Long-Distance (Indoor) Flight

[StormyPica]

Yes, I do know what free flight is. Yes, I do know this is an outdoor flight forum and I'm asking an indoor flight question. See the thing is, you guys have to train your birds for free flight to have stamina, strength, and control. My question is, how do you do that? I just want my budgies to get more physical activity indoors and in their aviary, and I think training them to do controlled indoor flights would be just the ticket. After all, flight is a crucial thing when it comes to bird's well-being.

Thanks!
-Oliver

 

[chris-md]

oh no worries. Far as I’m concerned flighted Recall has every business in flight training discussions as it does simple training discussions.

How to build stamina? Same as you anything: start with small/short flight, work your way up gradually over time. Understand birds get soar muscles like we do when we do muscle building, so rest is essential.

 

[Emeral]

Excellent question, I am very happy to hear of this good plan. It is easy, fun and good excercise.

My Emerald had been trained to come when called in door. This literally safe her life. While I took her outdoor for a walk one morning, she chewed her chain free. She then flew to pearch on the top of a few big trees. But during this accidental escape, she flew back to us, phewww......

In door flight, for Emerald, started from short distances to longer, more difficult ones. We train her every morning, before breakfast. This is when she is most alert.
Her wings were never clipped and had good excercises. Before training, she understood simple commands like good girl, Noooo, turned when called her name, and good night.

At the beginning, place all kinds of seeds for her to eat, once we notice which kind is her first pick every time.........That will be use as her reward in her recall training. (You can either call her name or use whistle.)

Here are the steps....

1) we started by encouraging her to fly from my hand to my spouse's hand.
let her choose her own comfortable distance. If she did not come when called, move closer.

We use seed as reward if she comes quickly when called. If not, let her rest. I also lower my hand on 3, as I count 123 after my spouse called Emerald.

2) increase the distance, once she get the idea, encourage her to fly to another room or at advance level, hide, so she follow the commanding voice. This took about 2to3 months to perfect.

3) reduce the seed and use praise as reward, at this stage she is more acrobatic and shows strong confidence in her flight. She fly from room to room in search for the caller. Here, we train her both morning and any time we can by every family member. We love seeing her new moves such as turning at a wide or sharp angle, or zigzag, or even infinity eight!

At bed time, I stand at the door saying to her " Emerald, good night" ...and she would fly to my shoulder so I can put her in her dark and quiet sleeping cage.

4) call from upstairs. After about 6th months of in door flight practice, we decided to let her go upstair.

To our surprise she was afraid of height. So we started step 1, again but this time, with the caller standing on the higher ground. And keep increasing the distance until she can master her fear. It took her only 1 month to fly upstairs. Each trip, she got a free ride on the shoulder of the caller to come down as a reward. (This stage, we only use praise and kisses and headscratches )

5) call from downstair. It turned out that she was comfortable standing on the shoulder as I walk down the stairs, but shaken with fear if I put her on my hand. When I lower my hand, she flew in circle and land on my shoulder. My bird's mind reading said, "let's go downstair with me on your shoulder as usual. I DON'T WANNA FLY DOWN. It's more difficult than flying up"

So I told her that, "I will not let go, just want to show you that it is ok" Then I said step-up and had her in my hand and walk down the stairs. On my hand, I could feel the tension on her legs got lesser every day. So each day, I increase the distance of my hand towards my left until I can stretch the whole arm.

Then for the next week, I moved my hand left and right, and higher up as I walk down the stairs. Until she no longer tense up standing on my hand as I go down the stairs, I knew she was ready. When called she could a couple of steps down on her own.

6) After about 8th months, she can fly confidently upstairs and downstairs to the caller. And if the door is opened for her, she can help wake some sleepy member up. From here, we take turn to practice calling her up or down stairs. At the beginning, I hear her shortness of breadth after only a couple of flights. But she got stronger, flying with more accuracy and speed as we practice each morning.

The process of indoor flight training was very easy, a lot of fun and bonding. We hope you will enjoy it as much as we do.

 

[Skarila]

Hello! I'm not sure where you got the impression this is a free flight forum only - I can assure you many members here do not have free flighted birds. However a lot of us do have Indoor flighted birds. My birds are always free while I'm home, and generally bird proofing your home is first step, like making sure the windows and doors are closed, curtains or big stickers on the windows (as the birds often do not see glass) Simply keeping the bird free in a big room, letting it roam will help it to fly longer distance. rather than just in an aviary. That'd be your first step. Having a pair of birds is even better. If one bird flies, the other one will follow, and they will get the exercise they need. I know our budgie's flight got much better when she tried following our conure all around the room.

Recall won't work with wild/non tame parrots. Our budgie is terrified of hands, and she's simply not for recalls as she won't even accept any millet or any treats from us, so she's absolutely non trainable. When I see that she's becoming a perch potato, refusing to leave her cage (she's very cage bound, despite having her door open at all times), sometimes we have to use force and make her fly. Sounds cruel, but she has to stretch her wings sometimes. Making her do a couple of laps around the room, then stop. after a few minutes, again same thing. We follow how tired she is. Bit of breathing is okay, but we don't want her panting.

You have good thinking that the bird might need to get more physical activity. Put a few budgies in a room and you'll have them going all around all day! There will be a few problems though - cleaning the poop after them, and thinking how will you catch them back into their aviary.

 

[wrench13]

Yeah this is not a strict free flight web board, as pointed out. Many do clip their parrots, while some allow unrestricted free flight. Mine grew up as a clipped parrot and only recently have we allowed his wings to grow out, and he does fly a bit, when the mood strikes him.

 

[SailBoat]

Yup, our DYH-Amazon is a Free Roaming Parrot, whether flight or walk-about. BUT, only inside! We live in the training zone of five Red Tailed Hawk families and outside would be deadly!

Recall Training is very important and I consider it a must! Even when a Parrot has a fear of hands. Train to a hand held Perch or stand.

Why is it so very important!!
- First, accidents do happen, as you watch your Parrot fly out the door with you!
- Second, Fear Flight, the first five to ten seconds are just go with zero regard to where! This is the most common reasons Parrots that fly-out the door are gone so quickly.
- Third, Recall Training allows you to break into that flight and redirect the Parrot back to you!

Indoor flight! Teach safe flight paths for your Parrots cage out into your home. Then Teach safe landing places for your Parrot in your home at the end of safe flight paths. Then teach safe flight paths back to the cage. Repeat often!

They will create alternative flight paths used combinations of the taught safe flight paths!

Remember to Teach Hard surfaces.

Enjoy!!

 

[chris-md]

Y’all, just fyi this was posted in the free flight subforum, hence the “free flight only forum” remark

 

[StormyPica]

Y’all, just fyi this was posted in the free flight subforum, hence the “free flight only forum” remark

I know lol Also, I know this is just a subforum, I just typed really fast.

Yup, our DYH-Amazon is a Free Roaming Parrot, whether flight or walk-about. BUT, only inside! We live in the training zone of five Red Tailed Hawk families and outside would be deadly!



Why is it so very important!!
- First, accidents do happen, as you watch your Parrot fly out the door with you!

My budgies are free roaming, unclipped parrots too! Also, I did lose my budgie Stormy(he pushed open the door to his outdoor cage, but now they have a large aviary), but thanks to recall training, I got him back!

 

[Skarila]

Y’all, just fyi this was posted in the free flight subforum, hence the “free flight only forum” remark

I swear I need new glasses xD

 

[Birdgirl24]

My one budgie is kinda lazy and i cant really get him to fly to me sometimes i can sometimes i can't he is really inconstant and I'd like to change that. Any tips?

 

[chris-md]

Train him. He won’t do what you don’t teach him to do. Clicker training is your best friend here.

 

[Birdgirl24]

Train him. He won’t do what you don’t teach him to do. Clicker training is your best friend here.

Will do! thanks!