Teaching a preot to fly, or will they learn themselves?

[Hamzah_khan]

Well my african grey baby is growing like crazy, he has all of his feathers now and has started to flap his wings like crazy. He hovers on your hand or on the pirch flapping. Do I need to do anything to get him to try flying or should I just leave him to flap and practice himself? I'm trying not to do anything cause I know that if he flies he could get hurt and I don't want that to happen. Any precautions I can take so if he does take off he doesn't hurt himself? Thanks for the help, and sorry for all the questions :p all help is greatly appreciated!

[Hamzah_khan]

*parrot
lol topic failure xD

[Wolf]

I would let him flap and practice, at some point he will tae the chance and let go and attempt to fly. He is going to crash sometimes while he is learning control. You may be able to use lower perches so he is closer to ground level, you might make windows more visible so that he doesn't try to fly through them. Blankets and curtains and sheets hung a few inches from walls will provide some cushion for crashes. He is built to withstand some crashes, so don't make a big deal over a crash, do check him out after a crash to make sure that he isn't hurt, but try to keep it low key. Fix him if he hurts himself but, otherwise set him up to try again.

[Hamzah_khan]

Ok cool, thank you so much C:

[Pajarita]

I've never had a baby parrot of a medium or large species so I have no personal experience with this but I do have lots on passerines and a bit on smaller parrot species and, going by what I've seen, they really don't crash at all. They practice and exercise their muscles as you have seen him doing and, one day, they just let go and take off flying. They start by taking short flights which are more coasting than anything else although they do flap their wings and, although they don't actually crash to the floor, their landings are not graceful because they are a bit clumsy at the beginning, but they seem to instinctively know this and will take care not to crash. And, as they practice more and more and get better at it, they become more adventurous.