Flight Training Basics

[MagpieDragon]

Hello all,

As some of you may know, Pinto was clipped as a baby when we got her. After quite a while, the finally grew in tho, and she has been able to fly for the past few months. However, she can't fly properly- she just doesn't know how.

At first it was manageable- every now and then she would take of, and land on the floor. It's getting dangerous now tho, and she flies high before crashing into windows and walls. We share the house with a dog and a cat too, for now, I have a screen so that the can't get in, but Pinto is starting to fly over it. She also snaps her tail feathers when landing.

I am finally having a break from school tho, so I want to take the time to properly flight train her, for her safety and peace of mind, as I don't want to clip her wings again.

Any tips as to how to train basic flight skills such as landing, going to the cage, recall, etc., will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance

 

[MagpieDragon]

Bump

 

[Cat The Great]

I have some tips for basic flight training (although I have no idea how it will work for you). Hopefully this will help you though. My bird Georgie was clipped twice in her lifetime as a baby and when she was about 6-8 months, so she really didn't know how to fly. What I did to teach Georgie was a combination of techniques.

• One of the first things I did was to teach her how to fly was the command Come. What I did was put my finger (or perch whatever you want to use), and I told Georgie to come, when she came I immediately rewarded her and gave her a treat. Once she got the straightforward flying, I would put my finger higher, enough so that she could barely touch my finger with her beak. Once again I did the same command, and when she flew up and onto my finger I rewarded her. I will admit that I did not teach her to fly down and she taught herself that skill. I will say that most of her skill did come from crashing into windows or any object and learning how to maneuver. You want to do this training in a confined and quiet space such as your bedroom to keep your bird concentrated and you are able to keep an eye of where she goes.
• Another technique that I used that was very helpful was teaching her about windows and glass windows, this helped cut down the crashing into windows/glass doors, because she recognized that she could not go through them. What I did to teach her was that I had her touch the window or mirror with her beak. After this, I rewarded her immediately with praise. I continued to do this until she recognized that she could not go through windows. Ever since then, she has not crashed into a window/door. If this does not work, you can put decals on the window so that your bird will see it and avoid it. Hopefully this helps with her crashing into windows/doors.
• Another thing you might want to do with her, is get her used to flying. What I did to get Georgie to use her wings more (I couldn't get her to fly and when she would she was kinda clumsy), was after I took a shower with her, I refused to go get her. We had a routine that after I took her for a shower with me, I would take her off the shower perch and put her on another while I took care of myself (the second perch happened to be her favorite). When I started to refuse to get her, I would tell her Come here and if she did, her reward was her favorite perch. (Note: this will not work the couple of times you do this, I had to this for week before she caught on and started flying to the perch or my hand after the shower.) This tip should help your bird become accustomed to becoming more independent and help her to learn how to fly faster. Find something that is her favorite. It could be refusing to come get her when you open her cage. Keep a short distance and tell her to come. Eventually she will get the idea and from now fly to you from her cage, to get her favorite person, you. Remember to continue to praise her for flying to you or her desired perch or object.

I hope you find these tips helpful. If some of the things I said didn't make sense or have any questions, please ask me and I will clarify it to you. Hopefully, this will help your parrot learn how to fly properly.

 

[MagpieDragon]

Thanks so much @Cat The Great for the tips!
Especially the windows one, as she has been struggling with this, and I'm worried she could get hurt....

Thanks for taking the time to help me and such a long, descriptive post