Throughout Zachary's website, you see many pictures of him lying and playing on his back. Parrot owners whose birds do this willingly understand what it takes for a parrot to perform in this manner. For many inexperienced bird people, you must realize that lying on backs is not a normal behavior for birds. It's a learned behavior.

Parrots are prey animals. If you haven't yet, please read our article entitled Parrots In General. In the wild they are always looking out for predators and being on their backs is not a position they will do happily, as it makes them vulnerable to being attacked or hurt. There are lots of other things that come into play, way before training a parrot to lay on their backs in a household pet situation. Parrots will be parrots, and their normal behavior exist - whether they are in their natural habitat or in your home. How you raise them and train them is what helps them adjust to being loving & trusting pets toward humans.

When Zachary first arrived at our home, he refused to step up on anyone, let alone lay on his back. Learning to step up alone took a couple of weeks in training. Every pet bird must know what "step up" means. A parrot must trust you a lot before he will lay on his back around you without feeling afraid, and actually enjoy it. From Zachary's pictures you can see how much he enjoys doing this; and many times will flip over while playing on his own, just to get our attention. That didn't happen over a few weeks. It took months. Steps of first helping him adjust to a new home, eating healthy, varied foods; making sure he's getting his showers, sunlight, and feeling contented; and making sure that he has learned to trust us before even attempting to teach him how to roll over. There are certainly steps to doing this, but never force a parrot to do anything it's not ready to do. That will hurt the trust and relationship you have with him. Go about it in steps and once your bird trusts you, it's then time to start some basic training; one of which could be this. Any training - whether it's lying on their backs, talking, singing, doing a puzzle, pulling a flag etc.. will require the same steps mentioned above & for a bird to trust you totally, before any successful results can be seen. Good health, love, trust, patience and perseverance will make a parrot do just about anything you train them to do.

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