Jazz - Green Cheek Conure Blog

Here is a video I took of Jazz learning how to turn around...his very first trick. He's doing so well:

Turn around is a very easy first trick to teach your bird, it just requires time and patience on your part to teach any animal to do anything.

Here are the instructions from "BASIC TRICK TRAINING" by Tani Robar

Holding the seed in the right hand at about the bird's eye level, let the bird see the seed. Tell it "turn around". As the bird reaches for the seed, move your hand around the bird to the back so that the bird must first turn its head and next, hopefully, its whole body, to follow and reach for the seed. If the bird turns half way around to face the back, tell it "good" and reward it at once. Then coax it to turn the rest of the way around by following the seed in your right hand. Use the simple command "turn around" each time you ask it to turn. . Once the bird turns from front to back and then back to front readily, insist it turn all the way around before it gets its reward. This is a simple first trick and it might not interest you as a future trick, but what you are teaching the bird here is more than just a trick. You are teaching it how to learn and what is expected of it, and how it will be rewarded. Remember, a bird will not repeat a behavior for which it is not compensated in some way. In the next step, let the bird follow the seed around in your right hand, but hold another seed in your left hand. Once the bird has completed the turn, reward it with the seed from your left hand. Gradually raise your right hand a little higher each time the trick is successfully repeated. Next, have no seed in your right hand and just make the right hand move in a small circle above the bird's head, being sure to immediately reward the correct behavior with a seed from the left hand. Eventually you will be able to just circle the right index finger above the bird, and drop the command altogether. A tip to remember, a bird responds much more readily to a visual cue than to a verbal one. But in the beginning teach both. The verbal command forces the bird to pay attention, and gives the trainer focus. For now be satisfied with the bird turning around on the T-stand, even if it does so a bit awkwardly or slowly. Think of what the bird has learned in just a few minutes. It has heard a command (turn around), it has seen and learned to respond to a visual cue (the right hand, index finger circling over his head), it learns that the word "good" means its owner is pleased, and finally, that a reward will be following. And all it had to do was turn itself around!