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Outdoor Safe Spot

Discuss topics associated with teaching birds to fly. Training parrots recall flight, target flying, and other flying exercises.

Outdoor Safe Spot

Postby Michael » Tue Aug 31, 2010 5:06 pm

What do you think of training an outdoor safe spot for a flight trained (and most likely outdoor going) parrot? One of the big issues with a parrot that flies out a door or gets lost outside near the house is that it really doesn't know what it's home looks like from outside.

I know indoors my parrots definitely have specific perches that they are very familiar with and go to in case of a panic. What do you think of letting your parrot spend a lot of time on a specific branch, perch, fence, or whatever outside your house (on harness of course) so that it would know of that as a safe place to return to if it were ever to get out?

The reason I ask is because I'm thinking of training my parrots to land on the outside bars of the aviary while wearing a harness when they are not actually in it. This way if for some reason they were to get out somehow or while I was opening it, hopefully they'd just hang out on the outside bars of it.
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Re: Outdoor Safe Spot

Postby Rrrma » Tue Aug 31, 2010 5:20 pm

I think that is a good idea. I mean it can't hurt to teach a harnessed parrot to land in a safety spot.

I'll be posting questions soon when I finally get my harness in the mail this week. I was already considering using my front porch rails as the landing zone for them. I think this would be a good place for them to see and find if they accidentally got out too.
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Re: Outdoor Safe Spot

Postby skeetersunconure » Tue Aug 31, 2010 8:30 pm

:thumbsup:
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Re: Outdoor Safe Spot

Postby Sekica » Tue Aug 31, 2010 8:49 pm

That's a great idea. I did that with one of my tiels. Well, actually, he did it on his own. He learned to go to the front door when he wants to go in. He recognizes our house, and I've tested him from the end of the driveway to see if he knew where the door was. It works since he picked the spot on his own. He also gets excited at the site and sound of our two cars, and has been known to jump into the car that's parked outside so it's another spot that he's comfortable with and pays attention to.
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Re: Outdoor Safe Spot

Postby pchela » Tue Aug 31, 2010 10:12 pm

I agree. It's a great idea to have a safe spot that the bird will hopefully go for if it ever gets out unharnessed. I hope people will read this and use this idea. Only with harnessed birds of course!
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Re: Outdoor Safe Spot

Postby Erithacus » Wed Sep 01, 2010 2:13 am

My Grey gets to play outside the house. She likes to play on the clothes rack and on the gate. And also on my car which is parked outside the gate. We also do recall training on the street outside our house. My Grey recognizes our house.

On one occasion when we came home from an evening walk, I placed her on her stand with the entry door wide open. I set the flightline to about 25ft long and tied to the sofa. I use this method to train her hopefully she would no fly out when she saw an open door. I would leave the door open between 1/2 - 1 hour. So far till today she has never flown out when none of us is outside. On that day, she flew to the fridge in the kitchen watching my wife doing some house chores. Then I had to go out of the house to check on something. On seeing me dashing out of the house, Cocoa flew out trying to follow me but I was already in the street. She landed on the clothes rack and stayed there till I came back. The line was long enough for her to reach the gate but she preferred her favorite clothes rack.

The very 1st time when I did this training, she refused to fly out of the house despite of placing her stand right in front of the door. Then I moved everything out of the house. Surprisingly she flew back into the house.
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Re: Outdoor Safe Spot

Postby Mr.Darcy » Sat Sep 11, 2010 9:57 pm

I saw a video on youtube and they have an outdoor aviary and the budgies fly free and then return to the aviary....
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Re: Outdoor Safe Spot

Postby Kim S » Sat Sep 25, 2010 4:19 pm

Just keep in mind that there are short-distance flyers and long-distance flyers. The long-dinstance flyers usually have long tails and long slender wings. The short-distance flyers have shorter tails and more rounded wings.

If a short-distance flyer gets out, he most likely will stay in the area and eventually return to a safe spot. A long-distance flyer will take off like a rocket on redbull. By the time he gets tired or the excitement wares off, he will be such a long way from home, he wont recognise anything and wont have a clue how to get back home.

Its a good idea, especially for birds who get to fly outside often. But I'm not sure if it will work for the majority.
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