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Indoor free-fliers: what is your home environment?

Discuss indoor freeflight and managing freeflighted birds around the house. How to live with a flighted parrot.

Re: Indoor free-fliers: what is your home environment?

Postby oknuma » Tue Mar 23, 2010 7:27 pm

i have had clipped birds in the past and flighted.
batman came to us injured but has since grown in wings and flying and for her I would have it no other way.

Home for us a is a small space.
you come in our front door and are instantly facing down the stairs, the dining area, kitchen and lounge/computer nook all at the same time. Off the lounge is our master bedroom and ensuite and down the stairs are another 2 bedrooms, a massive play area ( gym for me and bandroom for hubby ) and bathroom laundry. It is quite narrow but long and has windows everywhere that have decals on them so that batman can see them clearly. ( Michael I love the sound of your place but could not bring myself to live somewhere with so few windows!)

Batmans Cage is in a very small space between the computer nook and the dining table and downstairs in the play area she has a stand with toys /foraging for her to be on while i work out.

In our small space we have two adults, two children (8 and 4) and Sir Guiness the cat.

Even with batman flighted it works well for us though. She gets out of cage time in the afternoon and evenings which is when the cat has outside time. All doors and windows are locked and the kids have been taught not to open doors without asking. We dont necessarily bird proof out things but batman is 100% supervised when out and I find just like with the kids redirection is a big thing when needed.
~~Oknuma - mum to two human kids, 1 feathered kid and one furry kid~~
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Re: Indoor free-fliers: what is your home environment?

Postby Manziboy » Wed Apr 14, 2010 10:55 am

My apartment is quite small and Manzi is flighted. I have a large room (living/dining/kitchen) which has Manzi's cage and my computer. Manzi's cage is open nearly all day as I do most of my work at home on my computer. He never flies into windows and when I take him to a new place, I show him the windows so it has been a long time (years) since he's flown into one. At my sister's place, he flew into a huge mirror she has, but that was only because I don't have mirrors (just a bathroom one) so he had no idea about it.

I do all my cooking and food preparation with Manzi on my shoulder or on a nearby chair. He can definitely get into trouble, so I never leave him unsupervised for more than a few minutes. If I go into another room Manzi nearly always follows me, so he is never out and by himself anyway.

I have no ceiling fans, but I have heard of people who do have ceiling fans with flighted birds and the birds have learned to avoid them.

Manzi doesn't spend any more time in his cage due to being flighted. He is a very energetic bird and always getting into trouble, so he is frequently in time out (which is really just a break for me), but that was the case when he was clipped too. The advantage is that now when he gets into trouble I tell him to "go home" and he can immediately fly to his cage instead of taking several minutes walking over and climbing up.

I had a fish tank and Manzi was interested at first. He would fly to the top edge and reach in trying to get my turtle or fish, but after removing him a couple of times, he never did it again. I no longer have the tank, but I still have a land tortoise. Manzi leaves him alone, but when the tortoise is walking around, he will peer down at him from his cage or play stand.
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Re: Indoor free-fliers: what is your home environment?

Postby meowingaround » Tue Oct 12, 2010 5:05 pm

If I had been thinking clearly I might not have added two kittens to my family but I never had any real trouble with my older boys,( Windy in fact was allowed out of his cage downstairs all day everyday for a long while till he refused to have any part of the cage and insisted on being on me ALL day. He wasn't going back to his cage for food, he never played he would just sit on me, demanding attention.He never sang, or did anything more than put his head down and nip my face when he wasn't getting loved, so the cats really had nothing to do with my decision to cage him more)

One morning a few weeks ago I woke up and heard Windys fearful screech and when I came downstairs I found his cage toppled from it's stand onto the floor bottom off kittens inside chasing Windy.
Windy was moved upstairs to my bedroom, with tv, windows and a walk in closet his cage goes in at night.

I'm actually thinking freeflying would be safer for him with the cats. Right now the cats and birds are having a break from each other until I figure out if there's a way to anchor the cages to the wall so they can return downstairs.

The kittens are still very young ,only 6 months, so I will work with them more on no bird as they grow and get a little calmer. They weren't a problem till the last couple months when they reached that stage where they actually are mastering their balance and hunting ability.


I started clicker training with Windy today and he's a very smart bird, am using millet as it's his absolutely favorite thing.

I have tons of work to do with both the cats and the birds o_0
“Be like the bird that, pausing in her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing that she hath wings.” Victor Hugo
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Re: Indoor free-fliers: what is your home environment?

Postby entrancedbymyGCC » Tue Oct 12, 2010 5:17 pm

Manziboy wrote:I do all my cooking and food preparation with Manzi on my shoulder or on a nearby chair.


Have you never had a scare doing this? I'm not criticizing, but it just seems more risky than I'd personally choose, even with a bird not technically flighted (Even a heavily clipped bird could get startled and come off the shoulder and drop like a rock into a pot). I'm pretty sure Scooter, who isn't flighted but who can certainly flutter a few feet, would get startled by some noise and wind up on a burner or in a pot. I have a morning ritual of "making breakfast" with Scooter, and even with just a small cutting board and a paring knife, I am very, very cautious. Actually preparing our food, I can't imagine having the birds in the immediate environment. In addition worry about smoke and strong odors from cooking and irritants from preparing stuff like chilies that can make me cough in addition to the danger of the stove itself. But I am pretty into cooking and I use noisy tools and hot pans.. and most of my attention would be on the cooking and not the bird.
Scooter :gcc:
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Re: Indoor free-fliers: what is your home environment?

Postby zazanomore » Tue Oct 12, 2010 7:45 pm

Michael wrote:I'd like to present a bit about my layout which you may have noticed in some of my videos. I made a representitive drawing which is by no means accurate or to scale but just to get the picture

Image

My situation is probably ideal for a flying pet. With a few break out areas, for the most part my apartment is all one big room 18'x60'. The ceiling is like 12ft high and flat with embedded lights so it really couldn't be easier in that way. There are windows only at opposite ends (front/back) but they are always closed and with the shades drawn. Living in a big city it's the only way to have privacy and darkness at night. There is only one door to come in/out and there is a second door at the bottom of the stair case. Thus there is no chance of the parrot just flying out the front door. Even if both doors were open, it would take a very unlikely circumstance for her to fly DOWN a staircase and out both doors to get out.

Kili's cage is located in a little alcove that is visually separated from my living area which is toward the top of the drawing. This allows for sufficient privacy time without the bird, however, noise travels quite easily. my air conditioner is located where the red mark at the top of the drawing is so it circulate cold air straight down the room (approx the same as bird flight path line). However, the cage is nicely placed out of the draft because it is right around that corner.

Kili spends the majority of her out of cage time (90%+) on places specially for her. Two of these are the flight training stands I made. Another is the spiral boing stand I made. She also goes on the climbing tree near my computer/tv. Lastly she goes on top of her cage. All of these stands have a newspaper underneath to collect poop. I'd say that she is 95% potty trained and most of the time will fly off to go to a stand to take a poop (and I never formally trained this). To clippers, how's that for a reason to keep your parrot flighted :mrgreen:

I have rugs under all the areas the parrot spends her time in. I was afraid of getting the carpet ruined and rugs can more easily be replaced on a regular basis. However, since she mostly poops on her stands, the rugs have been doing better than I expected. However, the excessive vacuuming they get still justifies them over rubbing the carpet out quicker.

For flight and recall training the best feature is a straight line of sight flight of 60 feet from one end of the room to the other. This helps me train longer distance flights and give the bird a lot of exercise.

While my home environment is particularly ideal for flight, I could still imagine having a flighted parrot in other households. I've flown Kili at other people's houses that are by no means bird proofed and she did fine. So I know that even in a less ideal household I could still have a flighted parrot.



Your home, it's toiletless.
Bonnie - :budgie2:
Clyde - :budgie:
Einstein - :greycockatiel:
Alyssa - :thumbsup:
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Re: Indoor free-fliers: what is your home environment?

Postby entrancedbymyGCC » Wed Oct 20, 2010 10:14 pm

zazanomore wrote:
Your home, it's toiletless.


ROTFLMAO!
Scooter :gcc:
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Re: Indoor free-fliers: what is your home environment?

Postby born2fly » Fri Oct 22, 2010 12:54 am

zazanomore wrote:Your home, it's toiletless.


I beg to differ, Michael clearly states there are extra carpet rugs and newspapers for poop :D
"If man can save the parrots, he may yet save himself"
Mike Reynolds, World Parrot Trust Founder
http://www.parrots.org
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Re: Indoor free-fliers: what is your home environment?

Postby a.susz » Thu Nov 04, 2010 7:12 pm

born2fly wrote:
zazanomore wrote:Your home, it's toiletless.


I beg to differ, Michael clearly states there are extra carpet rugs and newspapers for poop :D



:lol:
-Annaleza- and--
Peanut , the sennie
Baby, the red belly
Odin, the bronze wing pi
Loki, the bronze wing pi our new addition :)
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Re: Indoor free-fliers: what is your home environment?

Postby TheNzJessie » Mon Jan 10, 2011 10:15 pm

entrancedbymyGCC wrote:
zazanomore wrote:
Your home, it's toiletless.


ROTFLMAO!



LOL this is make me chuckel!
Qwil-:budgie:
Jango-:rainbow:
Jessie-ME
:)
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Re: Indoor free-fliers: what is your home environment?

Postby Margaret » Thu Feb 24, 2011 4:49 am

I used to have different animals in my life: dogs, cat, hamsters, guinea pig and for the last 9 years bunny. Every pet give me some lesson and for example my bunny treated his cage only for food and water and toilet sometimes.
After couple of years thinking that I have bunny-proof apartment, he disconnected me from Internet by chewing wires ;) When I realized that, first what I checked was my bunny and later we bought some isolation for wires. One year he jumped on Christmas tree, thank goodness bunnies can run fast, I learned another lesson.
My budgies have their cage and they also treat it like some kind of furniture only, which offers them water and food. They even sleep outside on a hanging near-by spiral-rope. Like I mentioned, all the wires are covered and we are careful about any water containers, toilet seat is always closed. They don't touch my flowers, Christmas Tree is only in the bedroom, where doors are closed and birds are not allowed to be.
After Lemonade passed out last year, we knew we have to find some companion for Mango(since Blues and Coco was already bonded). Our friends had about 1 yer old budgie and they seem no interested, we suggest them that in our place he gonna be much happier. We took cute budgie, who never in his life was able to fly(wings clipped).
Beginning was terrible for him- we start calling him Plum- he couldn't join the rest of Monsters because he couldn't fly. Our budgies are allowed to fly free any time, so we couldn't close them in the cage suddenly.
I didn't have a choice but putting Plum cage on the floor and let him walk/jump anytime. At the beginning it was heartbreaking watching him desperately climbing to the rest of budgies. Slowly, slowly his wings was growing. Now he joined the crew, he can fly half of the room only, so he try to fly, climb, jump to get to the rest of budgies. Soon he will be fully able to fly, and by watching Plum, I learned that birds have their wings to use them.

I can only write about :budgie: :budgie: :budgie: :budgie:
I don't know what I would do with the birds size like: :cockatoo: or :macaw:
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