Conure flightsuit issues

[nesparza0008]

It is IMPOSSIBLE to get my conure’s flight suit on. Anytime I try to grab her with my fingers on her cheekbones so she doesn’t bite me she gives me hell and it makes it impossible to get the flight suit on. The one time I did get it on her she couldn’t walk properly in it and her feet kept going inside the flighsuit instead of out. I think I may have gotten an ill fitting flightsuit. How do I get her in the flightsuit once I purchase one that’s a size smaller?

 

[Laurasea]

Oh Lordy that's s complex issue .... There are threads on here about flight suits. You aren't supposed to fight them to get it on, but rather train them to accept it, lots of treats and slowly over weeks months...find the great posts on here

 

[ChristaNL]

Laura got it right : no grabbing and/or forcing the bird into anything (well ... medical procedures perhaps).

Did you practice on a toy?
(It is on one of the websites: try this on a toy / wadded up sock -socks-t-shirt etc. to size/ whatever till you get the hang of it first, only *then* start practising with the bird)
Those flightsuits can be tricky.

But go to the parts about clickertraining, bonding with your bird etc. first (great sticky's) - this is supposed to be fun not drama (for both of you).

 

[EllenD]

Yeah, getting them to wear a flight-suit is no different than training them to accept and wear a harness. You absolutely cannot just put the flight-suit on them and that's it. Actually, I hate to tell you this, but getting the flight-suit on the bird is by-far the easiest part of the whole process!

Let's say you "force" the flight-suit on him, like you're trying to do. All that is going to happen once you get the proper size of suit and you force him into it is that he's going to ignore everything else but the fact that he's wearing that suit, and he wants to get it off. So he's going to do nothing but sit there and pick and tear at the flight-suit, nothing else, until he destroys it. You won't be able to play with him or probably even get him to step-up while he has it on because he's just going to want to be left alone so he can keep chewing on it and will not stop until he gets it off; this is exactly what most of them do when you force a harness onto them, they ignore absolutely everything else and just sit and chew on the harness, even if you take them outside with lots of things to see and stuff going on, they don't care, all they care about is getting that harness off of them. And it is exactly the same, if not worse for a flight-suit, as their entire bodies are inside of them (yes, it sounds like the suit you have is too large if his feet are going inside of it, you need at least a size smaller).

So, the bottom-line to this is that there are two different steps to the process, the first is getting them to allow you to put the flight-suit on them without them biting/screaming/trying to get away from you and without you having to "grab their cheekbones" or their beaks, and then the second step is getting them to "accept" wearing the flight-suit. This can takes months and months to accomplish, it's a daily training thing, just like anything else. First you have to "desensitize" them to the flight-suit/harness, by placing it near or on their cage, and moving it closer and closer to them each day, until they accept having it inside of their cage, then allow you to basically "play" with them with the suit/harness, basically until they are no longer scared of just having it near them. Only then can you start training them to put it on, but you have to do this by breaking it into steps. For example, step one for a flight suit should probably be putting one foot through it's leg-hole. That's it. You just work on getting them to allow you to put one foot through it's leg-hole without biting you, fighting you, etc. This involves tons of verbal praise and his favorite treat as a reward whenever he puts that one foot through it's leg-hole without a bite and without pulling it out or trying to get away. This one step may take a month or longer....Then you move on to step 2, getting both legs into their leg-holes. And so on.