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Unstationary bird

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Unstationary bird

Postby Electic » Mon Jul 02, 2012 4:35 pm

Well I started recall training, I had to hold it off until her feathers grow back in because the same deal happened to me to what happened to you and Kili, but my main problem is keeping her stationary, she'd much rather fly onto my bed and dash to my computer desk, Chris Harris told me that when you're not training, she should be in the cage, why is that? As well as keeping her stationary, it's almost impossible to have her in one place to where she can focus on a single task, I did to the training diet and that's why shes actually willing to start recall training now so basically my main two questions are, why in the cage if not training and why won't she station?
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Re: Unstationary bird

Postby liz » Mon Jul 02, 2012 4:41 pm

Getting out of a cage only for training is like letting a kid out of his room only to go to school. And she does not have a computer or telephone in her cage.
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Re: Unstationary bird

Postby Electic » Mon Jul 02, 2012 4:45 pm

Well that's what I'm saying, Chris' reasoning is since we're flight training her, he wants her out when she's being trained and receive meals in the cage and when she's not training to be in the cage, although he did it's okay for her to come out and interact with the family, but since she has a habit of flying off and doing her own thing, he wants to discourage it.
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Re: Unstationary bird

Postby Electic » Mon Jul 02, 2012 4:47 pm

I used to leave her outside of the cage all day until it was bed time but she did develop a habit of flying on my bed and dashing to my desk or flying off when it wasn't an appropriate time to do so.
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Re: Unstationary bird

Postby marie83 » Mon Jul 02, 2012 5:05 pm

Are you saying you cannot get the bird back in the cage when you want to? or are you saying you just want her to sit in one spot when she is out? Sorry if I'm being a bit slow, lol
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Re: Unstationary bird

Postby Electic » Mon Jul 02, 2012 5:06 pm

When I do want her back in the cage I have to lure her back in with a treat since being in the cage is a whole new thing for her since she was used to being outside on a stand for 11 months of her life, as well as when she is out, I can't get her to be in one spot.
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Re: Unstationary bird

Postby Michael » Mon Jul 02, 2012 5:12 pm

There are a few elements here.

A) Parrots will be parrots. Flying around, playing, following you, evading you, etc are all going to be natural parts of their free will that you must accept.

B) Caging (or otherwise restricting like a room) a flighted parrot will be necessary. If you leave them out all day, they will tear up your house and do whatever they want. By restricting out of cage time, you have a better chance of managing it. If the parrots spends all day out, inevitably you will run out of "stuff" that you can do for your parrot to listen to you. This stuff may include food, treats, petting, attention, and out of cage time. But the parrot only needs so much of each of these. A few hours a day at most. Beyond that, it couldn't care less about you and will do what it wants. Again, you either have to accept this or cage it.

C) Training can be used to teach a bird to spend more time on its perches and to stay until called. I use and recommend [url=parrotwizard.com/Training_Perches]Parrot Training Perches[/url] because if you do all training with them, then the parrot also learns potty training and stationing on them automatically.

In the short term there is nothing you can do to keep your parrot down on an open perch. In the long term you can make them a bit more manageable and establish ways of them coming to you. I will outline a few of them here now:

1) Resource Management and particularly food management (treats). This is a huge topic so I can't explain it all now but essentially it means reserving stuff for the parrot to want from you so that you can offer it to the parrot in return for cooperation.

2) Food reduction management. Now we're talking about food management (whether by food scheduling or weight management) for energy levels. By keeping their weight down a bit is not only healthier but also makes them less hormonal and less hyperactive. We're not talking about starving them. I'm talking about giving them the right amount of food rather than so much that they don't know what to do with themselves cause they have too much energy from being overfed. If you keep food in the cage all day long, I guarantee you the parrot is overfed and is dying to fly off that excess energy.

3) Fly the heck out of the parrot and get it tired. Taking it outside (restrained by harness or carrier) or giving it reason to fly a lot indoors will burn off energy and make it more tired. This kind of bird is more likely to stay put than the hyperactive one that wants to play.

4) Provide toys and fun things to do on stands during non-training times to keep the parrot there rather than searching for adventures. Change the toys frequently. Teach the bird to be toy oriented. Use suitable toys.

5) Take the parrot out midday or whenever it tends to be less active anyway. Mine like to nap midday so even if they are out of cage at that time, they may just nap on their stand anyway despite having freedom to fly.

6) Recall training. The byproduct of long term flight recall training is that the parrot learns to stay. It has taken 2 years to get to this point with Truman but now he will finally stay on his perch and wait for me to call him. You can see him wings ready to go but unlike before, he waits for a while before coming. He has learned that if he comes uncalled, I will just send him back to do it again. So all the times the parrot comes uncalled, it is punished by not getting a treat (negative punishment) and also tires itself out needlessly. Eventually it's tired enough that it doesn't jump the gun but does come when called which is the opportunity to lock in the learning of coming only when called.

Also you can consider keeping a travel cage for the parrot to stay put but nearby at certain times of the day. Harnessing indoors (with nowhere to go but back to perch) is also a possibility to teach it to stay on the stand. You get one of my training perches and clip the leash to it. Keep the stand with enough space on all sides that there is absolutely nowhere else within leash length. This would keep the parrot in range of the stand safely but without clipping the wings. Other times when appropriate it can still get to fly.
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Re: Unstationary bird

Postby Electic » Mon Jul 02, 2012 5:12 pm

my skype is drathikz, I can further explain by talking.
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Re: Unstationary bird

Postby Michael » Mon Jul 02, 2012 5:12 pm

Electic wrote:When I do want her back in the cage I have to lure her back in with a treat since being in the cage is a whole new thing for her since she was used to being outside on a stand for 11 months of her life, as well as when she is out, I can't get her to be in one spot.


http://TrainedParrot.com/Caging
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Re: Unstationary bird

Postby Electic » Mon Jul 02, 2012 5:22 pm

I've recently started the food management, I mainly am training her flight recall now, I give her sunflowers whenever she flies to me and put her back on her playstand to finish eating them, once she loses interest and is starting to get full, I put her in the cage by luring her in with a sunflower and get her food ready, then I leave the food in the cage for an hour or so and proceed taking it out, repeat at night, this certainly upped her motivation but once she is getting full, Chris advises to put her back into the cage so she doesn't roam freely and tears everything up on my desk.

Another thing, she is phobic to going outside, I'm not sure why because I took her out with me all the time when she was a baby so she wouldn't be afraid outside, her playstand was near a window as well to get her used to being outside, so taking her out midday is not in her best interest although I loved taking her out when she was a baby, now that she is being caged whenever she is full, she has a very heart breaking way of showing me she wants out, she waddles around on the bottom of the cage even though she has loads of toys she can play with in the cage, she does eventually give up and play with her toys but then she'll try again.

I'm only on the 4th day of food management and flight recall so she has improved significantly, my main goal is to be able to take her out but I don't know how to approach taking her out with her being phobic outside.
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Electic
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Location: California
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Flight: Yes


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