Getting Your Pet Birds to Be Quiet

Birds can truly be wonderful pets…no large kennels to clean or worries about tick and flea shots. However, when birds get in their “tantrums”, they can get extremely loud, especially if you happen to out a parrot. Incessant beeping turns into an instant headache. Nonetheless, they are some remedies for getting silence from your parrot-the right way.

Most importantly, you can not yell at your bird. Sometimes after hours of hearing the same constant chirping, it’s enough to make anyone frustrated and want to just yell at their bird to stop or rattle the bird cage to shock the bird into silence. However, these are both ineffective and damaging strategies. Birds do not understand that yelling means anger and thus that they must stop. Instead, birds interpret raised voices as a call of alarm as they would if they were in a flock-and in turn, they scream even more to spread the alarm. Shaking a birdcage only upsets and scares the bird more and they thus scream louder as an alarm signal.

Though it may try your patience, the best thing to do is talk to the bird sternly but calmly, using short commands such as “Be quiet” or “Stop screaming” which have distinct sounds to them when emphasized. If this sort of involvement is begun when the bird is young, it will come to recognize the commands and will respond accordingly. Secondly, when the bird is yelling, do not pick it up-this only reinforces negative behavior. Instead, to stop screaming, other remedies include covering the bird up for ten or twenty minutes with its cage cover or putting it in a dark room for the same amount of time. Generally the darkness calms and quiets the bird. In nature, birds’ instincts tell them to be quiet at night to avoid predators, and simulating that night does the same thing to domestic birds as well. In this manner, the bird will learn that screaming leads to isolation for a time and silence, and they will understand what you want of them when you say “quiet”.

Having birds scream for hours is indeed grating on the nerves, so preventative measures are helpful too. Birds are like babies in the respect that they may scream if they want something, for instance, if they want food, or water, or attention. Make sure that once you wake your bird up in the morning, they have a ready supply of fresh food and water, and a good ritual to begin with your bird is a “morning pet. This has helped considerably with both my birds. If you spend ten or so minutes with your bird in the morning, petting or talking to them, it starts the day off on the right foot, the equivalent of helping your bird get up on the right side of the bed. Believe it or not, birds do understand if you are busy, and they won’t bother you if they feel welcomed and accepted and well cared for in a home. When my parrotlet is sunning himself and sees me or my family rushing around back and forth, he understands that we are busy and will actually say “beep beep” to acknowledge us. If we in turn acknowledge him by saying “beep beep” back, he won’t chirp or scream for want of attention. He contents himself in the sun and leaves us without a headache due to squawking.