Important reminder!

Today we had a bit of a scare.
Our Alex regularly sits on the top of his cage. For 3 years he's safely sat there without a problem... Until today... He flew away! After a few hours of searching, he was about 400 meters away.
It was because he has just moulted and his flight feathers grew back.

PLEASE, ALL NEW ALEX OWNERS, get their wings clipped after every moult. He has been so well behaved for years, and it was just a silly mistake that we forgot to get him clipped soon after he moulted.
Luckily he's back now and safe.
Please don't make the same mistake that we did; when their wings grow back, they DO get curious and they WILL test their boundaries by flying, especially being that they're so smart.

Take care, and don't let your Alex get lost to the wild.

Or, even better, work on their recall training every single day so that if they do get out they will hear your voice and come to you!

Our neighborhood is full of cats (including mine) and I shudder to imagine my gorgeous green Beaks flopping around on the ground with cats stalking them.

I wouldn't want them flying around either as hawk bait. I know someone that lost their bird to a hawk.

Betrisher said:

Or, even better, work on their recall training every single day so that if they do get out they will hear your voice and come to you!

Click to expand...

Thanks.
I don't exactly know how to do recall training, especially for clipped birds.
If he flies down, he always comes straight to us. But if they get startled and fly over the fence, I don't know how the recall training helps

Recall training a bird is essentially the same idea as teaching a dog to come on command. Each time the bird flies to you, you reward them. With birds, this can be a little more difficult, since they have an added dimension - flight.

Even clipped birds could take off if they have enough stamina and/or if there is enough wind, so clipping is no guarantee that they'll remain safer outside.

Hawks and falcons will even take birds off of peoples shoulders, so again, having a clipped bird on your shoulder is no guarantee of safety.

One thing that a flighted bird will have that a clipped bird wont have much of, is the potential possibility to evade danger. A flighted bird could still be captured by a predator, or even hit by a car, but likewise, they are less likely to become stranded on the ground where they can't escape ground predators or stuck in a tear unable to evade air predators.


There are pros and cons to each side. Here's information about flight training/recall training and some ways to prepare your home for a flighted bird.


Here's some links that may help.

The most Important skill to train

Carly Lu’s Flight Blog Recall Training | Carly Lu's Flight Blog (a lot of links in this one worth reading!)

Avian Training and Flight Instruction | Article Posts ~ The BLOG | LibertyWings.com (even if not flight training specifically, Chris Biro always has some great advice! He also has a skype class he uses to teach owners how to recall their birds)

Free Parrots - Basic flight training for companion parrots to remove the need for wing-clipping Greg Glendell talks about some good basic commands to teach a flighted bird


Not very familiar with this website but it appears good

Flying Macaws: Recall Training


I don't necessarily agree with the clipping part, but this article does have some good recommendations

Flight Training for the Clumsy Parrot




However, if you do recall train your parrot, you can't expect him to remain recalled while outside. Unlike children, what parrots learn "in the classroom" doesn't always equate out to "the real world". Once a parrot is trained in recall indoors, you must then find a quiet place outside with the bird in a harness and recall outdoors if the bird is calm. Once the bird is accustomed to that, find a somewhat busier area and start recalling. Once the bird has accomplished that, find an even busier area to recall your bird from.


Even if you never plan on free-flying your bird, the basic concepts of teaching free-flight to an indoor bird could potentially save you the hassle of your bird escaping outside, freaking out and flying off, or "getting stuck in a tree", or in other words, 'freezing' and refusing to obey commands.



I've worked on some recall training with one of my conures, and I plan to do the same with my second. Both are flighted and I refuse to clip them. If they get outside and lost, then it's my fault, not theirs. I will not punish my birds for my own stupidity. If it happens, then I should have been more diligent with their safety. That's how I feel about it.