Puppets for Parrots

As biologists working with pet parrots, we see how difficult it is to properly take care of a parrot in captivity. Owners generally want the best for their pets, but parrot require a constant interactive auditory environment that people can't provide. In an effort to improve the welfare of parrots under human care, we would like to develop an interactive tool with which the parrots can request sound playbacks. In our idea this could be a puppet-like tool with buttons that trigger a sound playback. Ideally, owners are able to control which sounds are played back by which button, so they can actively adjust the playback to the parrot's preferences. One of the difficulties is also to make it parrot-proof, as they are known to destroy almost everything with their sharp beaks.

We would like to start with one prototype that allows a parrot to trigger sound playbacks via various input methods (like a button, string pull etc.). It needs to be adjustable sound-wise and sturdy. We can test this prototype with our parrots in the lab and with larger pet-parrots at the homes of participants in our Bird Singalong project. This will show us where improvements are necessary or nice to have.