What size Aviator harness for a GCC?

[marie83]

Don't worry too much about the body straps, they are fully adjustable and will go as tight as needed, it wont sit wonky either as it feeds through the neck collar at both ends so you can get an equal amount of strapping both sides of the body.

[rebcart]

my only concern about this part is that a number of us who are trying to get our GCCs used to a harness have older birds. Mine will be 6 this year... what do you guys think about getting an older bird used to the "tight fit over the head" part?

Well my girl is ~3 or 4 (rehome), and she's going ok. Of course, it's pretty much the only thing she gets sunflower seeds for these days, that helps a lot.

First I balled up most of the harness in my hand so that only the collar loops stuck out, and touched those loops to her beak, click + treat for calmness. Once she got used to that, I held up the harness with one hand and used the other hand to target (with the tip of the target stick going through the collar). Then, on successive targets I slowly put the target stick through the collar less and less, until she had to touch the collar with her beak while reaching for the stick.

Then I just made sure to click for touching the collar with her beak, even before she got to the stick, and then progressively click for sticking her head an extra millimetre in each time (no target stick required any more). Now all I have to do is hold up the harness in front of her and she sticks her head in, and if she's having trouble she'll grab the harness with her foot so she can shove her head in faster! Ah, the wonders of sunflower seeds and a well-timed clicker. I'll see if I can take a video to show you guys how it looks tonight.

[friend2parrots]

I hope it's not an issue considering Nika is six or seven now and is only just now getting any type of training and beginning to get accustomed to the harness. I'm working on getting her used to sticking her head halfway through the loop right now. She's not super keen on it but I think we'll get there eventually.

I have the same concern. Mine will be 7 in just over a week so I'm not sure he'll ever tolerate a tight loop around his neck or a harness on his body but I'm going to use clicker training to at least give it a try.I don't worry about him learning something new at his age---he just learned how to put little colored pegs in a small white box and that only took 5 days---but rather I worry about him physically tolerating something as constraining as a harness on his body.

I share your concerns and hopes, guys! i've always believed that a parrot of any age can learn anything that a baby bird can learn - its just going to take it longer, and will be a greater test on its comfort level. and i agree that clicker training will be a powerful tool to getting the bird used to tolerating the harness - because andromeda is right, its not just a question of learning - parrots of any age can learn anything - its a question of whether they will tolerate something that they don't need to tolerate. i think that explains why so many birds accept harness training placidly as babies, and then grow up to dislike it. its something that one must constantly keep training the bird to tolerate, until it becomes rewarding for its own sake i guess... and even then you have to still reward, and always keep positively reinforcing to maintain success.

Don't worry too much about the body straps, they are fully adjustable and will go as tight as needed, it wont sit wonky either as it feeds through the neck collar at both ends so you can get an equal amount of strapping both sides of the body.

its good to know that the fitting is smooth once its on!

We've only gone as far as getting her to stick her head in on her own, and now am slowly working on making her stay in it for more than 3 seconds at a time so taking her outside is a long way off yet.

this is so cool! 3 seconds is an EXTREMELY LONG TIME for GCCs to do anything! congratulations!

First I balled up most of the harness in my hand so that only the collar loops stuck out, and touched those loops to her beak, click + treat for calmness. Once she got used to that, I held up the harness with one hand and used the other hand to target (with the tip of the target stick going through the collar). Then, on successive targets I slowly put the target stick through the collar less and less, until she had to touch the collar with her beak while reaching for the stick.Then I just made sure to click for touching the collar with her beak, even before she got to the stick, and then progressively click for sticking her head an extra millimetre in each time (no target stick required any more).

thanks for outlining this procedure!

Now all I have to do is hold up the harness in front of her and she sticks her head in, and if she's having trouble she'll grab the harness with her foot so she can shove her head in faster! Ah, the wonders of sunflower seeds and a well-timed clicker. I'll see if I can take a video to show you guys how it looks tonight.

grabbing the harness with her foot so she can shove her head in faster?! TOO CUTE!! leave it to GCCs to try and overdo things just to get a treat! congratulations on such progress! and please do post the video - i would be delighted to watch it!

[marie83]

You guys are really making me want to crack on with the harness training, not gunna happen though as Ollie was screaming the place down last night.
I would love nothing more if both birds were fully recovered and if Ols was harness trained in time for summer (if we actually get a summer lol) but I suspect it wont be til next summer now as I need to rebuild the trust before I can even start.

[friend2parrots]

I'm sorry to hear that Ollie is screaming again, marie

I would love nothing more if both birds were fully recovered and if Ols was harness trained in time for summer (if we actually get a summer lol) but I suspect it wont be til next summer now as I need to rebuild the trust before I can even start.

I'm in the exact same boat! i have a lot of trust-building to work on with RIngo. Even though he doesn't bite anymore, he does have a short fuse that I have to watch for when I cuddle him. otherwise he can get nippy. From what I've seen in Michael's harness training videos, one of the essential components to successful harness training is being able to handle the birds entire body, wings, neck region, legs, etc. before you even begin training. at this point, the only thing I can do with Ringo is cup him in my hand and give him neck and head scritches. his wings and feet are currently off limits. i anticipate its going to take me a year to be able to handle him the way i would need to to even begin actual harness training. but that's ok, i'm willing to wait, because theres no point trying now only to have it all backfire (that can easily happen if the bird is not "conditioned" to accept full body handling)

that said, however, i do plan to get the custom-made harness as soon as possible, so that I can have it lying around near Ringo, so he can get used to seeing it, so it can be "nearby" when we are doing other fun things. that will hopefully make the training easier.

[marie83]

You may well find the touch taming comes along really quickly if he is already cuddly. Ollie pushes his little body right into my hand so whilst he was doing that I used my other hand to touch the edge of his wing for a split second, then rewarded, increased the time fraction by fraction, then started running my finger along the edge of the front of the wing and gradually increased how far along I ran my finger. After that I put my finger slightly under the wing and lifted a tiny fraction. by the end of the first session he would allow me to lift the wing by applying gentle pressure on the underside. By the end of the second or 3rd session I could stretch out both wings fully.

Oh btw, I had to do the same process for both wings but the second wing was much faster to train.

The good news with Ollie is that altough he was doing his "in pain" scream last night, alot more severely than normal, there is no damage to his skin and no apparent feather loss. I was terrified as to what I was going to find this morning

[Eurycerus]

The good news with Ollie is that altough he was doing his "in pain" scream last night, alot more severely than normal, there is no damage to his skin and no apparent feather loss. I was terrified as to what I was going to find this morning

Aw poor baby. I'm glad his skin at least looks okay. Just a thought because I have a chronic pain condition, and that made me think that animals could too. So humans can get neuropathic pain that has no cause per se, meaning there is technically no damage or disease causing it. Or that the cause, such as physical trauma has long since passed but the brain continues to send pain signals (neuropathic pain is considered similar and treated similarly to migraines and chronic back pain). Do you think it's possible with Ollie? You've done so much to try to find and treat the cause it makes me wonder if you have but he's still getting pain signals. I'm skeptical vets would even consider this considering how difficult it can be to identify it in humans much less animals.

[marie83]

The good news with Ollie is that altough he was doing his "in pain" scream last night, alot more severely than normal, there is no damage to his skin and no apparent feather loss. I was terrified as to what I was going to find this morning

Aw poor baby. I'm glad his skin at least looks okay. Just a thought because I have a chronic pain condition, and that made me think that animals could too. So humans can get neuropathic pain that has no cause per se, meaning there is technically no damage or disease causing it. Or that the cause, such as physical trauma has long since passed but the brain continues to send pain signals (neuropathic pain is considered similar and treated similarly to migraines and chronic back pain). Do you think it's possible with Ollie? You've done so much to try to find and treat the cause it makes me wonder if you have but he's still getting pain signals. I'm skeptical vets would even consider this considering how difficult it can be to identify it in humans much less animals.

Its a good theory but doesn't explain Harlies discomfort either though. If you have any more ideas or comments could you add it to the thread on the health board. I don't wish to take over this topic with my parrots health problems.

[Andromeda]

From what I've seen in Michael's harness training videos, one of the essential components to successful harness training is being able to handle the birds entire body, wings, neck region, legs, etc. before you even begin training. at this point, the only thing I can do with Ringo is cup him in my hand and give him neck and head scritches. his wings and feet are currently off limits.

This is exactly how Bubba is. I can cup him in my hand and scratch his head and neck but if I try to touch or manipulate his wings or tail or feet he starts nipping. If I press him he will keep nipping but it turns into biting if I don't stop.

I've done a little work on handling with him and had small progress. It used to be that he would only let me cup my hand around him if he was in a cuddly mood, otherwise he would nip. I used training perches and positive reinforcement to get him to tolerate it at any time without nipping. My next step is to work on touching his wings but I gave the "taming" a short rest so I could teach fetch.

He does like to push his body into my hand like Ollie so I might try Marie's approach to acclimate him to his wings being touched and moved.

[Eurycerus]

I guess that's a GCC thing. Nika is not cuddly and in general doesn't ask for head scritches or anything. She also quickly gets all hormonal if I mess with her in a friendly way at all and it's not training for treats. :/ However, she fairly easily accepted me lifting up her wings. I did much the same thing as what Marie did except she was just standing on her perch. At first I just worked on touching her back or outside of her wing and then worked up to sticking a finger gently under her armpit and worked up to grasping her wing and pulling it up. Anything for treats! :]