Oh my good lord you have to see this!!!!

[BarbieH]

I could see that method backfiring with some parrots. A bird could get sullen or angry if it's not getting as much food as it's accustomed to. Worse still, it could get sick.

[Eliza]

I saw a video of a man who teaches you how to teach your birds tricks-- Chet Womach is his name, I think.

You basically weigh your bird's food every day, morning and night, for a week to see how much the eat; then, You give them a bit less than that. So now they're almost full but still hungry, and you reward motions in the direction of your trick with a signal and a snack.

Witholdhing food from any living, sentient creature in an effort to teach it tricks or to modify behavior is not a good thing.

Chet's methods may work but they are highly controversial, to say the least. Using treat food as a supplemental reward for trick training isn't necessarily a bad thing but witholding part of the base diet isn't healthy for the animal in question.

[mjm8321]

Using food as a training aid is a good thing and can work well, but keeping a bird hungry to train it?

The bird behaviorist I have worked with suggested a type of training aid and yes it worked; however it did not involve leaving a bird hungry. We removed the one thing our Senegal ate the most of, from his diet and only offered it as a treat; however he did still receive the same amount of food daily.

[Janie]

WOW! I would not have believed it if I hadn't seen it! Fortunately, that little lovies looks very healthy weight wise but I just could not withhold food as a method for teaching tricks. Anyway, great video!

[Jezzahbella]

That was sooo cute! I'd be happy if my bird would at least play with her toys, and if the other would stop running in fear of my hand. :[ Both my birds are rescues and are going to take a lot of patience.

[Estee]

Yes, I was not interested in pursuing the method I saw in the clips I was sent from Bird Tricks. I don't know enough about birds to know whether the method could cause harm. I suppose that the idea is that after they learn tricks and get their handfed snacks, they can eat as much as they want? But even so, it just wasn't my way.

I figured that since the girl in the video gave a treat for every trick, there was a possibility that she had used such a method to train her bird.

[michael]

I agree witholding food from the normal diet to encourage the pursuit of food due to hunger is NOT a reasonable way to train any animal, especially a bird. They are so much more prone to malnutrition and confusion over food placement. This is not true positive reinforcment and is only used to speed up the training process. Most pets will gladly reach out for additional treats and love without the need to be hungry. This is a very old practice that should have disappeared a long time ago among reputable trainers. If in fact who ever Chet Womach is uses this method, he loses a bit of respect in my book......Michael and Goofy lovebird