Dear Eclectus Fans,
We have a very young female and male parrot.
The female is much more mature in her behaviour then the male who is acting like a baby or rather a cuddlybear toy. Fortunately the male is almost twice as big in size...
Both are wing clipped as the idea was to buy a year or so to harness train them, and no clipping from then on.
At the first moment we noticed that despite the clipping, the female flies extremely well, upwards too if wants to. I clicker trained the female so by now (if she is in the right mood) she takes basic instructions like 'come here'.
The female came a month earlier.
Since the male is also with us the female is no longer looking for our company, but that is no problem as she is still very tame.
As for the male, his wing is brutally clipped and he can't fly.
At least the latter was what I was thinking.
Every weekend we go to our lakehouse on the hillside where the birds have a huge outdoor cage with lots of stuff for daytime use. Nights spent inside the house. According to the normal protocol I take em in and out of the house to the cage in a handheld carrier.
Once I said to myself this little green baby can't fly and if yes, then I get him from the grass as he falls.
As I walked out of the house the male bird with literally no right wing feathers just escaped from my hands. Could not believe my eyes: the bird flew towards the lake in a 3-400m circle. His fly was just awesome and wonderful.
Realizing how stupid I was to just let my wife's parrot escape I was thinkin whether the baby parrot's gonna be eaten by fox/weasel or hawks while I called the breeder to congratulate to the clipping.
We immediately started a facebook campaign, put adverts onto every street nearby and told about it to everyone around the neighborhood.
Most importantly we hiked into all gardens and looked at the foliages, but what was I thinkin, this bird is created in a way so that no one can see him.
As if the female knew what her job was, she called for the male all time long (never ever screamed before!), but the evening came and we found nothing.
Night passed by.
Next day, we continued looking around, and even the local newsportal issued the photo of the bird, but nothing.
By the afternoon, still nothing, and we lost hope.
Then someone squawked from somewhere the next property (huge abandoned garden). I went there to look, but found nothing, so by then thought it was just false alarm.
An hour later another neighbour from the other direction upward the hill shouted that the bird was there squawking from a cypress. We went there and luckily were easily able to call him down by a banana, story happyends there, bird is safe and secure.
The 3 months old, clipped eclectus flew serious distances, about 1-1,5miles in total the least, including upwards the hill, and survived the night and probably thrived on fruits.
I dont know how he made it, but made it, survived the night and possibly he even enjoyed his trip. By the poop I think he fed on cherries and he even gained weight. Since then, the bird continues acting like a stupid (in a good way) baby, squawking at low noise level and playin and goofin all day.
So everyone, don't believe the hype, these birds even if clipped can fly big time.
No more carrier protocol violations since then.
Cheers
We have a very young female and male parrot.
The female is much more mature in her behaviour then the male who is acting like a baby or rather a cuddlybear toy. Fortunately the male is almost twice as big in size...
Both are wing clipped as the idea was to buy a year or so to harness train them, and no clipping from then on.
At the first moment we noticed that despite the clipping, the female flies extremely well, upwards too if wants to. I clicker trained the female so by now (if she is in the right mood) she takes basic instructions like 'come here'.
The female came a month earlier.
Since the male is also with us the female is no longer looking for our company, but that is no problem as she is still very tame.
As for the male, his wing is brutally clipped and he can't fly.
At least the latter was what I was thinking.
Every weekend we go to our lakehouse on the hillside where the birds have a huge outdoor cage with lots of stuff for daytime use. Nights spent inside the house. According to the normal protocol I take em in and out of the house to the cage in a handheld carrier.
Once I said to myself this little green baby can't fly and if yes, then I get him from the grass as he falls.
As I walked out of the house the male bird with literally no right wing feathers just escaped from my hands. Could not believe my eyes: the bird flew towards the lake in a 3-400m circle. His fly was just awesome and wonderful.
Realizing how stupid I was to just let my wife's parrot escape I was thinkin whether the baby parrot's gonna be eaten by fox/weasel or hawks while I called the breeder to congratulate to the clipping.
We immediately started a facebook campaign, put adverts onto every street nearby and told about it to everyone around the neighborhood.
Most importantly we hiked into all gardens and looked at the foliages, but what was I thinkin, this bird is created in a way so that no one can see him.
As if the female knew what her job was, she called for the male all time long (never ever screamed before!), but the evening came and we found nothing.
Night passed by.
Next day, we continued looking around, and even the local newsportal issued the photo of the bird, but nothing.
By the afternoon, still nothing, and we lost hope.
Then someone squawked from somewhere the next property (huge abandoned garden). I went there to look, but found nothing, so by then thought it was just false alarm.
An hour later another neighbour from the other direction upward the hill shouted that the bird was there squawking from a cypress. We went there and luckily were easily able to call him down by a banana, story happyends there, bird is safe and secure.
The 3 months old, clipped eclectus flew serious distances, about 1-1,5miles in total the least, including upwards the hill, and survived the night and probably thrived on fruits.
I dont know how he made it, but made it, survived the night and possibly he even enjoyed his trip. By the poop I think he fed on cherries and he even gained weight. Since then, the bird continues acting like a stupid (in a good way) baby, squawking at low noise level and playin and goofin all day.
So everyone, don't believe the hype, these birds even if clipped can fly big time.
No more carrier protocol violations since then.
Cheers
