Evening star. [volume], January 08, 1956, Page 24, Image 188

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
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Mrs. Lillion Martin, a woman who knows whot she's talking about—and to—when it comes to parakeets, visits her "budgie" friends in her basement.
How to Teach Your Parakeet to Talk
rIE ART of teaching a parakeet to talk is some
thing a lot of people try to master.
Some succeed. Some talk themselves hoarse,
trying to get the little character in the cage to give
out with a human-type sound—and fail. Pet shop
owners say many a failure, bird in hand, complains:
“This budgie Just won’t talk!” (“Budgie,” as any
fancier knows, is short for budgerigar, the dealers’
name for parakeet.)
How many Washington-area owners are now try
ing to teach a parakeet pet to talk —or have tried
in recent years—is anybody’s guess The parakeet
craze reached its peak about two years ago, dealers
say. They’re still selling them, though, and accord
ing to French’s Pet Bird Institute, which conducts
an annual Nation-wide survey on ownership of all
kinds of pets, some 40,000 Washington families now
own at least one parakeet.
24
By DORIS KANTER
How do you teach a parakeet to talk?
If you’ve never tried, and want to, it might be a
good idea to size yourself up before you start.
Authorities on the subject more than hint at the
fact that you’ve got to have a certain sort of per
sonality to get a word out of a parakeet.
The ideal trainer, Judging from voices of experi
ence, has to have a lot of patience and energy, a
lot of time to spend at the Job, a willingness to
stand monotonous repetition and an ability to deal
with, as well as love, vain birds.
On the theory that there’s no teacher like a
successful teacher, we talked to Mrs. Lillian Martin.
Mrs. Martin has several hundred parakeets in the
basement of her home, 4813 South Dakota avenue
N.E. She also has a shelf full of trophies, trays and
other prizes her birds have won.
Star Photos by Francis Routt
THE SUNDAY STA* MAGAZINE, WASHINGTON, D. C., JANUARY S, IV9S
One of her current pupils, a sky-blue bundle of
feathers named Cutle, lives in a cage in her dining
room.
“It’s easier to teach a male than it is to teach
a female,” Mrs. Martin said. “Some say you can’t
teach a female. It isn’t true. Cutle, for example,
is a female, and she talks.”
Asked the secret of teaching success. Mrs. Martin
smiled a patient smile. "You have to start early—
and win the bird’s confidence.
“It’s best to select a male four to five weeks old.
The younger, the easier to train. You should put
the bird in the cage that’s going to be his home.
Don’t take him out for ten days or two weeks, so
he can get used to the cage. Keep him near you,
so he can get used to you. Whatever you do, don’t
frighten him. Shaking a paper near him, trying to
catch him when he doesn’t want to be handled, or