Stipe
09-04-2006, 06:51 AM
How To Teach Your Budgie To Talk.
04/09/2006
Stjepan Puric
TEACHING A BUDGIE TO TALK
Budgies are one of the most misunderstood birds in the world. The reason they are kept in poor conditions is people just do not realise just how amazing these birds can be. Budgies have the ability to speak our language, maybe not in such a great conversational context as humans because their brains are not as developed as humans. They can learn over 1000 words and sentences. They can even use them in context. I will show you how you can teach them to do this later on in the article. Budgies can definitely learn our language fluently in a matter of a couple of months. They can learn at least ten times faster than humans, if they are in the right conditions.
This is a nature verse nurture debate. Budgies aren’t born to speak to other budgies; they have to learn their own language just like baby humans learning to speak English for example. “But I hear him ‘chip’ and ‘Churp’ all the time and (s)he has never met another bird”, human babies ramble on with blah blah sentences don’t they? Baby talk? , Well this is what your budgie is doing. Also think about it, the budgie baby’s would have been with its parents for at least 10 weeks before you got it or with others at the shops.
Budgies learn faster with their own kind. Hey wouldn’t you be scared if a giant featherless creature is poking its fingers at you and talking in a weird language? This is why before you start any training you MUST have a relationship with your birds. If you don’t have any relationship then you aren’t going to get anything through to your bird. If you have no relationship with your bird and you attempt to train it to speak it is just going to be staring at you but instead of listening to you, it will be planing a route to escape back to the cage or waiting for a reward for doing nothing. With all my birds I develop a relationship. All my birds know I can do anything with them and they are safe. My relationships go as far as I can hang my bird upside down and it will know I will bring it back up. I bring it to my face and let it feel the vibrations of my lips, the beauty of my gazing eyes and the warmth of my breath. This all makes my birds know that I am as much his as he is mine. So I urge you to develop a relationship, pat your birds, talk softly to it, let it know you love and care for it and will protect it. This will be covered in another article.
Ok lets get training.
Lets start with the basics, make sure your bird is fully finger trained before your attempt this. Firstly you must be prepared to give your bird at least two, twenty-minute lessons a day. The best times are around the morning as it is most alert then and in the evening around dinnertime. Make sure you don’t wake it up to do training or it will get cranky with you and dislike you. YES BUDGIERS DO HAVE EMOTIONS.
STEP ONE: BASIC TALK
Take your bird out of its cage and take it to a bird safe room away from its cage, other people, distracting objects like TV’s and radios and other birds. Now assuming you already have established a relationship with your bird (It is ok if you have not, it will develop as we progress, but make sure it is at least trained and not afraid of you) take your bird in your finger and start to play with it, tickle it, scratch it and chase its tail. Let it know that you are here to have fun and not to practice stepping up.
OK now pick a short phrase and repeat it many times. Take a word like its name, so for instance “Chipie”. Repeat this word in a highish pitch voice in a gentle, calm manor and keep repeating it occasionally throwing in the word “hello Chipie” or “pretty boy”. Keep it fairly close to your face and make sure it is paying attention. If it looks away or starts to go to sleep then return it to its cage and try again later but if its just looking away try to grab its attention with a tickle or something.
After repeating the word a few times then move your finger slowly closer to your lips until your bird is almost touching it. Then repeat the word even softer. DO NOT SCARE THE BIRD. The whole purpose of this is to teach the bird the vibrations and tongue movement so that it may adjust its voice box. This is why I urge you to have a relationship with your birds. If you cant do this, dont worry, with time everything happens.
Now move the bird back and repeat the word(s) again and then finish the lesson with a treat of some kind. After 20-30munites put him or her back in its cage. Do this two or three times a day.
This works best with only one bird, as two birds will be highly distracting to each other and they will learn nothing.
STEP TWO : TEACHING IT TO USE AND UNDERSTAND CONTEXT
Budgies have this amazing ability to speak, and not just to mimic sounds but to use and understand them aswell. You can teach budgies how to speak in context very easily. The thing you must consider first, is your bird ready?, can he already speak more than a couple of words? (if not then teach him or we wont learn squat), how good of a relationship do you have with it?. Once you have answeared all the question with a yes its time to move on.
Ok, now start by talking to and telling them what you or other people are doing. With this try to use names. This helps hte bird establish that everybody has a name not just it. Ok start by showing him things and repeat sentences making sure that the bird is listening and paying attention, e.g. "Stipe is closing the door now", "Mary is typing on a computer at a bird forum now", "Joseph is going to work now", etc.
Make sure that your bird is listening to you and watches what you are talking about and your mouth while you are talking. If he is intrested and trying to understand you he will eventually learn to understand what you are saying. Do this repetedly, a couple of times a day, showing him at least 20 different things in one lesson. Repeat this until he starts to say those sentences when he sees someone doing those actions. Always reward him (it doesnt have to be food) and apriecate him. Rememebr birds love to be the center of attention. To help them with learning context, try and broaden thier vocabulary. Do this by reading them books, explaing words from the dictionary and telling stories.
Ok thats all i have for now, any questions be sure to ask me.
Thankyou for reading, Stjepan Puric.
04/09/2006
Stjepan Puric
TEACHING A BUDGIE TO TALK
Budgies are one of the most misunderstood birds in the world. The reason they are kept in poor conditions is people just do not realise just how amazing these birds can be. Budgies have the ability to speak our language, maybe not in such a great conversational context as humans because their brains are not as developed as humans. They can learn over 1000 words and sentences. They can even use them in context. I will show you how you can teach them to do this later on in the article. Budgies can definitely learn our language fluently in a matter of a couple of months. They can learn at least ten times faster than humans, if they are in the right conditions.
This is a nature verse nurture debate. Budgies aren’t born to speak to other budgies; they have to learn their own language just like baby humans learning to speak English for example. “But I hear him ‘chip’ and ‘Churp’ all the time and (s)he has never met another bird”, human babies ramble on with blah blah sentences don’t they? Baby talk? , Well this is what your budgie is doing. Also think about it, the budgie baby’s would have been with its parents for at least 10 weeks before you got it or with others at the shops.
Budgies learn faster with their own kind. Hey wouldn’t you be scared if a giant featherless creature is poking its fingers at you and talking in a weird language? This is why before you start any training you MUST have a relationship with your birds. If you don’t have any relationship then you aren’t going to get anything through to your bird. If you have no relationship with your bird and you attempt to train it to speak it is just going to be staring at you but instead of listening to you, it will be planing a route to escape back to the cage or waiting for a reward for doing nothing. With all my birds I develop a relationship. All my birds know I can do anything with them and they are safe. My relationships go as far as I can hang my bird upside down and it will know I will bring it back up. I bring it to my face and let it feel the vibrations of my lips, the beauty of my gazing eyes and the warmth of my breath. This all makes my birds know that I am as much his as he is mine. So I urge you to develop a relationship, pat your birds, talk softly to it, let it know you love and care for it and will protect it. This will be covered in another article.
Ok lets get training.
Lets start with the basics, make sure your bird is fully finger trained before your attempt this. Firstly you must be prepared to give your bird at least two, twenty-minute lessons a day. The best times are around the morning as it is most alert then and in the evening around dinnertime. Make sure you don’t wake it up to do training or it will get cranky with you and dislike you. YES BUDGIERS DO HAVE EMOTIONS.
STEP ONE: BASIC TALK
Take your bird out of its cage and take it to a bird safe room away from its cage, other people, distracting objects like TV’s and radios and other birds. Now assuming you already have established a relationship with your bird (It is ok if you have not, it will develop as we progress, but make sure it is at least trained and not afraid of you) take your bird in your finger and start to play with it, tickle it, scratch it and chase its tail. Let it know that you are here to have fun and not to practice stepping up.
OK now pick a short phrase and repeat it many times. Take a word like its name, so for instance “Chipie”. Repeat this word in a highish pitch voice in a gentle, calm manor and keep repeating it occasionally throwing in the word “hello Chipie” or “pretty boy”. Keep it fairly close to your face and make sure it is paying attention. If it looks away or starts to go to sleep then return it to its cage and try again later but if its just looking away try to grab its attention with a tickle or something.
After repeating the word a few times then move your finger slowly closer to your lips until your bird is almost touching it. Then repeat the word even softer. DO NOT SCARE THE BIRD. The whole purpose of this is to teach the bird the vibrations and tongue movement so that it may adjust its voice box. This is why I urge you to have a relationship with your birds. If you cant do this, dont worry, with time everything happens.
Now move the bird back and repeat the word(s) again and then finish the lesson with a treat of some kind. After 20-30munites put him or her back in its cage. Do this two or three times a day.
This works best with only one bird, as two birds will be highly distracting to each other and they will learn nothing.
STEP TWO : TEACHING IT TO USE AND UNDERSTAND CONTEXT
Budgies have this amazing ability to speak, and not just to mimic sounds but to use and understand them aswell. You can teach budgies how to speak in context very easily. The thing you must consider first, is your bird ready?, can he already speak more than a couple of words? (if not then teach him or we wont learn squat), how good of a relationship do you have with it?. Once you have answeared all the question with a yes its time to move on.
Ok, now start by talking to and telling them what you or other people are doing. With this try to use names. This helps hte bird establish that everybody has a name not just it. Ok start by showing him things and repeat sentences making sure that the bird is listening and paying attention, e.g. "Stipe is closing the door now", "Mary is typing on a computer at a bird forum now", "Joseph is going to work now", etc.
Make sure that your bird is listening to you and watches what you are talking about and your mouth while you are talking. If he is intrested and trying to understand you he will eventually learn to understand what you are saying. Do this repetedly, a couple of times a day, showing him at least 20 different things in one lesson. Repeat this until he starts to say those sentences when he sees someone doing those actions. Always reward him (it doesnt have to be food) and apriecate him. Rememebr birds love to be the center of attention. To help them with learning context, try and broaden thier vocabulary. Do this by reading them books, explaing words from the dictionary and telling stories.
Ok thats all i have for now, any questions be sure to ask me.
Thankyou for reading, Stjepan Puric.