Flight training suggestions?

[thenightingaleable]

Now that Hero's flight feathers have grown back in (and because he is still very resistant to the harness), I'm especially motivated to work on recall training. The trouble is, he's a very hesitant flier. This is understandable. He's been clipped pretty much the whole of his short life, and I don't know if his first owners let him experience flight when he first fledged. As a result, he's very, very clumsy in flight, and has a tendency to crash.

 

Up until this week or so, he's only flown when startled. Lately, he's been randomly launching himself into space. His maneuvering is getting a little bit better. I've been trying to coax him to hop short distances, from a flat surface to my hand, a gap just slightly too great for him to cross without opening his wings. He has the general idea. He crouches, dances, opens his wings a few inches--and stalls, for minutes at a time, until he loses interest and wanders off to chew on the couch cushions, or the table, or whatever. Just now, after a few unsuccessful tries, I picked him up to take him to his stand, and he flew a few feet right to the top of his cage. (This is the second time I've ever seen him fly somewhere intentionally.)

 

Did your greys find longer or shorter distances easier to tackle at first? How did you get them to make that first leap?

[Inara]

Hi Nightingale. Inara didn't fly when she first came to live with me. She was two, and would just drop like a brick, or when startled would just be out of control. I started her off by first helping her get the feel, and also build up her flight muscles at the same time by using a length of thick cotton rope with some hefty knots tied in it. Then I would offer her the rope, she would latch on. I would gently swing the rope from side to side, and around, which she loved. Once she was used to that, I began swinging the rope so that it moved in a bigger area, and would let it drop just a bit so that it stimulated her wings to flap as she had a good grip on the rope. She really started enjoying this a lot. We would do it a couple times a day, and one day, nature took it's course, and she realized that she could "pilot" the rope by flapping her wings in different ways.

 

While we were working on this, I also worked with her on just making little hops between two free standing perches. Start out with them close enough together so that Hero can reach with his beak and step over to the other one, reward him and make a big deal out of it. Then gradually increase the distance over days/weeks whatever time frame works for Hero. It's apparent he's wanting to fly, so doing things with him that help stimulate that instinct will help.

 

Inara seemed to like short distances better at first. Then as she built up stamina and muscle power, she enjoyed and still enjoys longer flights.

 

Have fun!

[SRSeedBurners]

We have a Caique that was in the same boat. He constantly had to hail a taxi while the others were freely flying anywhere they wanted too (except out the door). Took about a year for his flights to grow back in and he spent a few months gingerly testing them out. I helped him along by giving him short tosses on the couch so he had a soft landing spot. Very uncontrolled at first. He kind of went through two stages: one where he figured out how to fly and just kind of floated around, occasionally hitting his intended landing mark, then stage two was when he learned tail up, nose down and now he's the zippiest bird in the house. He now sounds like an over-weight hummingbird zipping through the house.

[aunali9]

Echo has been with me since he was 3 weeks old. and he learned to fly around about the right age, but the vet told me to just sit him on my fingers and lightly drop my arm a little to give him the falling sensation. he started flapping his wings every time. one day he flapped them hard enough to leave my hand and fly into my face haha. he also flew very short distances at first and just waited for a ferry mostly. but i just followed the step up training routine except i added more distance between us. generally i had to move my hand to where he would end up flying so i think i have become better at baseball and cricket. after he landed on my hand or anywhere on me i rewarded him. even if he failed so he kept on trying. now he does belly rolls in mid air and is very confident when flying. he is now 5 and a half months old.

[kins2321@yahoo.com]

All sounds good! Nancy

[thenightingaleable]

Thanks so much for your suggestions, everyone! I'm hoping I can come up with some good activities (like Sterling did with the rope) to get Hero comfortable flapping and fluttering as part of play. Because I use a little "earthquake" (a slight jerk of the hand he's perching on) to discourage chewing on people, I'm going to have to be careful to make sure that Hero doesn't think he's done something wrong when he becomes unbalanced. Lots of praise and happy sounds will be involved. I'll keep you all posted!