How Do Parrots Talk?

You must have heard parrots talking funny. You must have seen parrots mimicking you? How do parrots talk? How at all do they manage to reproduce human speech? We have the answers.

Have you tried training a parrot to talk? Now don't look like that. There are parrots which talk. Well, this does not mean all parrots talk. But some definitely do. Now, do they understand words like we do, is another question. But some types of parrots do produce sounds that can be interpreted as words and some of them can actually be trained to talk. Do all parrots talk? What parrots talk the best? That's something we will try to answer in this article. We will also see how difficult or easy it is to train parrots to talk and what it is that differentiates a parrot's talk from that of other birds. Don't tell me, you didn't know birds talk!

Birds That Talk
Parrots are birds; they are some of those which can actually talk. So, before moving to how do parrots talk, let's find out why and how birds talk. Birds are intelligent creatures and most of them, social by nature. It's in their nature to want to communicate and try to interact with those around. So, it's obvious for birds kept as pets to be able to communicate with the people in the house. When brought home, birds look at you as a part of their social circle and try to communicate with you in their way. In this effort, these birds acquire your language, to at least a small extent and try to talk like you do. Intelligent that they mostly are, birds can mimic you. They can even produce sounds resembling those of other birds. Apart from their urge to communicate, they also find the human sound interesting. Pet birds master the art to reproduce human-like speech, primarily because of their urge to communicate with people and also because our speech catches their attention. How do birds talk? They have a small structure called syrinx located in their throat. The medial tympaniform membranes on the syrinx bring about air flow in the throat, leading to production of sound. Birds have multiple air sacs which play a part in causing vibrations of the tympaniform membranes thus producing sounds.

Similar to how children learn to talk from their parents and people around them, birds too, acquire the ability to speak from their parents or other birds they come in contact with. Studies have shown that birds novice to speech, if kept in the company of talking birds learn to talk easily. In fact, the company of a bird which knows how to talk is perhaps the best way to train a bird to talk. Here we are trying to answer how parrots talk, but it's not just parrots, even birds like the crow and budgerigars can talk. European starlings can mimic sounds while others like macaws and hill mynas can also talk. And among parrots, the most prominent ones are the Amazon parrots and the African Greys. The first answer you would get to 'which parrots are the best talkers' is perhaps 'African Grey Parrots'.

How Do Parrots Talk
Like we saw earlier, it's the syrinx of these birds that causes the production of sound. Parrots do not have vocal cords like we do. The expulsion of air from the trachea leads to production of sound. Parrots change the shape and depth of their trachea to produce different sounds. We call it 'talking' but it is nothing very different from the normal chirping or cooing. The bodily mechanism with which the sound is produced is the same. We call a particular sound as 'talking' because of its distinct quality, ie texture, frequency and tone. It somewhat resembles human speech, which is why we refer to it as the parrot talking. The talking of parrots can be compared to that of kids, who have just begun to speak. Like kids want to mimic what the elders say, even parrots do. They produce sounds similar to human speech in trying to mimic humans and also gain their attention. They are attention seekers like kids are!

How do parrots talk so clearly? And how do they learn to? It will not be an exaggeration to say that parrots talk almost instinctively. A need to communicate is in their nature. They want to interact, they take interest in trying to reproduce the sounds they are exposed to, they want to mimic everything they hear. And that makes parrots talk. Moreover they are intelligent birds, which is why near-perfect reproduction of sound is not very difficult for them. They have mastered the art of mimicry and that's how parrots talk! Also go through some of the other interesting facts about parrots.

If you have a parrot as your pet, it's up to you to encourage it to talk. (If at all you want to!) You can be the proud owner of a talking parrot if you give it the right training. True, a parrot will begin mimicking you without you telling it to. But it will also expect you to respond positively. Your parrot will want you to teach it different sounds and train it to talk. Basically, it will seek your attention and for that, it will start imitating your words and even your voice! How can parrots talk while other animals cannot? It's in their nature, as I said earlier, and it's also because they are intelligent and social in nature.

Why do parrots talk? Gathering attention is one reason why parrots talk. The second reason, is their urge to communicate. Parrots talk to satisfy their social need. And the most important reason is their ability to mimic sounds. Simply put, parrots talk because they can. But, do parrots understand what they say? They remember what they hear and reproduce it, without actually meaning what they say. It's like the kids; they just imitate the words and actions of the elders in the house, without understanding their meaning or context.

How to Teach a Parrot to Talk?
Parrots, being clever can associate their words with actions. These feathered friends can be trained to correlate words/sounds and actions. For example, if your parrot has heard you say "Hello" whenever a guest enters, it will also learn to greet your guests with a hello-like sound. Or if it observes that it is being offered food when it makes a certain kind of sound, it is intelligent enough to make that sound, its cry for food! Similarly, you can also train your parrot to say certain things in certain situations. For example, a 'welcome' when someone enters your house, or a 'goodbye' when someone's about to leave. You can even teach your parrot a song! The tune will go for a toss, but it will get the lyrics right! You can teach your parrot to talk by repeating words and phrases you want it to learn and by offering it treats whenever it mimics you. Keeping it in the company of an already talkative bird is also a good way to teach your parrot to talk. Learn more on teaching a parrot how to talk.

Which Parrots Talk?
What parrots talk the best? African Grey Parrots, Amazon parrots and the Macaws, as we saw, are the most talkative of the lot. African Greys have excellent cognitive abilities. Alex, an African Grey parrot had a vocabulary of 100 words, and according to the World Science report of 2005, understood the concept of zero. Now isn't that amazing? Prudle had a record vocabulary of 800 words. N'kisi, another African Grey even has a sense of humor. (How does it laugh?) Arielle, a Macaw parrot uses a vocabulary of 4000 expressions, Moreover, she uses correct English. (Now would you say, parrots don't understand what they say?)

Weaning Puppies

Weaning puppies is an important process of helping puppies learn to take up food other than their mother's milk or formula milk. Let us learn about how to wean puppies by going through the following article...

It is a matter of hard work when raising a puppy litter. Not only is the mother all drained, but also the owner is totally fatigued. Just like human babies, it is important to understand the right way to wean puppies. This is because you have to start feeding them real food and not just survive on momma's milk. Weaning puppies is an important step in puppy development and care. Many people often wonder how to wean puppies, especially, if they are caring for a litter for the first time. Let us go through the following guide to weaning puppies and understand the right way of weaning puppies from their mother. Get into the details of developmental stages of a puppy.

When to Start Weaning Puppies

Puppies tend to start nursing immediately after birth. A few tend to nurse after 2 to 3 hours of birth. This first nursing is very important for all puppies as they get the required antibodies from their mothers colostrum. These antibodies help keep their bodies away from many dog illnesses. You will observe that the puppies tend to feel hungry and want to nurse every two hours during their first week of life. Gradually, they tend to nurse every 3 hours by the end of second week and then after every four hours by the third week. The mother will lick the puppies around their genitals and anus after they have nursed. This process helps stimulate urination and bowel movements in puppies. You can read about stages of puppy's growth in detail.

However, most of the breeders need to give away the puppies for adoption. This is the reason why they are interested in learning when to start weaning puppies. Weaning puppies is a process where the puppies are gradually taught to start eating solid food and stop drinking their mothers milk as their primary food. Many breeders argue weaning puppies at 4 weeks is a better idea and some feel weaning puppies at 6 weeks will prove to be a better choice health wise.

Weaning puppies too early tends to have a negative impact on their health. Their digestive system is not yet fully developed to handle solid food. This is why the right time of weaning puppies from their mother is three weeks. Weaning puppies at 4 weeks or even sooner at 3 weeks requires a lot of planning. This is because they do not get the required amounts of nutrients from their mother's milk. This makes them vulnerable to infections like parvo virus infection. Let us have a look at how to wean puppies the right way. Read about puppy potty training.

How to Wean Puppies

Once you know the right age of weaning puppies, you need to understand how to wean puppies. When weaning puppies at 4 weeks or 3 weeks, you should begin to keep them away from their mother. Keep them away from their mother about 1 hour before its time for them to feed. This will make them hungry and they will try to eat the semi solid food you place near them. Start with with semi-solid food as it will be easier to swallow and then digest. Place very little of the food in a shallow dish and you will find most of them hungrily gobble it up. If a few are still apprehensive or averse to eating, then try and encourage them to eat lovingly. Place a bit of the food near their noses or on the tip of the tongue. Soon, they too will catch up with their brothers and sisters. Get information on puppy teething.

After the puppies have eaten, bring them near their mother. She will clean them up and finish the left over food. Your puppies may make a mess around them while eating dog food. Therefore, make sure you place old newspapers on the floor. This is because they will try to suckle the food like they did when drinking milk. They still don't know the concept of eating and will take time to understand the right way of eating solid food. You can read more about the best dog food for puppies.

Gradually, begin to decrease the amount of water in the food. So, by the end of 6 weeks, your puppies will happily be munching upon solid kibbles. Go slow is the 'mantra' here. Do not try to hasten the process, or you will end up with a few puppies with upset tummies. The right way to wean puppies is to gradually decrease the amount of food given to the mother and increase the amount of food given to the puppies. This will make the mother produce less milk and make the puppies eat more solid food than milk. This is all about weaning puppies. Make sure you ask the breeder about how to wean puppies and help your puppies dig their teeth into solid food.

Weaning Kittens

There are many proud feline owners who ask the question when to start weaning kittens from their mother. If you too are wondering about age for weaning kittens, then you can get all the information you need by going through the following article...

Cats, wonderful creatures with distinctive personalities. Those who are cat owners will agree, their feline pets are masters of their own self. A female cat can give birth to about 1 to 8 kittens at a time. If you have not spayed your cat, you can expect about 25 kittens born in a year. When kittens are born they are deaf, blind and weak. All they can do is crawl a few inches. They recognize their mother by her smell and are in constant need of her body's warmth. Mother cats or 'queens' as they are called produce milk for about 12 weeks. Cats may continue to nurse their kittens after 12 weeks. As a cat owner, you should begin weaning kittens at the right time. This will help you in putting up the kittens for adoption. Let us have a look at some information on weaning kittens from their mother in the following paragraphs. Learn more about taking care of newborn kittens.

Age for Weaning Kittens
Weaning kittens is a process that helps kittens wean away from their mother's milk and get ready to eat more of solid food. When you begin to wean a kitten, it will become more and more independent of its mother. Therefore, it is important that you handle the process of weaning kittens well. The right age for weaning kittens is around 4 weeks. Early weaning kittens should be avoided as it may harm the sensitive, underdeveloped digestive system of the kitten. You should wait till the kitten has opened its eyes and is able to focus. The little one should be able to stand on this feet steady, before you introduce any kind of solid food. Get more information on stages of kitten development.

How to Begin Weaning Kittens from their Mother
You should not abruptly pull away a kitten from its mother. A kitten learns a lot from the mother like how to use a litter box, hunt prey and even play. So, you should begin slowly when the kitten is about 4 weeks old. Place the kitten in a separate room away from its mother. Keep them here for a few hours about 3 to 4 hours. Then, when they look sufficiently hungry and thirsty, serve them with a bowl of cat food and water. Gradually, the kittens will begin to accept the solid food and become less and less dependent on the mother for food. Do you know how to train a kitten?

Weaning Kittens from Bottle or Their Mother
You need to begin holding a piece of kitten food near their lips. Allow the kitten to smell the food. Then slowly, very slowly push the kitten food into their mouths. Allow the kitten to take its time and swallow the food. Then repeat the process, till it begins to learn accept the solid food. Do not keep the kitten totally away from milk. Begin by feeding it just half a teaspoon of kitten food. Then, allow it to continue feeding milk from its mother or bottle. Do not feed a kitten cow's milk, in case you are bottle feeding kittens. It may cause diarrhea or stomach upset. Feed them half a teaspoon of food up to one week. Then serve food in a plate, not a bowl. The kitten will begin to eat from the plate and then leave some food in the plate. This will help the kitten eat it up, when ever it feels hungry. Gradually, it will begin to avoid nursing from the mother or drinking milk from bottle and will eat only solid food. You can know more about how to litter train a kitten.

A few kittens are very stubborn and will not eat anything, but want mother's milk. The best way to make them eat is place food on your finger and bring it over to their lips to eat. This finger feeding method will work as they will think they are sucking on their mother's nipple. So do not mind if your fingers get a nip or two. If you have an exceptionally stubborn kitten, then you need to begin feeding them semi-solid food. You need to mix some soft meaty foods with water. This will make the consistency of the food similar to mother's milk. Once it tastes meat, it will gradually forget milk.

A growing kitten needs specially formulated foods that are rich in proteins, vitamins and calories. Make sure you bring home cat food that is specially made for kittens and not for senior cats. Taking care of kittens will help them grow into healthy, happy cats. The process of weaning kittens will take about 4 to 6 weeks and most of the kittens will be weaned by the age of 8 to 10 weeks old. This is all about weaning kittens that you should try to take your little fur balls of mother's milk.

Do Ants Sleep?

Ants are always associated with relentless work. They appear to be busy all the time and it seems they never rest. But is that true? Do ants really never take rest? Or do ants sleep just like we do? Come, let's find out.

          A long chain of ants trailing up a wall... hundreds of ants walking in a line carrying food or walking in search of it... quite a common sight, isn't it? There's a certain rhythm, some sort of regularity in their walk. Whatever be their destination, none of the ants leaves their line and they walk tandem following a set pattern, I wonder who sets it for them... the queen ant? I often stare at this long line of ants and wonder whether they are always going somewhere... I wonder if they know where they are going and I wonder why they are always on the go! I often think as to whether ants sleep and when. Do ants sleep? What do you think?

Some say ants never really sleep. On first thought, the answer seems right, as it is quite uncommon to find an ant resting or even standing still. Ants are always on their toes (both literally and figuratively) so it's really easy to believe that ants never rest or sleep. But then, isn't it true that every living being needs some rest, every active being for that matter does need some amount of rest. And if it is someone as active as an ant, isn't it strange for ants to never sleep? So, do ants sleep? Yes they do.

Now here's the answer to that most intriguing question, do ants go to sleep at all? You know what I found out? Ants seem to be working 24x7 because there are always some ants working at any point in time and all working ants look the same! So, even if you see ants walking continually for hours, it's not the same group of ants you are seeing all the time. Some ants sleep for a while, when others take their place. Taking turns in their sleep, these clever ants actually fool us into believing that they are working all day.

How do ants sleep and wake up?

Have you seen some ants walking sluggishly while some others look active? Have you observed this minute difference in their activity at different times? If you have, let me tell you, the sluggish-looking ants are the ones which have just woken up! They are the ones who are getting back into action and taking some time to gain their usual speed. Now isn't that interesting? Research says, ants show sleep like behavior so as to reduce their need for food. Their sleep results in reduced biological activity, in turn reducing their food needs... what an amazing solution to scarcity of food!

When do ants sleep?

One answer to this question is that they take turns to sleep. Another answer is that there is a specific period of the year when ants go to sleep. Do you see ants in winter? Where do these ants go when it gets cold? Isn't it puzzling to find lesser, rather almost no ants during the cold months of the year? Well then, they must be going to sleep. Studies show that ants hibernate during the winters. Their metabolism slows down during this period. They thrive on the food collected during the summer months and are less active during the cold.

How long do ants sleep?

According to the article, Polyphasic Wake/Sleep Episodes in the Fire Ant, Solenopsis Invicta by Deby L. Cassill, Skye Brown, Devon Swick and George Yanev in the July 2009 edition of the Journal of Insect Behaviour, the duration for which ants sleep varies with the type of the ants. The article states that fire ants, for sure, sleep, and that worker ants have 253, 1 minute-long episodes of sleep per day. Queen ants have 6 minute-long sleep episodes, and 92 such, in a day. Thus, worker ants' sleep amounts to around 4 hours of sleep everyday while 92, 6-minute sleep episodes of the queen ants amounts to approximately 9 hours of sleep each day.

If you look at it, queen ants sleep for around the same amount of time as us (considering that we take 8 hours of sleep per day) and the worker ants seem to be needing very less sleep compared to the lazy us! The article revealed some really interesting phenomena about the fire ants' sleep. It said that their sleep is affected by light and dark and that queen ants had episodes of rapid antenna movement sleep. Sounds close of rapid eye movement sleep? Right, the RAM sleep in ants is in fact similar to the human REM sleep cycle.

According to the BBC news report on 'do ants sleep', queen fire ants sleep for a longer duration while worker ants take short power naps. That means, ants sleep for only about ten minutes, not even ten, it's just a six-minute nap, with many such naps in a day. The number of times they sleep is more but the duration of each sleep episode - is just 5-6 minutes. Now, this seconds what is stated in the article by Deby L. Cassill, Skye Brown, Devon Swick and George Yanev. The report also states that the longer duration of sleep in queen ants, is the secret to their longer life span. The BBC report explains in detail, the research conducted by Deby Cassil and her colleagues. They bred a colony of fire ants in an artificial chamber. The colony they raised consisted of 3 queen ants, 30 worker ants and 30 larvae. The ants were kept under constant observation, which led the researchers to the final answer to how long do ants sleep. The research also showed that 4/5th of the ants were awake at any given point in time and that some of the other worker ants were always awake and available for work. This is probably why ants seem to be awake always.

An interesting observation was that queen ants synchronized their sleep patterns. (rhythm is probably intrinsic to ants). Interestingly, the three queen ants slept during the same time, and for the same duration. And you know how they slept? Casill observed that they slept on one another and that they woke each other up or were awakened by the worker ants. She also observed that sometimes, the queens slept with their antennae partially raised and mouth open, while at other times, they slept with erect antennae and closed mouths. That was the time of their deep sleep. Cassill's research team also observed that queen ants dream. It's unbelievable yet true because there's evidence saying so. On that note, take a look at these interesting facts about ants.

Do ants sleep like humans do?

Well, no and yes. As we have already seen, ants both queen and worker, sleep in episodes, unlike human beings who take one long sleep. Yes, in the sense that even ants are believed to experience some kind of REM sleep and they are believed to have dreams, which resembles our sleep behavior. Secondly, worker ants sleep for a smaller duration as compared to queen ants as their main purpose is to protect the queen and her eggs and to ensure a sound sleep and peaceful life for the queen. We saw that the duration of sleep depends of the type of ant. Now, this was mainly about the sleeping patterns of fire ants. Harvester ants are another kind of ants, which are found to experience periods of less activity. In their case too, the sleep episodes are greater in number while the time period for which each episode lasts is only of about 1 minute. This can be called rest. But researchers are still in doubt as to whether this can be referred to as the harvester ants sleeping. Some studies claim that ants sleep for about 7-8 hours each day. Research hasn't quite been conducted on the sleep patterns of all types of ants. So even after reading all about ants, you may not find an answer to 'exactly when and where do ants sleep' and whether all kinds of ants do.

But wasn't it interesting to know that ants do sleep? At least some of them do. And even more interesting it was to find that they even have dreams like we do. So, the next time you see a long line of ants, think before you appreciate their ceaseless walk... the ones you saw just some time ago, might have already dozed off!