My experience with my CAG

[Bobby34231]

As I posted in another thread, I don't consider it abuse either, though it may seem inappropriate to some it is not abuse, to me abuse is the intentional harm or injury done by a direct act, its just my opinion, but it seems the point of the pics and video are to show the amount of trust Cocoa has for his caregivers to allow them to do just about anything to him, no matter how well a bird has been brought up or treated through life, you very seldom ever see that level of trust, and NEVER in a bird that has been abused...just my two cents worth, and I too hope you stay around and continue to share Cocao with us....

 

[Erithacus]

28th Aug.

 

[Erithacus]

 

[Erithacus]

Cocoa laying side way on my wife's hand.

 

[Bobby34231]

Hey how did that Myna get in there?.............lol, is that a Palawan Hill Myna?, just curious, doesn't look quite like a Greater Hill........

 

[Erithacus]

He is a native bird here.

Mocha, the Javan Hill Mynah

 

[Bobby34231]

Ahh a Javan Hill, Thanks, I was pretty sure it wasn't a Greater Hill, its very difficult getting any of the Mynas here now, even though they can be a bit messy I still like them

 

[Erithacus]

I did a few short distance recalls at our regular hiking place this morning.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ydqLAph0cM]YouTube - African Grey Recall 3[/ame]

 

[apatrimo94]

Man, if only my tiel can trust me enough to hold her the way you hold Cocoa and your Myna bird. As for S'mores, she can't seem to sit still. She thinks it's a game where she has to get out. Your bond with your birds is amazing. Keep it up.

 

[wildheart]

Thank you for sharing!

Tell me, how old is Cocoa and for how long has she owned you? Why dont you give a bit of advice on how you tamed her and/or how you won her trust.

How did the first flight training go and how did you do it?

Although I do appreciate your photos and clips, I am not learning much, PLEASE give more details so we all can learn.

 

[Erithacus]

I do not have any experience in parrot training at all. What you saw here were all by accident or by chance. Taming her was done by my 12 years old daughter. My daughter was 10 then when we adopted 3 months old Cocoa in 2008. She treated Cocoa like a hamster (we owned some hamsters before we had parrots) by cuddling, flipping, massaging and etc. That's how we can twist and turn Cocoa now.

My flight training was by chance. I took Cocoa outdoor on her 2nd day with us. I placed her on an old shirt and carried her around my housing area. Aviator Harness was introduced later and from her usual 15 mins outdoor walk had be gradually increased up to 1 hour. Training her to fly was a problem then. I thought a bird was ever ready or very eager to fly. But I couldn't even force Cocoa to fly. She was gripping my fingers so tight that I couldn't even throw her to fly. So I gave up.

We used to go the the nearby playground. I would place her on the play gym (the monkey bars) and over the time she got used to it. Each time we went to the play gym she would fly to it before reaching. I had to run to catch up with her. Then I attached a 15 foot nylon rope to the leash of the harness. From there I started training her to fly to the play gym. That is the only place she will land not else where.

From 15 ft distance, I gradually increased the flight distance to 250ft over the months. As I said earlier, it wasn't a planned training. All these happened by accident.

I was advised to do recall training. I had no idea how to do it. So I placed Cocoa on the ground to start with because Cocoa didn't feel comfortable on the ground. She would fly to me with being call. That's how my recall training started.

 

[wildheart]

Thank you for replying. Did she pull on the rope when in the air, wanting to fly further than what the rope allowed? And, if it did happen did it look painful at all?

How long, if you can remember, did it take before she flew to the monkey bars by herself?

Tell your daughter she did an excellent job!

 

[Erithacus]

Usually I have 10ft allowance for her to maneuver. For instance, if the take off spot to the landing pad was 100ft, I would give her 110ft.

The leash of the harness is made of elastic material. If my grey pulled to the max, she would not feel any pain. The harness is designed to protect the bird.

Sometimes she would go astray. On a few occasions she was spooked by crows that flew past and she tried to fly to safety by flying away. There was once she followed a passing mynah. Probably she thought the mynah was our pet Hill Mynah.

It took a few months probably 3-4 for her to fly to the monkey bars by herself.

 

[wildheart]

The stupid picture that I am seeing is Cocoa flying in the air and then being jerked back by the line? I think that is the picture that most see and are therefore too scared to try flying. What do you think happens when she runs out of line?

I also see there is a tree in the park, what if the line gets intangled in the tree or something else? Has it ever happened and how did you fix the problem? The same with the hiking trips that you take her on, there is a lot of trees, I will be scared that she will fly and get intangled.

Hie-hie, sorry for picking your brain, but I LOVE learning.

 

[Erithacus]

It happened many times when the line was caught to a bunch of grass or ran out of line. She would fly back to me.

The 2 trees you saw were small trees. They do obstruct but they don't pose a major problem. The line did entangle in the trees sometimes when Cocoa tried different flight path. She would fly in circles till drop to the ground. I am used to these heart attacks. That's why I always give extra length to the line. I thought of chopping down the trees but it is illegal to do so. Thanks to the naughty kids. They had torn down one of the trees. The big tall trees are located out of Cocoa's flight range.

If you want to fly your parrot outdoor, please make sure there are no big trees around.

Cocoa is a very experienced hiker. She knows that flying to trees is a very dangerous thing to do. She always stick to me like a leech. I used the original harness (no extension) when we hiked. Should she gets spooked, she won't reach the trees. There were cases she got spooked when I missed my step. She took off and came back to my shoulder. She is also afraid of flying in the jungle.

In the video of the recall in the jungle, I attached a short line to the leash when we reached the resting spot. It is too short for her to reach the nearest tree.

 

[Erithacus]

Today Sept 2nd is exactly 2 years since we have had Cocoa. Here are some pics taken today on her anniversary.

 

[Ratzy]

Wow!! She is beautiful! I can understand why some people would say that is abuse, but it isn't at all. An abused bird WOULD NOT be that healthy or happy looking. Those flight pics make me wish that there were harnesses for budgies! Well done.

 

[Erithacus]

This is one of Cocoa's trainings. I place her stand in front of an opened door. I want her to get used to seeing an opened door. In the event of an accident by leaving the door opened, she would not fly out, out of curiosity.

Here, she stood on her perch for 15 mins without the desire of getting out.

 

[Erithacus]

After training I moved Cocoa outside of the house. Here she keeps her beak in tip top shape by brushing.

PS. The tooth brush was a new one.

 

[wildheart]

Hie-hie, that is so funny, her own toothbrush! Sorry to talk about my iguana again, but that is exactly the way I 'trained' him to roam free in the garden without having the desire to scale a tree or wall. I can now leave any door open in the house without being worried about him, but, it did take a year before I truly started trusting him. The same goes with my bearded dragons, all 3 of them roam the garden and all 3 of them comes inside when it gets late.

The more freedom that you offer them, or should I say, the more they think that they are actually free the less the desire is to 'run/fly' away. They choose to stay.