by Kathleen » Thu Apr 22, 2010 12:41 pm
I used to have a budgie named Duke and he died prematurely. Before his death, he grew back a few of his flight feathers and he could fly. He couldn't gain height but he was able to fly a long distance (also I think he used the ground effect to his advantage) and would glide as well.
Throughout Duke's entire time with me, he would fly off to go toward his cage. As he grew in a few flight feathers, he continued to fly off toward his cage and he would get closer and closer to it, but he was never able to fly to it (because he wasn't fully flighted and couldn't gain height to reach it) so he would land on the floor near it.
I would go and get him and bring him back. Sometimes when I brought him back, it would be okay and I could continue to train him, but most of the time he would just keep flying back toward his cage again and again.
You can't stop the bird from flying off. Budgies have a short attention span, are hyper, and have a fast metabolism (these qualities are beneficial for wild budgies but may not be for one that you want to train).
Here's what you can do:
If it's possible, train the bird in a room where it has no place to go, and if you can, go in a room with nothing in it besides perches for the bird to fly to. If there is nothing else to land on, then it probably won't fly anywhere else.
Limit the training sessions. Do a few short training sessions rather than just one long session. Maybe do training for 10 minutes, and then take a 10 minute break. Then, do another 10 minute session, and so on.