Is it safe to take my conure for walks?

[ruffledfeathers]

I know this sounds crazy or harsh but one of the reasons I try so hard to (safely) give Gilbert so much of a feeling of freedom is because of my Georgie's fate. You can't protect them from everything. I was maybe too much of a "helicopter parent", trying to keep Georgie safe. She was more moody and less fulfilled than my Gilbert and.....she died prematurely from a freak incident in her own cage at 12. When I see Gilbert's level of happiness and love of life I feel sad and sorry I didn't indulge Georgie more. Life can be short in spite of our best intentions. Have large fun, safely as possible of course.

 

[TacoNTiki]

We have an aviator harness as well, and have taken tiki out a total of 2 times with it - one of those times being today. He does not like the harness one little bit and spent the whole time trying to get it off. We took him in the car with it and into the library. On the drive home, my daughter took the harness off him and was he ever happy. He immediately wouldn't stop giving my daughter kisses and chatted up a storm the whole way home and was an angel perched on the back of the front seat. My daughter asked me if we can never ever use the harness again and just stick to the pak o bird. I think I agree with her. The harness is too stressful and I am worried we might hurt him someday when trying to put it on as he is a little bird at only 60 grams.

P.s. later this night, when I tried to play with Tiki's wings, he freaked out a little as he did not like the earlier experience with us puttin the harness on. He normally lets us touch him anywhere and we lost some trust when we used the harness.

Having said this, I am sure other birds may love their harness, but we haven't like our experiences with it. Maybe much later we will try again. After all, we hope tiki will be around for decades.

 

[Skittys_Daddy]

I know this sounds crazy or harsh but one of the reasons I try so hard to (safely) give Gilbert so much of a feeling of freedom is because of my Georgie's fate. You can't protect them from everything. I was maybe too much of a "helicopter parent", trying to keep Georgie safe. She was more moody and less fulfilled than my Gilbert and.....she died prematurely from a freak incident in her own cage at 12. When I see Gilbert's level of happiness and love of life I feel sad and sorry I didn't indulge Georgie more. Life can be short in spite of our best intentions. Have large fun, safely as possible of course.

This is so so true. We may have the best intentions but if we deprive our fids of some of lifes greatest gifts out of fear of them dying - then we never really let them live, did we?

I find that with Skittles and his diet. The vet says to me 'don't feed him anything other than the organic pellets or organic fruits & veggies. I feed him the organic pellets but I can't always find organic fruits & veggies. So I just wash them carefully. Skittles loves pasta, I mean REALLY loves pasta.

Last night I had homemade mac n cheese and he was bugging me for some. I gave him a little piece and it made him so happy.

You have to strike a balance. We should allow our fids to be happy and enjoy life but not be irresponsible about it.

If I outlive Skittles, I want to know he had a fulfilled life. Depriving him of the little things because I fear outliving him is really just me being selfish. His happiness is just as important as mine. Even more so.