PARROT VOCALIZATION VS. SCREAMING 

As my son was growing up, I read a book entitled Children Are Like Wet Cement. The premise being, children’s behavior is greatly influenced by their parents’ words and actions; and so it is with birds.  

All birds are hard-wired to make sound.  In the wild, they innately emit contact calls periodically throughout the day to stay in touch with other flock members, especially at dawn and dusk. At other times, when predators are lurking about, birds will let out alarm calls to communicate danger. And when spring hormones are in gear, “love” calls can be heard as part of the courtship ritual. ---- And so, noise making is a natural form of communication and it should never and can never be eliminated.  If you cannot tolerate any noise at any time, a parrot is probably not the companion for you. 

However, excessive screaming is the result of normal communication gone awry. For those bird owners with the cockatoo whose incessant screaming is making you seriously think about wearing earplugs all day or the family with the macaw that prevents them from  enjoying a television show because of the shrill raucous noise,  I have good and bad news. The bad news is.... in all likelihood, you, the bird owner are at fault.  

Remember the day you brought that sweet bundle of feathers into your home?  As weeks went by, you couldn’t wait to share with your friends how incredibly smart your new bappy was. And you will always remember the day he or she uttered their first “human” words.  Then, as the weeks turned into months, you began to wonder if you made the right decision.  The noise making is now unbearable and beyond annoying. 

It is our responsibility as bird owners to teach these intelligent and loving creatures how to live in our human world. Just as with children, we need to nurture them and guide them in acceptable behaviors. 

Let me first address what may have gone wrong.

If you have answered yes to any of these questions,  your part in this bird/human relationship is at fault for creating a problem behavior.  This is the bad news; the good news is that with time, effort and patience, you can restore a more acceptable environment for you and your bird. There’s no quick fix for screaming. Your bird did not go from no screaming to screaming overnight. Something transitioned him or her to that behavior; so, try and figure out what the catalyst could have been. Did you not provide the proper toys? Did you not provide enough attention or the proper stimulating environment? Did you ignore the initial sounds he or she emitted in communication?

YOU WANT THE SCREAMING TO STOP...........BUT HOW????

• When your bird screams, do not acknowledge it  (ie. running into the room, offering a treat, talking sweetly or not so sweetly to the bird,  tapping or banging on the cage, covering the cage, etc.)
• Conversely, when the bird is quiet, even for a moment, reward by a treat, toy, or verbal affirmation.
• Stay calm and lower your energy. Birds take “cues” from their human companions’ body language, facial expressions and tone of voice.  Agitation feeds agitation. Birds like to match their noise level with the surrounding noise. If your children are running around inside with their outside voices, your TV is blaring, or the radio is set for the rock station at high volume,  you have most likely hit the “ON” button with your parrot.
• Distract the screaming by singing, dancing, humming, whistling or speaking quietly. This will serve as distraction rather than a negative reward. 
• Teach the bird how to do tricks and redirect negative behavior by cueing a trick the bird has learned.  We carry a number of DVD's which teach your bird various tricks.
• Utilize “preventive distraction”  - if you know your bird is loud when you are on the telephone, BEFORE you make a call, give him or her a new toy or something to shred.  We have a large selection of foraging toys; these toys engage the intellectual needs of all birds and are tremendously useful in addressing and preventing behavior issues.  Problem behaviors tend to occur at specific times of the day, in certain situations, and with particular people.  Therefore, have the bird engage in appropriate behavior alternatives in the places and times when the screaming would have occurred.
• Set up a playstand on which you can hang toys and change the toys often to hold the bird's interest. We have many sizes and varieties of playstands andjava trees from which to choose. 
• Make sure a bird's cage is not too small; the appropriate size cage is vital to a bird's sense of well-being.
• Let birds be birds. In the morning and evening when birds naturally call out to gather the flock, don’t take measures to curb these vocalizations.  Birds are enthusiastic creatures and letting them just be themselves for 10 minutes or so a couple times a day is all part of the joys of sharing our lives with parrots. 

“FOOD FOR THOUGHT”

Always use positive reinforcement with birds. Reward them for the good behavior, ignore the bad.

NEVER punish a bird in any way, including yelling, squirting with water, hitting, grabbing the beak, etc.