To find out more about this fascinating bird expo and its guests, visit the official expo website at http://www.midwestbirdexpo.com/. The Midwest Bird Expo will open its door at 09:30 am and close at 4 pm.

Date: 22 May 2010
Venue: Kane County Exhibition Hall
City: St Charles, Illinois
Country: United States of America

Related posts:

1. TASC’s Midwest Bird Expo, Illinois
2. State Bird Fair and Expo 2010
3. Exotic Bird Fair Show Expo 2010

Date: 7 – 8 November 2009
Venue: Sarasota Hyatt
City: Sarasota, Florida
Country: United States of America

Related posts:

1. The Long Island Parrot Society’s Parrot Expo 2009
2. 2009 Exotic Bird Auction
3. Parrots International Symposium 2008

Many bird owners see programs on television where birds are performing tricks, saying cute lines and interacting with their owners on a personal level. Most of these owners wish to have the same relationship with their own birds, but do not realize how easy it is to teach a bird a few tricks. With a little patience and a few minutes of dedication a day, birds can be taught a number of tricks and they are often more perceptive than owners realize. But first there must be trust between the pet bird and its owner.

Owners must build up a relationship with their birds before attempting to teach their pets to do tricks. They must be able to handle their pet birds, touch their bodies and have their birds sit on their shoulders and hands. Being afraid of being bitten will be a hindrance in the learning process, so trust must be established beforehand. Owners should then establish what their bird’s favorite food is, to be able to use food treats as a reward. These treats should then only be used while training, so that the bird can associate the treat with learning and that it will be an incentive for him/her to perform a trick.

One of the first tricks, which is the simplest, that most owners teach their birds is the wave. At first, a verbal and visual cue is used, and is taught from the simple action of the bird getting onto their owners hand. Holding out the right hand, as if for the bird to climb on, the owner will tell the bird to wave and wiggle their fingers as the bird lifts its foot to climb on. Before the bird is able to place their foot on their owners’ hand, the owner will take the hand away and praise the pet immediately. This will teach the bird that whenever he lifts his foot for the verbal command, he will receive a treat. Repeating the trick a few times each day will teach the bird to associate the word “wave” with the action.

After getting the wave down to a fine art, owners can move on to other prop-less tricks such as the “turn around” and to shake hands. With each new trick learnt, the difficulty and skill can be increased. Teaching a bird small tricks can be as rewarding for the bird as it is for the owner and gives owners and the pet quality time together. With trust, activities and hours of fun, the relationship between owners and beloved pets can only grow stronger.

Related posts:

1. Teaching Pet Birds to Talk
2. Clicker Training for Pet Birds
3. Potty Training Your Bird Makes Playtime More Pleasant

Aspiring bird owners often think that a Macaw will make the perfect pet bird. But after a bit of research they find that these larger parrots require a lot of care and effort, mainly due to their size. If that is a concern that you have, you may want to consider a Mini Macaw instead. These beautiful birds are every bit as striking and full of personality as their much larger counterparts – but they’re far easier to care for!

Mini Macaws cost less, are quieter and take up less space than their larger counterparts – but without sacrificing their beautiful plumage or fascinating personalities – in fact they can even be better talkers. These birds are generally hand-raised as babies and, while they are capable of entertaining themselves, they also enjoy playing with their human friends. They are also great comics and provide hours of entertainment.

There are several species of Mini Macaws that are commonly available as pets. These are: Ara auricollis (yellow collared), Ara severa, Diopsittica nobilis (red shouldered), Ara nobilis nobilis and Ara nobilis cumanensis. Each one is different from the other and has different color combinations in its plumage. Less common Mini Macaws include: Ara maracana Illiger’s, Ara manilata (red-bellied) and Ara couloni (blue headed). However, none of these are very appropriate pets for various reasons.

Mini Macaws are active, curious and intelligent. When left to their own devices you’ll see them hanging, climbing and swinging on whatever toys may be available to them. They simply love playing with almost anything imaginable, so you’ll have an unending variety of items available to you to use as toys, without even having to buy any from the pet shop. Mini’s also generally love bathing and seem to quite enjoy taking a shower with their humans – provided the water isn’t scorching hot of course! If you don’t want to share your shower you should definitely make sure to give them a bath regularly otherwise they’ll use their water bowls and do it themselves. They are easy to potty train and a variety of suitable foods are readily available for them at most pet stores. They also tend not to be as noisy as their larger cousins but they do have noisy moments. They excel at learning new words and phrases and will quickly respond to any training they receive.

Clearly Mini Macaws are a great option for someone looking to invest in a feathered friend. However if you do decide to get one, beware – breeding pairs may be cheaper but they do not make good companion birds! Mini Macaws can also get jealous quite easily, so if you have other birds you will need to ensure that this trait is carefully watched.

Related posts:

1. Pet Bird Species: Macaws
2. The Mini Bird Race 2009
3. Senegal Parrots Make Fantastic Pets

You might think its cool when your friend calls his bird over and it lands on his arm – but how do you get yours to follow suit? Your bird has been sitting in his cage so long that you’re not even sure he knows how to fly. Target training birds is not very difficult, but it helps to understand how to go about it in a way that benefits the bird and never causes it to become tired or uncomfortable.

To start with you will need to understand that flight requires energy, muscle and strength. If your bird has spent most of his life sitting around in a cage, he’s not going to have what it takes to fly straight off the bat. Just as it takes effort to get off the couch that has been your constant companion for months, it is going to take effort for your bird to get off his perch. You will need to condition him slowly and progressively so that he can successfully enjoy the sensation of flight. With that in mind you will need to think in terms of encouraging short flights and more activity initially than long flights and specific flight behavior.

To start with, you might want to make sure that your family has not set up any hidden cameras as you will need to start encouraging flapping behavior my imitating this activity yourself. Your goal is to persuade the bird that it wants to fly, and this means never pushing it past a level that is comfortable for the bird. If you hurt the bird in any way, it will become discouraged and your work up to that point could well be lost. Once his wings are a little more exercised, its time to get him moving. Choose a perch that is familiar to the bird and start encouraging it to move to the perch via a series of short hops. This can be done once or twice a day, and it usually helps to choose a time of day when the bird really wants to get back to that particular perch. Doing it just before feeding time is usually best. Your ultimate goal is a short flight to the perch, but for some birds it may take a long time to reach that goal. So be persistent and move slowly and when the time is right, your feathered friend will eventually get the idea. Once your bird is better at making little hops or short flights towards his perch, its time to increase the distance. If the bird looks uncomfortable at any time, you are pushing it too far. Take your time and help your bird build his confidence as he develops his athletic ability. If your bird is clinging to your arm and is reluctant to hop, you are probably pushing him too fast and should go back a step by shortening your distance, ensuring that he is motivated and helping him to continue to strengthen his muscles by making use of flapping exercises.

The turn-around point comes when your bird initiates the hops of his own choice. This is when you know he is getting comfortable with flying and you can start to cue the behavior and so reinforce it. Once he gets to his perch, praise him and give him a treat. Before long he’ll figure out that he gets rewarded for his efforts and that’s when you’ll have him eating out the palm of your hand. Once he has fully grasped the concept, you can start to point to the perch and ask him to fly to it, rewarding him once he reacts accordingly. Once you’ve got this right, all you need to do is continue to build on it slowly and you’ll soon have your bird flying exactly where you want, all the while getting healthy exercise and enjoying a change of environment.

Related posts:

1. Potty Training Your Bird Makes Playtime More Pleasant
2. Clicker Training for Pet Birds
3. Foraging – Keeping your Bird Entertained

Many bird owners love their feathered friends but they just hate the little ‘accidents’ that happen during playtime. Many people have argued that it is impossible to potty train birds and say that you just have to ‘live with it’, but it seems that with enough time and patience it is possible.

It all starts by evaluating body language. You need to figure out if you can ‘predict’ when your bird is going to relieve himself by observing things such as posture, ruffling of tail feathers, a ‘look’ in the birds eyes – any activity which may take place directly preceding the event. If you watch long enough and often enough, you’ll soon see a familiar pattern start to emerge. When that happens, you will have completed the first step in potty training your bird. The second step is noting how often your bird chooses eliminate waste. This will help you later when you need to determine exactly when your bird will be needing his next potty break.

Once you’ve got the specifics figured out, it is all a matter of timing. Once you’ve chosen the spot where you want your bird to get down to business – be it a garbage can, a bird’s cage, or a piece of newspaper – you simply have to take your bird to the item (or hold it under the bird) each time you see him give you the signals that he is ready for his next movement. This is where knowing how long it takes between movements helps as you can be prepared in advance. In the beginning the bird may not poop on schedule. If this happens you can allow him to go back to play and return him to the spot a short while later. If the bird gets it right, you should lavish him with praise, kind words and plenty of yummy treats. After a while he will quickly understand that pooping in the proper place means that he will be greatly rewarded.

No one said that potty training your pet bird would be easy – it may take months to get right and certainly requires a lot of dedication on the part of the bird owner. Even so, mistakes may still happen and your furniture and clothing may get soiled from time to time – but it certainly wont happen as often as it used to. Play time can become a pleasure once more and the relationship between bird and owner can be greatly improved.

Related posts:

1. Clicker Training for Pet Birds
2. Target Training Your Bird
3. Teaching Bird Tricks: The Wave

TASC’s Midwest Bird Expo is set to take place on 5 April 2008 in the main hall of the DuPage County Fairgrounds, Wheaton, Illinois. The Avicultural Society of Chicagoland (TASC) is an association made up of individuals who have been brought together by their common goal of providing a better life for birds in both their domestic and natural environments. TASC’s Midwest Bird Expo takes great strides toward that goal by making available every conceivable bird-related product, information, advice and more for bird-lovers to enjoy.

In addition to the many vendors that will be updating bird owners on the very latest products on the market, there will be a number of interesting and helpful workshops and talks by respected bird experts. The first workshop for the day will start at 10:00 am and is presented by Linda Morrow, a professional bird trainer and behavioral specialist. The workshop is designed to help owners and their companion birds build a strong relationship that will last a lifetime. Using the non-confrontational positive reinforcement method of clicker training, Linda will assist owners to communicate with their pet birds at the bird’s level of understanding. Not only can negative traits, such as biting, be overcome with this method, but positive reinforcement helps build a relationship which both bird and owner will find exceptionally rewarding.

Dr. Irene Pepperberg, who is noted for her in-depth studies in animal cognition, specializing in parrots, will be giving two lectures during the day. Together with her colleagues, Dr. Pepperberg’s research aims to establish the cognitive and communicative abilities of parrots as intelligent creatures. Their goal is to encourage responsible ownership of parrots, as well as promote conservation of parrots in the wild.

Hoffman’s Wild Animal Show will add an additional element of excitement to the day. Under the watchful eye of animal trainer, Bill Hoffman, and his team, audience participation is encouraged. Lively and entertaining commentary describes animal behavior and traits of a variety of interesting animals that love to interact with people.

Avian vet, Dr. Karen Becker, will be on hand between 10:00 am and 12:00 noon to answer questions relating to avian health. Dr. Becker is qualified to offer advice on conventional veterinary medical care as well as nutritional therapy, homeopathy, eastern and western herbal medicines, nutraceutical therapy and Bach Flower therapy. She is also certified in Reiki, which she uses with great success on hospitalized patients.

Other guests of honor include Dr. Peter Sakas, who has many years experience in avian medicine and is the author of “Essentials of Avian Medicine: A Guide for Practitioners”. Dr Jean Dubach, expert in animal genetics, will answer questions relating to his specialty which includes establishing relatedness and gender determination on birds at zoos and in private collections.

Certainly the schedule for the day is jam packed with activity. The first 200 people to arrive at TASC’s Midwest Bird Expo will receive great prizes, so make sure to get there early and be prepared to stay all day – doors open at 9:30 am.

Related posts:

1. Midwest Bird Expo 2010
2. RAAVE Bird Expo 2009
3. The Long Island Parrot Society’s Parrot Expo 2009