Teaching an old bird new tricks. (flying)

[nickraph]

Hello everyone - I am hoping someone here may have some insight on training older greys (17 & 20 approx.).  More specifically training them to fly. JoJo the grey I'd like to train first is very needy and I'd like to teach some independence and give her the ability to get around with confidence. Any insight from you guys would be greatly beneficial to me.  As always, thank you for the help everyone. Glad I came across these forums. :) 

[Greywings]

We had a grey arrive some years back and she was not able to fly due to wing trims. I started just moving my arm up and down while she was perched on my arm slowly to start with to encourage flapping and build some strength. The next step was to gently toss her off my arm and onto the bed from about a foot away. We then gradually increased the distance over a number of weeks to about 4-5 feet. It gave her some experience and confidence as she slowly realized she could take off and learn to land herself. Now years later she is a capable flier when she wishes to do so. That is our experience. Glad you found us Nickraph.

[nickraph]

44 minutes ago, Greywings said:

We had a grey arrive some years back and she was not able to fly due to wing trims. I started just moving my arm up and down while she was perched on my arm slowly to start with to encourage flapping and build some strength. The next step was to gently toss her off my arm and onto the bed from about a foot away. We then gradually increased the distance over a number of weeks to about 4-5 feet. It gave her some experience and confidence as she slowly realized she could take off and learn to land herself. Now years later she is a capable flier when she wishes to do so. That is our experience. Glad you found us Nickraph.

Thank you.  She is a skilled lander and can avoid obsticles. I’ve also noticed If I ask her to fly while she is on my arm she flaps her wings for a bit and I can feel it pulling my arm up, so hopefully it is not hard to teach.  I didn’t think about the bed, I’ll Toss an old painting sheet on there so I don’t get any poop on there and try it out. Can I ask how old the Grey was at the time you took in?

[SRSeedBurners]

Our Grey Huey is 21 and was not a flyer.  We got him on Dec 1st of 2017 and by end of January he was flying, not real graceful but flying...lots of crash landings.   I started him out by just giving him a toss onto our bed over and over.  Once he got the idea, he started trying to fly on his own and we had some scary moments as he had some very hard landings.  I spent about a month flying out of my chair to go provide a landing arm for him when he would launch himself because he was not real good about hitting his landing rope/etc. and would then crash hard.  Eventually he's gotten very good at hitting landings and rarely crashes anymore.   He's even flown down our hallway and turned and came back which is pretty amazing for such a large bird.   He'll never be super acrobatic like our Greycie that learned as a baby but he's a flyer now.

[nickraph]

20 minutes ago, SRSeedBurners said:

Our Grey Huey is 21 and was not a flyer.  We got him on Dec 1st of 2017 and by end of January he was flying, not real graceful but flying...lots of crash landings.   I started him out by just giving him a toss onto our bed over and over.  Once he got the idea, he started trying to fly on his own and we had some scary moments as he had some very hard landings.  I spent about a month flying out of my chair to go provide a landing arm for him when he would launch himself because he was not real good about hitting his landing rope/etc. and would then crash hard.  Eventually he's gotten very good at hitting landings and rarely crashes anymore.   He's even flown down our hallway and turned and came back which is pretty amazing for such a large bird.   He'll never be super acrobatic like our Greycie that learned as a baby but he's a flyer now.

So glad I posted this, I would have never thought to use my bed.  I think she’ll (JoJo) be a decent flyer and may already know how but just doesn’t. When she is startled she will hop into flight but only to flutter to the ground. She has a pretty smooth landing.  Just doesn’t seem to be able to take off.  My 20yo Maxi however is a different story and crashes anytime she is startled and always lands breast bone first. I’ll try this with her after JoJo gets the hang of it.  It may help her come out of her she’ll more. She was not treated well by the previous owner.