Quiz me: Am I ready for flight?

[sora no tori]

Hello there!
Anyone who saw my intro will already know this, but in about one week now, I'll be adding a new member to my small be loving flock. A named Conrad. Now, the thing about Conrad is that I have specifically ordered that he not be clipped. I'll be able to adjust my profile soon but the thing is, I've never had a fully flighted bird before. Logan came to me clipped (because apparently "don't clip that bird" sounded an awful lot like, "clip just one of his wings, because I want a bird who will be so klutzy that I won't have to worry about clipping him again because his feathers won't quit breaking." An honest mistake, I'm sure. Sorry for the ranting tangent). So, Conrad will be my first fully flighted bird. I'm very excited about his, but at the same time, I'm worried that I'll make some dire mistake. I've done a sh** ton of research, I've spent hours looking around my apartment for birdie dangers and death traps, but all the same, it's no substitute for experience. I was hoping that some of you flighted bird people could throw some pointers my way, or better yet, shoot me a couple of scenarios to see if I can reason through some of the challenges ahead. Much appreciated!

[Michael]

Honestly, I think anyone who keeps a clipped parrot in a home that isn't suited for a flighted parrot is putting their clipped parrot at high risk. So I would say properly done, the precautions would be identical.

The big ones to look for:

-Keep all doors/windows closed when bird is out
-Disable all open and ceiling fans permanently
-Cage bird during any cooking
-Don't leave anything out that you cannot possibly have ruined
-Check all indoor plants for compatibility
-Put away anything that could be considered toxic to a bird
-Hide all food. I repeat, do not leave any food out or it will be snatched
-Keep doors closed, especially bathroom
-Be careful when closing any doors when bird is out in case it lands on top or tries to fly through
-Don't have carnivorous pets in the vicinity or within access to bird
-Don't have other birds in the cage that flighted bird has access to. Either everyone is out and flighted or different rooms

-Do provide plenty of bird designated perching opportunities
-Keep lots of toys and auto-rewards on the bird areas
-Give attention and reward the bird for being in bird areas
-Ignore the parrot when it lands in inappropriate areas

Always supervise out of cage time because you can never be sure of what new ways the bird can find to hurt itself. During the early stages, expect it to crash into things and learn the layout. If the bird is young enough this won't be too bad. Covering windows with blinds during the earlier stages is not a bad idea. But if the bird is young enough, it will bounce off a window a couple of times and learn its lesson.

Last but not least, don't take tameness for granted. If the bird is young, tame, and lets you hold it now, don't assume it won't fly away later on. Avoid punishment, use taming, training, and positive reinforcement. Always maintain a positive relationship and give the reasons for the bird to want to step up or fly to you. Begin flight training as soon as possible and continue maintaining that training for life. You can take a look through the early articles on my blog about how I got my first never-clipped parrot:

http://TrainedParrot.com/sitemap.php

And these articles should be helpful too:

http://TrainedParot.com/Taming
http://TrainedParrot.com/Recall

Finally, you asked to quiz you. So you have a Cockatiel and you're getting a Senegal Parrot. What are you going to do when the Senegal grows up and wants nothing more than to kill your Cockatiel and uses flight to attempt to do so?

[sora no tori]

-Keep all doors/windows closed when bird is out
-Disable all open and ceiling fans permanently
-Cage bird during any cooking
-Don't leave anything out that you cannot possibly have ruined
-Check all indoor plants for compatibility
-Put away anything that could be considered toxic to a bird
-Hide all food. I repeat, do not leave any food out or it will be snatched
-Keep doors closed, especially bathroom
-Be careful when closing any doors when bird is out in case it lands on top or tries to fly through
-Don't have carnivorous pets in the vicinity or within access to bird
-Don't have other birds in the cage that flighted bird has access to. Either everyone is out and flighted or different rooms

-Do provide plenty of bird designated perching opportunities
-Keep lots of toys and auto-rewards on the bird areas
-Give attention and reward the bird for being in bird areas
-Ignore the parrot when it lands in inappropriate areas

Always supervise out of cage time because you can never be sure of what new ways the bird can find to hurt itself. During the early stages, expect it to crash into things and learn the layout. If the bird is young enough this won't be too bad. Covering windows with blinds during the earlier stages is not a bad idea. But if the bird is young enough, it will bounce off a window a couple of times and learn its lesson.

Last but not least, don't take tameness for granted. If the bird is young, tame, and lets you hold it now, don't assume it won't fly away later on. Avoid punishment, use taming, training, and positive reinforcement. Always maintain a positive relationship and give the reasons for the bird to want to step up or fly to you. Begin flight training as soon as possible and continue maintaining that training for life. You can take a look through the early articles on my blog about how I got my first never-clipped parrot:

-All windows will remain closed. The bird will be in my bedroom and allowed in the living area only if all members of the household are in and plan to stay in.
-ceiling fans are disabled
-If the stove is on or hot, he'll be in his cage. Period.
-I have no indoor plants
-bathroom door will, toilet seat is always down.
If the bird is out, I will make sure I know exactly where he is.
-There will be no carnivorous pets
I recognize that no matter how tame my bird is, it is a prey animal whose instinct is to flee from danger by taking flight. If he is outside, he'll have a harness on. I intend to have a solid chuck of recall training under my belt before I attempt to bring him on any trips.

[sora no tori]

Finally, you asked to quiz you. So you have a Cockatiel and you're getting a Senegal Parrot. What are you going to do when the Senegal grows up and wants nothing more than to kill your Cockatiel and uses flight to attempt to do so?

Good. Nice and brutal. And to think, I was worried you'd go easy on me.
To be honest, I'm not sure if I'll be able to answer this to your liking, but here I go:
Because Conrad is young, I'll probably try to desensitize him to Logan much like you did for Kili and Truman. But, I recognize that senegals undergo a change where they become considerably more aggressive. When Conrad is out, he will not be able to access Logan's cage. Perhaps I'll just never let them out at the same time. I'm not sure. Desensitization seems to have worked reasonably well for your birds, but your case is pretty different from mine. In both cases, the senegal is the antagonist, but because of truman's size and superior flight skills, while kili could possibly hurt him, the odds of Conrad hurting Logan are much greater. After all, Conrad only needs to land one blow successfully. Either way, they will never be left out at the same time unattended. That's the best I've got, so hurry and tell me my grave error so that I can correct it.

[Michael]

Well you won't know until it gets to that stage. You could get lucky and tame/train them to like each other from early on and things never get bad. But you need to be prepared for the worst. Worst case scenario is that one bird can be out at a time and the caged bird must be in a different room. This is to prevent the out bird (cockatiel or senegal) from landing on the other's cage and having an attack through bars. Obviously work toward socialization and avoiding this but it is still possible that instinct trumps learning.

I have a very hard time balancing my two being out together. Sometimes it's totally fine and nothing happens and other times Kili just wants to attack Truman. The other problem is that half the time Truman is asking for it by landing in her areas and not going away when she makes it clear she's going to attack if he doesn't. It's best to have two birds that get along or that stay completely away from each other. The worst is two stubborn ones who won't back down cause that leads to fighting.

Also, if there are other members of the household of visitors, it is important to tell them about what to do and what not to do. Like it is important they don't freak out if the bird just flies over and lands on them. The more bad experiences the bird has with other people, the more it will generalize and not like new people down the line.

[sora no tori]

First, let me thank you for your help and advice on this matter. It will have to be touch and go, I suppose. The nice thing about Conrad, is the person caring for him till he's weaned has him in a cage, in a room full of baby cockatiel, conures, and ringneck (please God, don't let him start imitating the conure shriek) so he is already being exposed to a plethora of other birds, and all sorts of different people. So, in theory, I just need to keep up the training that's already started.

Also, if there are other members of the household of visitors, it is important to tell them about what to do and what not to do. Like it is important they don't freak out if the bird just flies over and lands on them.

This is very true, and it's going to be a bit challenging, I think. After all, the more people I introduce Logan to, the more I realize how little experience the general public has with birds in general; let alone flighted birds. I can' tell you how many times, I've asked a curious onlooker if they'd like to hold him, a perfectly tame cockatiel, only to see them shrink away and say, "No way! He'll bite me!"

[sora no tori]

Well, for anyone who is still paying attention to this feed, I'm bringing Conrad home this Friday. I'm glad it's so soon. The woman who has been handfeeding him is fed up with him, and fed up with me because of my stubborn refusal to let her clip him. Apparently, she hasn't been letting him out of his cage very often because all he wants to do is fly (surprise surprise) and she can't control him in the store. I'm upset by this, but it's only for two more days, then he can fly crazy laps if he wants to. I'm guessing if that's how he's been treated since he started to fly, I'll have more taming to do than I originally thought. Guess we'll see. Wish me luck.

[Mum2rory]

I will wish you "Good Luck" Hope it all goes well.

[Jenny]

he'll settle down once he has the freedom to do as he wishes (transportation-wise). My tiel only does laps every once in a while, & it usually seems like he's just doing it for the fun of it. Kinda like "woo-hoo, look at me go!"

Good for you on not backing down w/your desire to keep him flighted. Enjoy!

[Erithacus]

I am lucky that my grey accepts my tiels as her new house mates.