Teach Your Parrot To Talk

There are five things that you must consider once you have decided to teach your parrot to speak.  You must consider the breed of parrot that you want to teach.  You must consider the temperament of your parrot.  You must consider the amount of space in your home.  You must consider the relationship that you must develop with your parrot.  And finally you must consider the nutrition that you will be giving your parrot while it learns how to speak.

As a preface, you must begin teaching your parrot to speak wind it is very young.  The best time to teach your parrot to talk is actually right out of the nest.  As with all animals, the earlier that you begin bonding with your parrot, the easier it will be to develop a relationship of trust with your parrot.  Of course, the parrot will not start talking right away.  However, this is the best time to begin exposing them to human language which will help them build a kind of vocabulary so that it will be easier for them to learn the words that you will teach.

The best place to keep your parrot is in the area of the house that gets the most exposure to human traffic.  Bathrooms are used on a daily basis by people, but the types of noises and vocabulary that would be heard in the bathroom are probably not apropos to teaching your parrot words that you would want it to speak on a regular basis.  Placing your parrot in the living room or the kitchen would be best suited for young parrot so that they can see and hear human activity on a regular and almost continuous basis.  These rooms are typically filled with lots of talking between family members which will help the parrot begin to understand human words at an increased rate.

One other thing to consider is the type of parrot that you get.  There are many different species to choose from including smaller varieties such as ringnecks, plumheads, cockatiels, and lorikeets. Although beautiful, these types of parrots are smaller and are not usually capable of imitating human speech very easily, if at all.  Larger parrots, like the African gray, are much easier to teach and seem to have a genetic predisposition toward learning speech and words.

The next thing to consider is that the temperament of your parrot can sometimes be difficult to deal with when teaching them how to speak.  Some parrots are shy and others are very vocal.  Walk into any pet shop and you are bound to know exactly where the parrots are being kept.  The birds that you want to have are actually the ones that are the most violent and aggressive, as well as the ones that are the loudest.  The shy birds tend not to want to interact and therefore are going to be the most difficult to teach words.  Therefore, if you are choosing a parrot at an early age, she is one that seems to be a bit louder than the others and also seems to be lacking manners when approached or held.

If you did purchase your parrot at an early age, the best thing to do to ensure success is to make sure that your parrot gets proper nutrition.  All of the training in the world will not matter unless the bird is properly fed and therefore has enough energy to participate with you during its learning sessions.  Feeding your parrot only seeds is actually a very poor diet and lacking in the nutrition that all parrots need.  If possible, consider feeding your parrot nutritional pelleted diets that are full of all of the nutrients that a parrot will need to stay active and healthy.  An alert parrot is simply easier to train than one that is feeling hungry and tired all the time.

Lastly, you must consider how you will begin to develop your relationship with your parrot so that it begins to respond to you when the training sessions.  Remember to handle your parrot with care and talk to it in a kind and supporting way.  The tonality of your voice has a lot to do with how your parrot will respond to you and how close your relationship with this bird will be.  The closer your relationship is, the easier teaching will become.  Plan to spend as much time as possible with your parrot so that it gets to know you and trust you at all times.  In this way, you will be able to have a very high success rate in teaching your parrot to speak.