Teaching your parrot to talk

Any pet parrot should be purchased as soon as possible after it is weaned from hand feeding. For an African Grey, this would be about 2 months of age, depending on the bird. For teaching tricks and how to talk, it depends on the individual bird. You can start teaching birds very early, but don't expect too much from them too early. Each bird is different and learns at it's own pace. One old theory stated that you should never start whistling at parrots, because they find whistling easier than talking. African Greys seem to have an innate ability to wolf whistle. The bird should be located in an area where it will receive plenty of attention and interaction. Approach the cage slowly and speak in soft, gentle tones. Once you sense that the bird feels comfortable, you can begin short training periods. Start with simple, short words or phrases such as “hello”, or “good morning”. In between lessons, speak to and interact with the bird so that it gets used to hearing your voice. This action, in itself, may encourage it to talk. Birds seem to respond better to high pitch voices, but you should speak with lots of animation and . inflection. This is one reason birds pick up bad words; the emotion behind them is what is exciting and fun, not the words themselves. Encourage all in the family to take part in the lessons

Teach by association. Use the same basic phrase for the same task. For example, in teaching it to request food, use the same request phrase, such as "want," "Want some apple, want some squash," and so on. However, don’t bore your parrot by repeating the same phrase over and over. If you’re teaching a specific object, you may want to talk about it using different contexts. For example, "Want a red apple? Here’s the red apple. If you use recordings, don’t play them longer than 15-20 minutes at a time and be there to interact with the recordings and your bird. The more you interact and participate in the learning process with your bird, the more it will learn. It best to have a daily schedule for training sessions. Select a period when your bird is the most expressive, and keep the lessons short, no longer than 15 or 20 minutes.

And finally do not try to teach more than one word or phrase at a time to your African Grey