CAG Escape Artist out of food and water access doors - how to stop

[Einsteins_Mom]

My 1 1/2 year old Congo African Grey, Einstein, has become quite the escape artist. Whenever I, or my husband, go to change his water or feed him he perches on the dish in the access door and crawls out of it when we open to door to remove the dish. Not a big deal for me, as I am "his" person and I can tell him to step up and place him back inside the main door. He's not too fond of my husband, so he has to use the "step-up stick" as we call it (it's just a perch my husband made out of a dowel) to put him back inside.

 

Does anyone know of a cage that has a mechanism to prevent parrots from crawling out the access doors? Or if there's a way to train him not to do this? This has become quite the game for Einstein and he does it every night, even though we don't encourage it at all. I don't communicate with him at all when he does it, I just issue the step up command and place him back in his cage.

 

We would like to go away for a few days next year, but I'm leary to leave Einstein in light of this new challenge. My 20 year old son normally cares for him while we're away, but he won't be comfortable handling Einstein if he escapes through the access doors.

 

How have others handled this problem? I can't believe my little guy is unique in this!

[Eshana]

What are the access doors like? My Senegal parrot does the exact same thing, and I've prevented it by distracting him, taking the bowl out, quickly closing the door, filling the bowl, distracting him to the other side of the cage again, and then quickly putting the bowl back in.

[pikachu]

Mine hangs out by the food bowl as well, when she sees me come over. I wait & tell her that she has to get off and then I quickly remove the food bowl.

I have to lock the access door EVERY time because she does know how to get out.

[CathyJr]

whene my hannah Bo is out during the day she sometimes will unlock the feed bowl from outside then when i put her to bed at night she will slip back out of the cage , She thinks its funny cause she will laugh whene i find her.

[kins2321@yahoo.com]

Sophie is very comfortable with any of us, going on vacation. We tend to alternate. She always has someone at home. Nancy

[Einsteins_Mom]

The doors are the usual outside-access feed doors that swing out of a cage. (I've got one of King's Cages) It used to work to distract him with a walnut to get him to move across the cage, but now he's decided he'd rather hold his ground on the water bowl and try to get out, rather than go for the nut. If I could teach him to say "cuckoo!" when he pops his head out, I might have a good trick to show off to friends. lol

[Greywings]

Can you obtain a second set of dishes so you can replace them with filled clean ones immediately and take out the used ones to clean for next time?

[SusanBarnes7]

Skooter is doing the same thing! What Skooter is doing is pulling out the dish letting it drop to the bottem of the cage and crawling out. I used zip ties to hold the bowl in, that worked for a while. My issue is since I brought Clarisse home Skooter wants to be near her. Their cages are side by side. My goal has been to train them both to be gentle and companion birds, I am getting the impression they have other ideas. What do I do?

[kins2321@yahoo.com]

I'm not sure, how to help you guys. My birds are 12 years old, and cage is never locked or closed. We were lucky to have 24/7 coverage for birds. We never locked or closed cages. They traveleved from cage, to gyms. After six years, we no longer had 24 hour coverage. They still go to cage or gym. Dogs have earned trust status, and take excellent care of our birds. I'm sure thats not the norm. Once, I got home from work.... dogs were barking like crazy.... I didn't understand! They didn't want to go out... I followed them... Kiki was trapped under the wooden gate. I found her on her last breath! Had to do CPR. While doing so, I noticed Sunny, Sophie ,Ollie and Zoey, gathered around me, waiting for me to work my magic! I did bring her back. She slept with me that night. Ollie and Zoey, my pups, made room for her. Kiki was fine.I'll never forget the moment I was doing CPR... they all sat quiet, waiting to help. This happened several years ago. Kiki trusted the pups 100% after that. I trust them now. nancy

[SusanBarnes7]

WOW! Envious of your situation. I made many attempts to adjust or dogs to the birds since we have had them since they were 4 weeks old. Unfortunately for me, my girls discovered the joy of Pigeon hunting and now assume our CAG's faall into the Pigeon category. But I will say they were calm today when Skooter escaped this morning. We were able to put them in the yard with no problem.

[DawL]

I'm not sure, how to help you guys. My birds are 12 years old, and cage is never locked or closed. We were lucky to have 24/7 coverage for birds. We never locked or closed cages. They traveleved from cage, to gyms. After six years, we no longer had 24 hour coverage. They still go to cage or gym. Dogs have earned trust status, and take excellent care of our birds. I'm sure thats not the norm. Once, I got home from work.... dogs were barking like crazy.... I didn't understand! They didn't want to go out... I followed them... Kiki was trapped under the wooden gate. I found her on her last breath! Had to do CPR. While doing so, I noticed Sunny, Sophie ,Ollie and Zoey, gathered around me, waiting for me to work my magic! I did bring her back. She slept with me that night. Ollie and Zoey, my pups, made room for her. Kiki was fine.I'll never forget the moment I was doing CPR... they all sat quiet, waiting to help. This happened several years ago. Kiki trusted the pups 100% after that. I trust them now. nancy

 

I didn't understand this post fully....were you saying that the bird is left out without supervision with the dogs, or that the bird escaped all the time? It was hard to tell for me what you meant.