Delivering vital medicine to your bird through a needleless syringe is often a difficult task.

When our birds get sick and need medicine, our avian vets will tell us to towel them up and deliver the medicine while they’re restrained.

That’s what I got told to do at least.

But a better way to deliver liquid to your bird is by training them to take it from a syringe voluntarily.

This type of training is referred to as “syringe training”.

And syringe training your bird is precisely what I’m going to teach you in this article!

Once your birds are properly syringe conditioned, there will be no need to grab them in order to provide essential liquid medicine.

Quick Navigation:

• How To Syringe Train Your Birds (Step-By-Step)
• Step 1: Eliminating Any Possible Fears Of Syringes
• Step 2: Training Your Bird To Touch The Syringe
• Step 3: Start Delivering Drops Of Water Through The Syringe
• Step 4: Start Delivering Coloured Liquid Through The Syringe
• Medicating Birds With Syringes
• Conclusion
• Sources

How To Syringe Train Your Birds (Step-By-Step)

Ideally, you should start teaching this to your bird before they ever get sick.

This way, your bird will already know what to expect when receiving medicine through a syringe.

Most people don’t even think about syringe training until they actually need to provide medicine to their birds.

Trying to get a bird to drink from a syringe voluntarily without any training will often prove fruitless.

They’ll turn away, shake their heads, and downright refuse to take their medicine.

Below is the step-by-step guide to training a bird to take liquid from a syringe, even if they’ve never seen a syringe before in their life.

Step 1: Eliminating Any Possible Fears Of Syringes

Birds will usually get scared of objects they haven’t seen before.

Unless they were syringe fed as babies, this will likely be the case with unfamiliar syringes.

Larger birds may not be as scared as the smaller birds since syringes aren’t very big.

To a smaller bird, syringes are obviously much bigger.

Before you can actually train your bird to drink liquid from the syringe, they first need to overcome their fear of it.

To help your bird overcome this fear, you must first introduce the syringe to them gently.

(Get some treats ready)

Let them see it in your hand and then bring it closer to them.

Make sure the syringe isn’t close enough to cause a fear response.

If your bird gets scared or startled by the syringe, it will slightly delay this training process.

Give them a treat when the syringe is close to them to teach them to come to it.

Reward them for every step they take closer to the syringe.

You can also lure your bird closer to the syringe using a treat to teach them that they’re in no danger.

Basically, you’re encouraging them to be less fearful of this new object.

Eventually, they’ll be willing to take the treat right next to the syringe and may become daring enough to touch it.

Step 2: Training Your Bird To Touch The Syringe

Now, if your bird ever touches the syringe, give them a reward.

Especially if they touch the tip.

The first time they touch the syringe tip should be heavily rewarded.

Similar to target training, this will teach the bird that touching the syringe will earn them a treat.

You can also lure your bird into touching the tip by holding the treat behind the syringe tip.

Luring them to the syringe tip with a target stick is also a good idea if your bird is target trained.

If your bird is clicker conditioned, you can *click* when they touch the tip.

Birds need as much positive reinforcement as possible in order to learn new behaviours faster.

So make sure you praise and reward them every time they touch the syringe.

At first, you can reward them just for touching anywhere on the syringe, but then they’ll need to transition to touching the tip.

This will associate the syringe with treats before asking them to touch a specific part of the syringe.

But if they touch the tip straight away, that’s great, reward them heavily for that.

Once they get rewarded for touching the syringe tip, you can no longer reward them for simply touching the body of the syringe.

By doing this, you’re altering the reward conditions, which will make your bird learn the specific task better.

Keep practising until your bird is literally chasing the syringe tip to get a treat.

Or until they’re really enthusiastic about this syringe.

Once they fully understand that touching the syringe tip earns them a treat, you can move on to step 3.

Step 3: Start Delivering Drops Of Water Through The Syringe

Fill up the syringe with fresh water from your bird’s bowl.

Deliver just a single drop of water to your bird through the syringe every time they touch the tip.

The first time they drink the water should be heavily rewarded.

You can deliver water to them in 2 ways:

1) Press the plunger of the syringe so that there is a drop of water sitting on the tip. Bring the tip to your bird’s beak and reward them for drinking the water, not just touching the tip.

2) When your bird goes to touch the tip, press the plunger to deliver a drop of water to your bird’s beak while they touch the tip. Reward them for drinking the water.

Both approaches work great!

The second method might startle your bird a bit because they likely didn’t expect water to come from the syringe.

But once they’ve been heavily rewarded for drinking it, they’ll be more willing to try again.

Now, make sure you reward your bird for drinking the water.

We’re no longer rewarding them for simply touching the tip, you’ve likely moved on from that phase of this training.

Reward them for each drop of water they successfully drink.

Don’t reward them for spitting out the water, otherwise, you’ll be teaching them that spitting out fluid from the syringe is good behaviour.

And they can’t have this mindset when it’s time to deliver important medication.

Once they’re comfortable taking a single drop, start delivering and only rewarding them for taking two drops of water.

Again, you’re alterting the reward conditions.

Work on this step until your bird knows how they’re earning their reward (drinking the water from the syringe).

Step 4: Start Delivering Coloured Liquid Through The Syringe

Once you think your bird is comfortable enough taking the clear liquid, you can try delivering coloured liquid through the syringe.

The reason you need to do this with coloured liquid is that most bird medicine is coloured.

You’ll also be getting them comfortable with different tastes and textures coming from the syringe.

And when it comes time to deliver medicine, there will be less hesitation.

“But where can I get coloured liquid?”.

Here are some easy-to-make coloured liquids:

• Mushed up carrots

• Mushed up sweet potato

• 100% natural fruit juice (sparingly for smaller birds)

• Diluted apple cider vinegar

You should boil vegetables before mushing them up to make them a bit softer.

That way, you’ll easily be able to get the veggies to a puree/juice form, which is ideal for a syringe.

Once you have your coloured liquid inside of the syringe, it’s pretty much the same process as before…

Encourage your bird to drink the coloured liquid from the syringe, and give them a delicious treat when they do.

Since it’s a new coloured liquid, your bird may be a little hesitant to try it.

That’s completely fine, just don’t give the reward until they do.

Since drinking coloured liquid is a first-time behaviour, it should be heavily rewarded.

If they’re super hesitant and they won’t try it, you may need to go back to step 3 to remind them that they get a reward for drinking from the syringe tip.

You may even need to teach them to touch the syringe again.

Practice syringe feeding with coloured liquid multiple times across multiple training sessions.

By doing this, you’re training your bird to be more and more comfortable taking strange liquids from a syringe.

This is the ultimate goal of syringe training.

Medicating Birds With Syringes

I had to deliver medicine to my cockatiel through a syringe recently due to a yeast infection.

The medicine schedule was twice daily for 21 days.

Since I struggled with it at first, I know how hard it can be for someone to deliver medicine to a bird for the first time.

So in this section, I just want to give you some advice on how to medicate your bird with a syringe.

First of all, don’t force anything.

Trying to force the medicine into your bird’s mouth or anything along those lines will only make this task more difficult in the future.

Their first time with a syringe and medicine must be positive.

If your bird has a negative first experience with syringes and medicine, they likely won’t take it voluntarily again.

You must deliver the medicine one drop at a time so as to not overwhelm your bird.

Second, practice with other liquids before medicine.

Before actually giving the medicine to your bird through the syringe, you should do 2 – 3 successful reps with water or coloured liquid.

Give a reward immediately after they drink the practice liquids.

You need to get them warmed up with tasty liquid before giving the medicine.

Because most birds hate the taste of medicine.

They’ll think that the medicine is their favourite coloured liquid, which will prevent any hesitation.

As soon as they have the medicine in their mouth, give them their favourite treat.

To help prevent your bird from spitting out the medicine, give them their most preferred treat.

Give them that treat as soon as you get the medicine in their mouth.

The treat will basically help your bird wash down the horrible-tasting medicine.

And since they’ll want to consume the treat, they’ll need to swallow the medicine as well.

They’ll also be more willing to take the medicine if they know their favourite treat will follow.

This is why it’s super important to reward them every time they drink from the syringe.

What To Do If You Haven’t Syringe Trained Your Bird

If you haven’t syringed trained your bird and they need to take important medicine, you can either:

• Dedicate half the day to syringe training before you need to medicate them

• Or, restrain your bird to provide the medicine

Even though us bird owners don’t like grabbing our birds, it must be done if they aren’t syringe trained.

If they can’t be syringe trained before needing the medicine, your only option is to towel them up and provide the medicine while they’re restrained.

Quick note:

You must give your bird the exact dosage of the medicine prescribed by your avian vet.

No more, no less.

This is why you must do what you can to prevent your bird from spitting it out.

Conclusion

Let’s do a quick recap of the step-by-step syringe training process:

Step 1: Eliminate any possible fears of syringes – There is no way you’ll be able to get your bird to drink from something they’re terrified of. Teach them to get close to the syringe without showing any fear responses.

Step 2: Train your bird to touch the syringe – Before your bird will actually drink from the syringe, they first need to learn that simply touching the syringe will earn them a reward. You’ll go about this in a similar way to target training.

Step 3: Delivering water through a syringe – After teaching them to touch the syringe, you must teach them to drink from it. To do this, you’ll need to reward them for drinking plain water from the syringe tip. Heavily reward them the first time they drink it.

Step 4: Delivering coloured liquid through a syringe – Since water looks nothing like medicine, you’ll eventually need to train your bird to take coloured liquid. This can be done after your bird understands that drinking water from the syringe earns them a treat. Again, you must heavily reward them the first time they take coloured liquid.

One last thing…

Due to bird anatomy, you must deliver medicine to the left side of their beak (your right side when facing your bird). Although this can be difficult with smaller birds, this is the way avian vets do it and how they encourage others to do it.

Hopefully, this article will help you syringe train your bird so that you can deliver vital medicine with minimal hassle.

Thank you for reading.

Sources

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGgz1P8Irs8 (Flock-Talk syringe training her parrotlet)
• https://birdtricksstore.com/blogs/birdtricks-blog/syringe-training-your-parrot
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VbSTQAOo0Q (AvianExoticsVets tutorial on giving medicine)
• https://www.fearfreehappyhomes.com/giving-medication-to-birds-without-fear-and-stress-for-birds-or-humans/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-ITKe0QC54 (Syringe Training a macaw)