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She excercises a LOT

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She excercises a LOT

Postby GingerBird » Thu May 15, 2014 12:40 pm

Hi All!

My parrot, Maya: a 10 months old Meyer's parrot is really getting into flying. Good news, she keeps looking for my safety so when she flies, I only have to call her and she will turn around and flies right back to me. So far, so good.

I encouraged her for a few weeks to keep flying. Now, she is enjoying it a lot and uses it all the time. I don't mind that she flies from my shoulder every 20 seconds, and she will return every time I call her. But she keeps flying and is panting a lot, although it is her own choice to fly from my shoulder (not making any unpredictable moves).

Is it normal that she is panting, and that she will keep flying until she is really really out of breath? I thought it can't hurt that much, because she is young and probably needs to build up her stamina..
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Re: She excercises a LOT

Postby Wolf » Thu May 15, 2014 11:02 pm

I can't honestly say as I only have experience with birds that are bred and raised in captivity, but I do know that the stamina to fly for 20 to 50 miles has to be built up at some point and that it can't be done without pushing yourself. I would say that as long as she is doing it on her own and not from getting spooked or being pushed into it that it is unlikely that she would hurt herself by this.
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Re: She excercises a LOT

Postby GingerBird » Fri May 16, 2014 9:44 am

Then I will just leave her flying around as much as she likes :) She is not spooked at all, I mean: sometimes she gets spooked but that is not why she flies this much, so she is probably just excising. thnx!
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Re: She excercises a LOT

Postby marie83 » Wed May 21, 2014 9:39 am

She will improve as her fitness increases. You cant go from running for the bus to a marathon overnight.

Harlie didn't fly at all for years so she had very little muscle definition and her respiratory system wasn't in the best order- 1 from lack of exercise and 2 because she used to live with really heavy smokers. Those factors alone made it really hard for her when she first started flying and was panting like a mad thing for ages after just flying across the room just the once. She can now do a lot of flying back and forth plus a couple of circuits of the room in one go or in very quick succession. Her panting isn't as heavy and fast now and her recovery to a normal respiration rate is a lot faster (I'm talking about a few minutes down to a few seconds)
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Re: She excercises a LOT

Postby Harpmaker » Wed May 21, 2014 2:59 pm

I don't recall my 19 month old Meyer's ever panting, but while her wings had been clipped, she could still do a sort of parachute drop that we called "falling with style"that may have helped her get in shape.

I do have an article somewhere that says African heavy-bodied parrots (which seems to include everything from Meyer's to Grays) have to expend more than the usual effort to fly, so some of them prefer to walk, even if they are flight capable. I haven't noticed that myself, but keeping the "heavy-body" aloft might be making Maya pant.
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Re: She excercises a LOT

Postby sugarbelle11 » Mon Mar 09, 2015 8:41 pm

How long has she been flying? I would not be surprised if she needed to develop her strength after months of sitting around.

Now would be a good time to potty train your little pilot. Start by giving the act a word that you use every time she relieves herself. In the beginning you will probably have to put her in the cage (now that she is flighted) every 15-20 mins and when she goes, say the word. Shortly she will poop on command (like Pavlov's dogs) and you can set up other spots in other rooms. Birds need to "go" about every 20 mins so until she learns to feel when she is about to potty you will need to take her to a spot BEFORE she lets it go. Trust me there is nothing better than a potty trained bird and nothing worse than a bird flying around the house relieving itself wherever. Using a certain spot is not a natural behavior but parrots are smart enough to learn to do so. My Senegal learned to climb a rope to his cage to potty even before he could fly. The Amazon learned in about a week. My Caique was the most stubborn. We had to make pooping into a big party for almost a year but she eventually complied. Thank god :=) !!! Good luck!
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Re: She excercises a LOT

Postby Wolf » Tue Mar 10, 2015 12:15 am

While it is actually quite easy to potty train most birds, and especially for some of them very tempting to do so, I am not a big fan of potty training my birds.
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