One of the very first missions of parrot care is to gain the trust of your new feathered friend.

When you first adopt a parrot, you should already be working on building trust and nurturing the relationship.

A healthy relationship with your parrot is built on trust, communication, and respect.

So…

How do you earn your newly adopted bird’s trust?

Here are 9 simple & effective ways to quickly gain your parrot’s trust!

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• 1) Make Sure The Cage Is Large Enough
• 2) Hang Out With The Bird Often
• 3) Talk Softly To The Parrot
• 4) Offer Favourite Treats
• 5) Eat Near Your Bird
• 6) Don’t Make Fast Or Sudden Movements
• 7) Don’t Force Interactions
• 8) Have Patience
• 9) Never Grab Your Parrot!
• How NOT To Gain Your Parrots Trust
• Conclusion

1) Make Sure The Cage Is Large Enough

Living in a small cage is often stressful for a parrot, and a stressed bird can be difficult to tame

When parrots have access to a large space where they can feel safe and secure, they’re more willing to take risks outside of the cage, such as interacting with humans.

Large cages simply provide comfort to a bird.

And it’s much easier to gain your parrot’s trust when they feel comfortable.

Small cages make birds feel vulnerable as there is hardly any room to move or escape potential danger.

When you decide to interact with them or their cage items, your bird will feel scared as they can’t get away from you.

By giving your parrot a large cage, you’ll make the taming process so much easier.

2) Hang Out With The Bird Often

During the first few days, you don’t want to get your untamed bird out of the cage as it’ll be very difficult to get them back in, even if they’re clipped.

Trying to get an untamed bird back in the cage often causes unnecessary stress.

Related: How To Properly Get An Untamed Bird Back Into The Cage

Instead, you should spend the first few days just hanging out, talking, and offering treats.

By hanging out with the bird often, you’ll slowly show them that you don’t intend to hurt or eat them, which will make them more comfortable in your presence.

3) Talk Softly To The Parrot

In order to gain the trust of your bird, you need to show them that you’re a gentle creature with no ill intentions.

You can do this by talking softly, quietly, and often in the presence of your bird.

Get as close to your parrot as possible without scaring them, and start speaking to them in a caring voice.

Give them your full attention as they can tell when you’re not really concentrating on them.

Your parrot will appreciate the fact that you’re trying to communicate with them, which will earn you some trust points.

You could choose to whistle as well if you like.

That might actually be the better option if you own a cockatiel because they’re pretty big on whistling.

But any form of audible communication will be acknowledged and appreciated by your bird.

4) Offer Favourite Treats

The key to most birds’ hearts are delicious treats!

By providing food to your bird, not only are you showing them your good intentions, but you’re setting yourself up to be perceived as a source of food.

This will build trust with your parrot very quickly!

Larger parrots typically enjoy nuts, seeds, or dried fruit, while the smaller birds enjoy millet spray or seed mix.

When offering treats to a fearful bird, you must allow them to come to you.

Do not chase them with food, that will only make them more scared of you.

Instead, you should hold the treat by the other side of the cage and give them the choice to come over and eat it.

Alternatively, you could just drop the treat into their food bowl, which they’ll equally appreciate.

5) Eat Near Your Bird

In the wild, parrots are vulnerable to predator attacks while they’re eating.

When they’re first adopted, parrots believe they’re vulnerable while eating because they don’t understand their new surroundings.

You can use this natural instinct to your advantage by eating near your bird.

Eating in the presence of your parrot will help them see you as a non-threat because you’re willing to make yourself vulnerable around them.

When they think you’re in a vulnerable state, they’ll become more comfortable around you.

So, the next time you plan on grabbing a snack, eat it around your bird!

6) Don’t Make Fast Or Sudden Moves

You should definitely avoid making sudden moves around your parrot if you want to earn their trust.

Fast movements may be perceived as predatory behaviour and will likely startle the bird and cause them to fear you for a while.

Although the bird will shortly recover from the scare, that fear emotion will be associated with you.

And having negative feelings associated with you is not good for trust building in the early days.

Always move at a normal, calm pace around your bird.

7) Don’t Force Interactions

Attempting to force food, affection, or any social interactions onto your bird will not only make them lose trust in you but will likely result in a nasty bite.

You must let the parrot decide whether it wants to interact with you or not.

By giving them this choice, you’re telling your bird that you respect its space and its decision.

This will gain you some huge trust points!

Definitely don’t chase your parrot with your hand in any situation as this will be perceived as predatory behaviour.

Remember, you must allow the bird to come to you for treats and social interactions on their own terms.

8) Have Patience

The most important thing you need for parrot taming is patience.

In fact, pretty much everything with parrot care requires at least some level of patience.

Better taming results are produced when you give your bird enough time to build up the courage it needs to interact with you.

You need to keep in mind that it may take days or even weeks for your parrot to trust you.

Since smaller parrots are very skittish, it often takes much longer to gain their trust.

Set a realistic timeframe for taming and don’t try to rush through it otherwise your bird will notice.

Parrots can tell when you’re being pushy or forceful, so take it slow and don’t push past their boundaries.

Go at the pace your parrot is comfortable with.

9) Never Grab Your Parrot!

When trying to gain your parrot’s trust, the worst thing you could possibly do is grab them.

Don’t grab them to get them out of a cage, to put them in one, or to move them anywhere.

Grabbing your parrot will make them fear you, and you’ll likely receive a strong bite as the bird tries to escape your grip.

That’s not the first impression you want to make with your new bird.

You should only ever grab your bird in emergencies, like if the house was burning down.

Other than that, there really aren’t any situations that justify forcefully grabbing a pet bird.

So, if you’re looking to build trust and a good relationship with your parrot, never grab them.

How NOT To Gain Your Parrots Trust

We just went over 9 ways to build trust with your bird, but I also want to bring attention to these taming methods that you should avoid:

• Holding/grabbing the bird until they “trust” you

• Not interacting with the bird straight away

These flawed taming methods will leave your parrot terrified or depressed, so you must avoid them.

Holding The Bird Until They “Trust” You

This used to be a highly-suggested taming method recommended by quite a few bird owners.

The suggestion was to grab your newly adopted bird and forcefully hold it in your hands until it stopped panicking and calmed down.

Apparently, the bird was supposed to trust the person after they did this.

The idea was that since the bird calmed down after hours of struggling, it must mean that it trusts the person.

I’m very glad people nowadays see the flawed logic behind this tactic.

Not only will this method prevent any trust building, but it’ll make the bird hate and fear you.

When the bird calms down, it’s not because it trusts you, it has literally just given up on trying to escape as it has no more energy to struggle.

The person is now left with a fearful, tired, and traumatised bird that will not trust them anytime soon.

You should definitely discredit anybody who suggests the use of this very forceful parrot taming method.

Not Interacting With The Bird Straight Away

This flawed taming method is not as forceful, but it should still be avoided.

The suggestion here is to leave your newly adopted parrot in the cage, not interact with it at all, and just let it get used to their new surroundings by itself.

Although it seems to make sense, this method is faulty.

You and other household members should absolutely interact with a newly adopted bird straight away.

Whether it be offering treats or simply talking, you can’t just ignore your bird for the first few days.

Doing that will likely cause fear and hesitation when you finally decide to interact with them.

Of course, you need to allow your parrot to get used to its new environment, but you must also associate yourself with the environment.

Otherwise, the bird will need to get used to people and the environment separately.

And this takes an unnecessary amount of time.

Conclusion

Let’s do a quick recap of the 9 simple ways to gain your parrot’s trust:

• 1) Make sure the cage is large enough
• 2) Hang out with the bird often
• 3) Talk softly to your parrot
• 4) Offer favourite treats
• 5) Eat near your bird
• 6) Don’t make sudden movements around your bird
• 7) Don’t force unwanted interactions
• 8) Be patient
• 9) Never grab your bird!

If you follow these 9 methods while also going at the pace your parrot is comfortable with, you will eventually gain their trust.

The time it takes to tame your parrot depends on the species and their past situation.

A hand-raised bird will probably only take a day or two to build trust.

However, an aviary-raised bird or a bird neglected by past owners will take much longer to gain their complete trust.

For those birds, I would give them 2 weeks – 1 month to get fully comfortable with you.

When your bird trusts you, they’ll show some pretty noticeable signs:

For instance, they won’t be as hesitant to accept treats from your hand and they may even come out of the cage to interact with you.

They also won’t be fearful when you put your hand inside the cage and will generally be relaxed in your presence.

I highly recommend that you start target training your bird once they’re comfortable with you.

Target training is the easiest and arguably the most important behaviour you can teach your bird as it can help lead to other tricks such as “step-up” and “flight training”.

It’s also a fun game that can boost the growing relationship between you and your new parrot.

Click here to read the easy guide to target training your parrot.

Thank you for reading 🙂