Analysis of Positive Reinforcement Training

[Polarn]

yeah absolutely but the thing is there are quite decent baselines of certain birds where they should have their weight, but then yes it depends on the particular size of that species of bird etcetera, but if your at a good vet every now and then and make sure to ask weather or not you should try to decrease or increase the weight based on the factors that can be seen, as the amount covering the chestbone etcetera you do get a pretty good baseline for your bird, and most birds are probably overweight and not normal weight if not kept track of. There is plenty of birds (atleast here) that comes to the vetclinic with fatrelated issues such as tumors causing sores under the wings etcetera, and looking at these birds and feeling the chestbone you can clearly tell their not like an active bird. And since every bird gets different amount of opportunity to excersize, like keeping a sustained flight for a while, most (especially bigger birds) cant fly in your home properly but goes from object to object to turn around. A clipped bird cant eat as much as a freeflighted bird for example, couse they generally does not burn the same amount of energy.

And if im not wrong the thread originally didnt start with a discussion of 10-20% over or underweight since any bird (if fed meals) will go from a certain weight to a certain weight before and after the meal, wich one of these two weights would then be the "normal" weight? the just have eaten? or the right before a meal? right here you got quite a few %weight difference if you would consider the before meal the normal weight, then yes getting the bird under that wouldnt be too good, atleast not by much, but if you were to say the just have eaten weight is the normal weight, then yes your training weight is a few % under the normal weight since you would train before the meal and depending where you read your "normal" weight would greately change the ratios to where a "training diet" that aims for lets say a 10% drop lands your bird, if you assume the weight you need to reduce if the empty weight or the full weight. I assume that the "normal" weight discussed by these articles would be a birds average weight that ahs no controlled food intake, as in it always has food available to eat as much as it wants, taking a bird like that to the vet and ask if you should try and reduce or increase or if the weight is good as it is the vet would probably reply with something simular to "well it wouldnt hurt to drop a few grams".

So this said is if you already have a monitored food intake, keeping track of the weight then your basically most likely already on what most would call a training diet. since your bird is probably 10% under the weight it would be given unlimited amounts of food.

[Komila]

Excellent and keep writing the helpful material. Thanks