How to teach caique to fly?

[Nocturnal]

Now that Onyx is getting good at wearing her harness I would like to encourage some flight. Now I know that by nature caiques aren't great fliers, but they still have wings don't they? I have only ever seen her fly across my room from her cage to my bed and once outside she felt her hopping wasn't fast enough so she flew 4 feet or so. But I can't figure how to get her to actually fly. If I sit and talk to her while she perches on anything, she mostly prefers to stay there, dancing around and rubbing on things.

But again she doesn't really fly.... Any tips?

 

[Wings]

Caiques are very poor flyers as you mentioned. That is why they are so acrobatic! A caique only flies when necessary, and would much rather climb its way to its destination. In the wild, caiques do not fly very far at all. usually to escape a predator, so a long flight isn't needed. It is not in the nature of any caique to fly, and i guess it is Onyx's personal preference if he wants to or not. Maybe have another person stand 5 feet away from you holding your bird's favorite treat. Your bird might be coaxed to fly to that person. You step back maybe a foot, holding a treat, and repeating until it is flying long distances. At least, that is what I think might work, but i do not have any experience free-flighting with caiques, but i'll tell ya, budgies are so much fun to free-fly. If you decide to take your caique outside, make sure it has a harness on at ALL times, he might get away or get taken by a raptor. Best of luck!

 

[MonicaMc]

You can teach her to target or teach a modified step up.

There's a website called FlyingParrotsInside and there's a lot of articles for teaching a flighted recall which you may want to do a search for.

For the modified step up, you use a phrase other than step up but use the same behavior. Once the bird understands the cue, you slowly lengthen how far your bird must step up until the bird uses their beak, they hop, they hop with a flap, there's a couple of flaps, then flight. If at any point in time your bird is hesitant, go back a step.