Sometimes finding a food item that your bird really likes can be a challenge. Many birds can be rather picky eaters! Try to choose items that are either already small, or cut up larger things into smaller pieces (peanuts can be quartered so that you end up with 6 small pieces instead of one large one). You want a treat that your bird finds rewarding and that you find easy to handle. Items that are quick and easy for your bird to eat are helpful because you want to be training in repetition, not waiting for your bird to finish eating between behaviors.
For the treats to be as effective as possible, it is best that they only be available to the bird during training. It increases the desirablity. If you use something that your bird has access to everyday, they have no compelling motivation to learn for it. Thus, treats used for training should be removed from their regular diet. This may affect what treats you choose to use. For example: if your bird’s seed mix regularly contains sunflower seeds, their use as training tools will be diluted because they are an everyday item for the bird. Items with a less frequent appearance will retain more value, provided they had value to begin with. So, if your seed mix already contains sunflower seeds, try different items for training purposes.
There are many birds that find attention, excitement, laughter or a head scritch to be effective reinforcement.
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To get some ideas as to what your bird may like, offer a variety of treats in several dishes in the morning before they are fed their regular diet. Note what item they choose to eat first. You may also want to note what they choose second and third. These items would be the treats to try training with initially.
Common treat choices among companion parrots:
*Sunflower seeds (unsalted, out of shell, broken into pieces for smaller beaks)
*Grapes (pesticide free)
*Organic Baby food (no iron)
*Peanut butter
*Almond slivers 
*Peanuts (unsalted, shelled)
*Millet
*Apples
*Melon
*Papaya (seeds are also tasty and nutritious)
*Mango
*Banana
*Sweet Potato (cooked)
*Pasta (cooked or dry, whole grain best)
*Popcorn (no salt/butter/oil)
* Pellets like Harrisons, Pretty Bird or Zupreem
There are many birds that find attention, excitement, laughter or a head scritch to be reinforcing. They will repeat a behavior again and again to get them. So, you don’t necessarily need to use food to teach your bird, or to establish a positive relationship with them. What’s important is that you find something (food, attention or otherwise) that your bird likes, and finds reinforcing. Be observant and you’ll figure out the most effective reinforcers before you know it! You'll know it's working when the bird repeats a behavior to get the 'reward'. Then it’s just a matter of figuring out what you’d like to teach your bird to do. J Kelly Ballance
