COCKATOO PARROT CAGE HOW TO

In this “open call” period, the 15 participating birds could make calls freely they also got to choose which bird to dial up.

COCKATOO PARROT CAGE HOW TO

Once the birds had learned how to initiate video interactions, the second phase of the experiment could begin. Though 18 parrots began the experiment, three dropped out. Owners terminated calls as soon as the birds stopped paying attention to the screen and capped their duration at five minutes.

In this initial phase, the participating birds made 212 video calls while their owners carefully monitored their behavior. They recruited volunteers from Parrot Kindergarten, an online training program for parrot owners and their beloved pets.ĭuring the first two weeks of the study, owners taught their birds to ring a bell, then touch an image of another pet parrot on a tablet screen to initiate a video call. Lonely parrots are unhappy parrots, so researchers set out to find a way for some of the estimated 20 million pet birds living in the United States to connect with each other. Feeling bored and isolated, they may develop psychological issues and can even resort to self-harming tendencies like plucking out their feathers. But when kept in captivity, such as in people’s homes as pets, these social birds are often on their own. The idea for this study was not random: In the wild, parrots tend to live in large flocks.

“She came alive during the calls,” one pet parent said about their bird, according to a Northeastern University statement. But, scientists asked, what about pet parrots? New research suggests that these chatty creatures may also benefit from virtually connecting with their peers.ĭomesticated parrots that learned to initiate video chats with other pet parrots had a variety of positive experiences, such as learning new skills, researchers from Northeastern University, the University of Glasgow and MIT report this month in Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. When humans are feeling lonely, we can call or video chat with friends and family who live far away.

Cockatoo parrot cage