IMPORTANT: NEVER. EVER. EVER. Use a spray bottle or water in any form as punishment! Not only is that technique one of the least effective ways to modify undesired behavior, it's also abuse! An animal should NEVER be made to be afraid of water or anything else required in their day to day care! It is cruel and confusing to your bird to punish them with water and then expect them to happily take a bath the next day.
Once you've determined that your bird does need this training procee! Taki is an excellent example of a bird that needs this training- he would not touch water except to drink until we had done a few weeks of this training. We believe one of Spooky's previous owners may have used a spray bottle as punishment, and the last owner said she was "terrified" of spray bottles. We did this training with Spooky (our rescued 30+ year old female goffin) as well and now she adores taking baths. Taki tolerates them and will hopefully learn to love baths the more he's positively reinforced for bathing.
IMPORTANT: Spread this training out!
Because this training is more "difficult" for your bird than training something neutral (like a new hands-off trick) I recommend only doing 5 minute sessions of this four times a week. Take it very slow and steady and always err on making your sessions too short as opposed to wearing your bird out by making them too long. Your bird should become progressively less scared at the sight/sound of the spray bottle - if you notice your bird is reacting more to the spray bottle session after session it means that you are not executing this training correctly and/or need to adjust your technique to better suit your bird. Every bird is different, so while this worked for both Spooky and Taki this is in no way a guarantee that it will work for your bird without any changes to the training plan!
If you have any difficulties teaching your bird to take a bath using this method and your bird is either becoming more afraid of the spray bottle or you can't get it to work after 6 weeks of consistent training, feel free to reach out for some tips!
Step 1 - Gently desensitize your bird to the sight of the spray bottle, then work up to desensitizing to the sound of the spray bottle. The goal is to introduce the sight/sound of the bottle so gradually and with such high value rewards that your bird is relaxed and happy the whole time. If at any point your bird is visibly uncomfortable take the training a few steps back and go slower, or end the session altogether and try again later.
Step 2 - Mist an area where the bird is near the mist but not actually getting wet. Reward your bird for stepping toward or looking in the direction of the mist.
Step 3 - Once your bird is willingly getting under the mist reward your bird for allowing the water to touch their feathers. Once they're completely comfortable with allowing one spray to touch their feathers, work up to spraying twice before giving a reward. Keep increasing the required number of sprays before a treat is given. Eventually your bird will be so unbothered by the water that they will be more inclined to show a bathing response. You can remove the treats for that session if your bird begins showing a bathing response.
Thank you for posting this video. I am about to pick up my cockatiels from the breeder and this has helped feel more confident bathing them.
Thank you so much! So far the training went well. Taking baby steps with my cockatiel really does wonders. :)
Ok thanks for the info talk so looking super cute today!
Awww! They're so beautiful!
I love this
What is the clicker for?
Awww he‘s so cute 😊
But isn‘t he lonely as the only cockatiel?
( I‘m from germany, sorry for my bad english 😂 )
We have two cockatiels! And they're both featured in this video actually :)! They're hard to tell apart for most people because they're both lutino cockatiels, but we have two- Taki and Zippy 💖
Oh nice, sorry 😂. I like their names very much. If I have a dog, I would like to call it Taki. I hope that's okay for you :)
How can you tell if your cockatiel is a boy or a girl my family has not been told the gender so if you can help plz reply
While I myself am not great at figuring out the gender of a cockatiel based on their color mutation, there are tons of great forums that explain how you can tell. Color mutations are sometimes sex linked or sexually dimorphic so you can often tell a cockatiel's gender by the coloring/patterning on their adult plumage or by the color mutations of the parents 💖
If it's hard to tell or if your cockatiel's color mutation is not one that's sexually dimorphic you can do a DNA test through a vet or local aviary! They will take a couple fresh feathers and have them tested.
Of course, if your cockatiel lays an egg you know for certain she's female! A bird that has never laid an egg is not necessarily male for certain, though, as some female cockatiels might be sterile or may not have living conditions that encourage egg laying (which is actually a good thing unless you're intending on breeding the bird).
My cockatiels are both technically female (even though we're in the habit of calling Taki a "he"). We can tell because they're both lutino cockatiels. For lutino cockatiels the presence of dots on their primary feathers and bars on the tail indicate the bird is female. Sometimes the dots and bars may be so low contrast against the main feather color that you can't see them very well, so this isn't a perfect way to tell, but it's a good starting point!
He looks smarter than my brother
Hi you beautiful👌