I was hoping/assuming that it would taste so bad to him that he would neither consume it, nor ever try consume it again. But parrot irony is strong, and you are probably right. It would serve me right for not following my own advice if he actually liked it!
Goose, the baby, is a 6 month old CAG.
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Yes, misdirection is sometimes the only option. There are no words in the parrot language that translate to "please don't do that". But it can take a lot of energy to constantly be distracting your bird. There are certain things like a shelled almond that will stop both my birds in their tracks for a few minutes. But getting them to forget what they were obsessed with before the "almond break" started is iffy, at best. I was told long ago that while there was no way to directly communicate to a parrot that some behavior was forbidden, that if you reliably remove something they want, like being outside the cage, every time they do a certain thing they will eventually avoid doing that thing - because if parrots are great at anything it is learning that A and B go together. It is basically passive aggressive negative reinforcement. So I think the "time out" idea is on the money. But you really have to be patient and consistent.
