How do I teach my13 yr. CAG to fly

[MazyAK]

Well, here's my first question and our priority. Mazy is my 13yr. old CAG and has always been clipped. Last year we were reunited and live in a large open house perfect for the birds to fly in.(we have a cockatoo who flys). Mazy is growing in the primary flights, but she doesn't know what to do.

Can anybody give me information as to how to progress so she can learn to land. She wants to fly, she squats flaps her wings just saying, "her I go, hereI go". When she takes off she just keeps going until she crashes.

Since she hasn't flown I assume she is going to need to build up certain muscles. Any help will be appreciated.

Bruce

[Dave007]

Unfortunately, it's gonna take a lot of work and there's always the chance that it won't work. What your bird must have first is developed flight wings. Your bird is a very mature bird that hasn't ever developed flight coordination for most of it's life. What it has developed is the art of very short flying but lack of manuvering. Very true except for one thing---All of that was learned with clipped wings, not flight wings. There'a big difference between the two What he's doing right now is called *desperation* flight. It's the act of getting ready to fly but having no idea where to go and land when in the air. Hence, the crashing into walls, curtains occurs. The act of controlled flight must be learned in an enclosed room with you using and enticing your bird to fly onto you over and over and over. Eventually, you would make that distance farther away. You should start with 4 to 5 feet away. Get on your knees. You need to slightly block his flight with your arm. You should be the item that he crashes into. Eventually, he'll land on your arm. Before lengthing the distance, make sure that he's consistant. Take some walnuts and break them up, keep them in your hand. First, give him 1 or 2 small pieces. Step back but let him see the nuts in your hand. Entice him with the nut. *Desperation* flight will start. Don't use those nuts as a reward. Every time he tries to come to you and either fails or succeeds, give a little piece of nut. What you're doing is giving a nut to him for even trying to fly. In other words effort. All of this must be done in an enclosed area preferably with a soft rug or carpet on the floor. It'll take a long time but you have to realize that 13 yrs is a long time undue.

This is somewhat the same method that's used by conservation groups that travel around to different bird shows with predatory hunters such as eagles, hawks, falcons, owls,peregrines and others hunting species. Most of those predatory animals can't live in the wild anymore because of partial damage to the body such as wing damage, partial claw or leg problems, being blind in one eye etc. These demonstrations are held in large areas about half the size of an indoor airport hangar. One person is in the rear of the auditorium and one in front of the seated audience. On Q, the bird flies back and forth to each person. The handler always gives the bird a little of something to eat each time it goes back and forth but it isn't given as a treat.Then the handler explains the type of bird it is to the audience and gives history on the species but all of those birds have to learn how to fly and land in the same place. In your situation, that place is your arm, not wrist. The wrist comes later when the bird feels sure of landing on your arm and sure of itself. Wrist landing doesn't have to be taught. When a large area is finally opened up to him, you need to keep a close eye on his body language when it looks like he's ready to take off. You must alway be the target until he finally lands on the floor without going into walls. Eventually, you will always be the target . You're the one with the nuts. Always have a small bowl of bits of nuts around. Always give him some for his effort. It's gonna take a while. You need patience, patience, patience. Put no time limits on when YOU think the the bird should accomplish this. Remember, he's 13 yrs old.

PS--if he doesn't like walnuts, use some other kind that he likes and usually looks forward to in everyday life.

 

Post edited by: MrSpock, at: 2007/12/01 00:20

 

Post edited by: MrSpock, at: 2007/12/01 00:25

 

Post edited by: MrSpock, at: 2007/12/01 00:57<br><br>Post edited by: MrSpock, at: 2007/12/01 01:01

[MazyAK]

Dave: Thanks for all of that. It gives me a course to follow. Can I use the length of a sofa to help her work on her short landings. She will take off of my finger occasionally but won't leave the portable perch (2 feet off the ground) to fly to my arm 3 or 4 feet away. I will be patient and don't have any expectations. Thanks again

Bruce

[Laurie]

Klaus is only 9 months old. He is clipped, but can get around a little bit. Just within this past week he started actually landing on things as opposed to just hitting a wall. He flew from the floor and caught the side of his cage with his feet (safe landing! yeah!) and also went from the floor to my son's leg (thank goodness my son was wearing jeans!). This is all with no instruction from me. So, I think Mazy will learn on her own in time, too.

Dave's advice makes a lot of sense, too!

[Dave007]

You can use the length of anything you want. Only you know your grey's capabilities. Some people start with short distances, some with longer distances. I only suggested 4 to 5 ft. because I haven't the slightest idea about how clumsy or uncoordinated he is. Only you know that. I only gave you a plan of action based upon the age of your bird. Young birds are easier to work with because they still have a little fear in them. An adult bird doesn't. Just try to substitute yourself instead of walls. At first,Keep your arm horozontil with your upper chest area. Eventually, your arm will look good to him. Your arm will be his eventual perch and it doesn't matter how thick or big your arm is. Also, I'll repeat..don't feed him things as treats. Just give him somethiong for trying. Eventually, your arm and those nuts you're holding will be a very good inducement as far as where to land. You can have slight variations on what you wanna do. Only you know your bird. I was just trying to give you a method that I've used with consistant success.

 

PS--don't be afraid of him crashing into you. You're much softer than a wall and concerning your body, there's many more things to grab on to. Try not to show fear. He won't bite you. The act of flying to you will distract him from biting you. He'll actually be happy.<br><br>Post edited by: MrSpock, at: 2007/12/01 01:33

[MazyAK]

OK Dave, this is coming into focus for me. I exercise her up and down on my finger while she flaps, and we'll find the right reward for her attempts at flight. We work several times a day. Usually just after she comes out of her cage for open play. Since she spent most of her days in the cage up till this year, I let her stay out as long as she likes, and eventually (if not due to a newly arrived meal) she wants to go back. She's learning there is so much more to life on the outside of the cage. A lot of her day is spent on my shoulder observing all my doings. We're working on potty training also and the forum has helped me a lot there.

Bruce

[jamie777]

Why don't you take Mazy somewhere to get a baby trim. My TAG Romeo had a baby trim and he can fly to me from a perch and land well. He is very confident. I thinks it's good for him. He can fly and exercise without getting hurt or getting to much height.

-Jamie

[lovemyGreys]

Dave first class advice,we appreciate your knowledge, thank you.

[danmcq]

MrSpock, excellent advice as always from yoru many years of working with and breeding Grey's.

 

I swear, I learn something new everytime you post! :-)

[MazyAK]

Thanks all:

I worked with Mazy since reading what Dave suggested. She won't even think of trying to fly to me from 3-5 feet. But when she's on my finger I send her off for a few feet to the couch seat. Sometimes she tries to pull up but more than not she just keeps flapping until skidding to a stop. Yes, I am remembering.....patience and practice

[btdaycare]

wow, I learn so much on here, my four year old grey has been flapping around a little more each day, most of the time after a shower and I am not moving fast enough back to his cage. I am now reading up on all your playstand ideals and hope to make one this weekend. Do you think this will help him want to fly too since he loves his cage so much? Like maybe he will try to fly to it from a play stand?

[Christina]

I just finished teaching my TAG how to fly. She was clipped when I got her at 10 weeks. I also had the same thing with our blue and gold. Now they were much younger than yours. The advice you got is first rate. I would only start closer, a few inches. I jump and flap to you from the counter, is a monumental moment for your grey. Build up to futher away. It's a matter of confidence. We also flew both our birds from one person to another. Mostly from the least favorite to the favorite person. Even if that meant walking back and handing the bird back, so they could fly to the favorite person again. Again, start with a small space, only a foot, then work it to be bigger. The other thing I would do is place many things around the house for her to land on. The one thing I noticed, is sometimes when they are just learning to fly, they take off, and then get this "holy cow" look on their face, like "now I'm up here, where do I go". It caused alot of crashes for our b&g until we figure out that he needed places to land. We put boings and perches around and took him to each point so he knew and viola....the crashes subsided. Finnigan benefited from this learning curve and I can't remember one crash from her. I'm sure she will learn fast if she is watching your cockatoo fly. And from your description is sure sounds like she wants to go. Start small and one day she will just go and go and you will be standing there, like I didn't know she could do that. It's pretty cool.

[Journeyman]

Thank you and MazyAK for this post!

[casper]

Dave, this is really interesting! I wonder if I could work on this with Charlie now he has a few flights?

 

His crash landings have got worse recently and this I believe is due to the fact as you know I feel he has lost the ability to fly and has no confidence.

[judygram]

Why don't you give it a try Caroline, what do you have to lose but some time, it worked for Mazy and it can work for Charlie too, you know Dave is giving you the best advice there is.

[Dave007]

I'll try to give the principals of flight in a few minutes. I need to make a few markings first on one of my photos to point out a couple of things concerning flight but before I do it, I just wanna explain something that has to do with a bad job done on an animal and it's consequences. Later on you'll see what it has to do with clipping a bird.

The animal is a dog. A person decides to take a male dog to the vet and have it neutured. So, the person brings the dog to the vet who then cuts off the dog.s balls. The procedure is successful. The dog has no problems. Now, another person decides to go to their vet for the samme procedure. The dog goes through the procedure but the vet nicks a certain area/areas. In many situations what happened leaves the dog with less control over bowel movement. It prevents the dog from holding it in. Manty times, when the dog is sleeping, a couple of pieces of hard fecal matter comes out while the dog is sleeping. These pieces are usually 1/2 the size of a walnut. End of that story. Will be back and some people may benefit from what I'kll post.<br><br>Post edited by: Dave007, at: 2009/01/04 18:18

[Dave007]

Principals of flight.

 

Many people wanna teach their birds to fly. Many have had bad or short clips. Most of the time as time passes, the person sees a little more flight feathers growing in but they're coming in unevenly or not coming in at all. The most drastic is the bird that has a few flight feathers on a wing but is totally missing others from the same wing/wings.

 

I'll use a hawk as an example because many times they're easily spotted and remain in an area where they can be seen for a while. Hawks have between 7 to 9 flighht feathers depending upon the type of hawk it is.

If you look upward, you'll see hawks in the sky and they're not flapping their wings, just floating around looking for prey. When you look at a hawk's wings, you won't see spaces, just solid closed wings. What's happening is that air is surrounding those wings but not going through the wings. This allows the bird to float around on air drafts. Then, the hawk spots something and comes down. Looking at the wings, you'll see spaces between each flight feather. he wind is no longer keeping the bird afloat. The hawk descends rapidly but has control of the wings and has the ability to tighten each wing when needed.

So, many people wanna teach their bird to fly. The bird has it's flight feathers cut short or has a badly done clip.

Unless a bird has all of the feathers that enable it to go up or down, it's very difficult to *teach* a bird how to fly.

So, here's two pictures of birds going up or down and each bird has the proper amount of feathers in order to do that.

 

This first picture is a bird that started very low and is going upward. The bird needs air to hit the wings in order to get lift. Notice that the wings are closed and no spaces can be seen

 

 

This is a picture of a bird who is already in the air and is now looking to descend. Notice that the flight feather have spaces between the flight feathers. The red lines show the spaces.

 

 

So when a person has a bird who has very short flight feathers or many flight feathers missing, the air will constantly go through the flight feathers and not allow the bird to get air under those wings to fly from one area to another with perfect control. If you've seen birds that are being trained to fly from one person to another person who is apprx 30 ft away, you'll never see those spaces until the bird is ready to land on that opther person.

So, this is just an explanation of flight and how it works and doesn't work when many things are missing. Clipping makes flight feathers very short. Those are the only feathers that are clipped. A bird who is missing flight feathers needs lots of time to grow back those feathers so that they'll be useful in learning how to fly. Many times, when those flight feathers grow back, the bird is very leery of flying especially when it was never allowed to develop coordination and muscle strength and forward power. This is one of the reasons that I'm against wing clipping because it interfers with what should come naturally simply because it's a bird.

 

PS--this is also why birds have even more trouble when wings are clipped at a very young age.

Hope this helps.<br><br>Post edited by: Dave007, at: 2009/01/04 19:34

[casper]

There is still hope Dave, now you have explained in detail I know that Charlie is in no way ready to even start to fly! I wish he would understand that himself!

Thanks for taking the time to explain to us all, its helped me a lot.

[MazyAK]

Dave: You are the man! I found that patience on my behalf was what is most important. There are times when Mazy wants to fly and times when not. But just staying with it and knowing the flight feathers are grown enough has worked for me. Mazy now does her improving and learning on her own as she has the skills to at least land without injury.

[driph]

Figure it's better to bring up an old thread rather than start up a new one on the same topic, especially since the info here seems very helpful...

 

I have a 10 year old CAG that is currently making the move from clipped to unclipped, and she does the "Oh hell what now!" thing whenever she happens to be in the air (not very often, she's not inclined to even try yet), so I'll be using the above advice as a guideline as I work with her.

 

For those of you that were/are teaching an older bird to fly for the first time, how has it progressed since this thread was first active?

[lovethatgrey]

Thanks Dave for your explanations, illustrations and knowledge. That was a very interesting read. It helps me to understand Emma a little better too. Her feathers are finally growing nicely after she was clipped TWICE before coming home to me. I've always practiced wing flappng exercises with her but NOW she can actually control her flying and land where she intends to land. I have noticed that this seems to have increased her confidence when it comes to moving about.<br><br>Post edited by: lovethatgrey, at: 2009/08/29 05:22