How to teach a cockatiel parrot to talk?

The Australian cockatiel parrot (nymph) has adapted very well and took root in captivity. For its ability to reproduce, cheerful disposition and life expectancy up to 20-25 years, this species of parrots has become one of the most favorite among connoisseurs of exotic birds. Bird watchers, observing the life and habits of the bird, came to the conclusion that it is quite friendly, communicative and inquisitive.

The nymph willingly makes contact with people and is able to imitate various sounds, including imitating human speech. Evaluating the abilities of the cockatiel parrot, scientists compare the level of intelligence development of this bird with the intellectual abilities of a child at the age of five years. Parrots of this species quickly memorize new information and reproduce it with maximum accuracy.

In the wild, not a single parrot, of course, speaks, but in captivity, having heard the sounds of human speech, the Corella can begin to repeat them. Among its gray-colored hybrid cousins, the red-cheeked one lends itself best to colloquial speech. A nymph can imitate not only a conversation, but also other sounds: whistling, barking of a dog, a phone call, the sound of a working vacuum cleaner, the sounds of other birds.

Experienced breeders of cockatiel parrots can even sing their pets, expressing their joyful emotions. But in order to achieve this, a certain training was nevertheless carried out with the parrot, without which he himself would hardly have begun to sing.

An essential point when choosing an individual for training is its friendly nature. If the pet is open to communication, willingly walks into his arms, looks at you with interest - the chances of good results are high for you. If the parrot does not want to contact with anyone, behaves cautiously, fearfully, when trying to pick it up, it regards it as aggression towards itself and begins to fiercely defend itself, then you are unlikely to be able to teach him to talk.

The parrot can remember simple phrases, usually like this:

• "Hey";
• "go to sleep";
• "I will swim";
• "let's play";
• "good";
• "Give me a drink";
• "I want to walk";
• "You have to go";
• "while";
• "I will eat";
• "how are you".

These and any other phrases can be combined with the name of the parrot and study them at the moment when the action indicated by this word is performed. For example, the phrase "I will bathe" should be said to the parrot at the moment when he is bathing in a tray with water. The word "hello" should be said when you see your bird in the morning or just walk into the room. Word and action create a strong associative link that improves memorization processes.

Talking parrot is, as a rule, the merit of its owner. Corella can memorize up to 35-40 words. The bird, of course, does not understand the semantic essence of the memorized words and repeats them mechanically, thoughtlessly. When, in the process of learning, a word was combined with an action or a kind of an object, and at the same time an associative connection was established, a parrot can reproduce words supposedly "deliberately", although in reality this is not so.

To start teaching a cockatiel to speak, you need to take into account the age of the pet. It is believed that the optimal age is 2 or 3 months. Among the entire litter, chicks for training are chosen those who, in addition to the chick squeak, also make other sounds - this is a clear sign of the bird's good conversational abilities.

Practice shows that it is easiest to teach a boy to talk - he remembers words, phrases well, and is disposed to learning. The girl can also talk, but she is not able to memorize many words and phrases. However, there are exceptions when girls perform better than boys. In this matter, everything is very individual and unpredictable.

The trust of an adult bird with an established character and some associative connections is extremely difficult to win, and sometimes impossible.

When you bring a cockatiel into your home, it will experience the stress of a change in habitat. Give her a few days to look around, get used to you and your house, to those who live in it. During the adaptation period, do not try to establish contact, it is best if you do not bother the parrot at this difficult moment for him. After a few days, you can start talking with your pet, addressing him in a quiet and affectionate voice. It is important to interest the cockatiel in communication, to arrange and accustom him to yourself. But all this is done gradually, methodically, and with kindness.

Some time after adaptation, you can open the cage and invite the parrot to sit on your arm. Gradually accustoming the bird to be near you outside the cage, you establish a good strong bond with it, it is this interaction between you that is necessary in order to move on to learning to speak.

A parrot to be trained should have only one owner - the bird will play with him, communicate, take food and take care of it.It is noticed that the female timbre of the voice of the parrot is closer and understandable than the male one, therefore, the study is more successful if the role of the teacher is a woman.

A bird should be taught to reproduce human speech, taking into account certain rules that should be strictly observed:

• it is necessary to start training only at the moment when the bird feels good, is cheerful and active - usually in a cockatiel it happens in the morning and in the evening;
• the learning process should become a daily event, the duration of the lesson is at least 20 minutes, classes should be held 2-3 times a day;
• the first words, and then the phrases, should be short and simple in sound;
• the bird remembers well the words that are associated with something pleasant for it: feeding, bathing, waking up in the morning, walking out of the cage;
• all the successes of your pet must always be encouraged with praise and treats;
• if the bird is sick or is in a bad mood and does not want to communicate, it is not necessary to force it to study at this time;
• in order for the parrot to remember the words, they need to be repeated to him constantly, with the same intonation, many times, every day;
• new words and phrases should be learned only when your pet remembered the previous material well;
• do not overload the bird's memory, a large volume of words is beyond her power;
• during training, be patient - do not be nervous and do not shout at the bird if you do not want to lose friendly contact with it.

Teaching a cockatiel to repeat words is much easier when he is alone with you. It is required to exclude any extraneous sounds, flashes of light, noise, extraneous odors - remove bright and moving objects, mirrors, other animals, children from the room. The bird is very inquisitive and will be constantly distracted by any, even insignificant, stimuli.

In the case when several cockatiels live in one cage, then for the duration of the classes, the parrots are seated in different rooms for the greatest concentration of the bird's attention on you and the words you utter. Parrots living in pairs can also learn. Since the female is more difficult to train, the male is usually subject to training. During the lesson, the male is also transferred to a room separate from the female.

For your pet to want to learn to talk, he must have proper care, the optimal content of vitamins and minerals in the diet, the absence of diseases, and molting. An active, healthy and curious bird should not be afraid of contact with you and willingly allow themselves to be taken in their arms. If you see your parrot flapping its wings and making beak clicks, this is a sure sign that it is in a good mood now and now is the right time to study.

Repeatedly pronouncing phrases or individual words for memorization to the parrot, pay attention to how the bird behaves at the same time.

Some cockatiel owners are trying to conduct a test lesson to find out if their parrot is capable of learning and memorizing words. To do this, during the day, a simple and short word is repeated at least 50 times to a bird with the same intonation (the more, the better).

It is believed that you need to start your studies by voicing the name of the parrot, for example, telling him: "Kesha" or "Kesha is good." If, during the learning process, the Corella shows signs of interest and tries to repeat aloud what he has learned by the end of the lesson, then it makes sense to further study.However, it is still not worth judging learning abilities by one day. The natural intellectual capacity of each parrot may be different, and someone who does not speak in 1 day can produce excellent results after a few full sessions.

Repeating the same phrase several dozen times every day is a rather tedious task for any person. If you do not have the time and opportunity to conduct regular voice lessons with a parrot on your own, in this case a smartphone or computer can come to your aid. To do this, you need to record a voice file and put it on repeated playback. The bird is left in a room where it listens to audio recordings many times during the day. Thus, the parrot memorizes a new word or phrase and can reproduce the learned lesson.

In addition to words, a parrot can learn to whistle. The whistle of the Corella imitates the best, but it reproduces speech not quite cleanly. A parrot can be taught to imitate a musical melody, for this you need to whistle it in the presence of the bird quite often so that it can remember and reproduce what it hears so often. A parrot reproducing a melody, as a rule, is in a good mood and thus expresses its joyful emotions. Especially expressively, the parrot can perform melodies during the breeding season, flaunting in front of the female.

The talking parrot Corella is always the pride of the owner, because behind every word learned there is a lot of hard work, in which time and patience are invested. Those breeders who train their parrots in imitation of speech believe that lessons with a bird are a pleasant pastime during which they communicate and play with their beloved pet.

See the video below for some secrets of teaching cockatiels to speak.