In this article in our continuing series on teaching your bird to talk we're going to start with how to get ready and prepare your bird for his first words. This should help make it a lot easier when you teach your first child to speak.

The best place to keep your soon to be talking parrot is in the kitchen. The reason for this is that families spend a lot of time in the kitchen, especially during meals and your parrot will be exposed to a lot of talking, granted not all of it good or something you want your bird repeating in mixed company. The atmosphere in the kitchen is very relaxed which is good for your bird. A tense bird isn't going to say much. The smells in the kitchen from all the food is something that will also appeal to your bird and make him more prone to speak. Most people, while in the kitchen, because they are doing something they enjoy, eating, are relaxed. This in turn will make your bird relaxed. Once in this surrounding, give your bird at least a few weeks to get used to it before you even attempt to teach him to talk. If your bird is not shy, give it plenty of attention. If it is shy try to tame it before trying to get it to talk.

The key to getting a parrot to talk is to let it interact with people. Parrots are birds who are normally in large flocks. So depriving your parrot of company is going to make it unhappy. An unhappy parrot is not going to talk.

The way parrots learn to talk is through a one on one relationship with their owners. Never have more than one parrot in the room or even in a room nearby. Your parrot must be the center of your attention. It is almost impossible to teach two birds to talk at the same time. If you do have more than one bird then work with each one separately and make sure they are a good distance from each other so they are unaware of the other's presence.

If you want to have the best chance of getting your bird to talk you must feed it properly. Proper nutrition is not a luxury. It is a must. Birds that are fed a steady diet of sunflower or safflower seeds are always duller and not as aware of their surroundings as birds fed pelleted diets. This is because seed diets are poor nutritionally. If you want your parrot to live a long healthy and happy life gradually shift its diet from seeds to a name brand pelleted diet. The way you do this is by mixing pelleted diet food in with the seeds at the start and then gradually removing the seeds completely. You will be absolutely amazed at the change this makes in your bird's disposition and health.

In the next article of this series we're going to cover the actual training of your bird.