To harness or not to harness?

Hi There

After our recent dramas with Diesel, and his night out on the treetops (when his wings had supposedly been clipped by the experts only two weeks prior!) I was wondering if any of you had any thoughts or advice on bird harnesses?

We would really only take him into the back yard / around the garden etc. and I don't want him to miss out on some outside time and sun as we are nearing our beautiful summer here in NZ.

Every time we go out the back onto the deck (without him recently )He always 'peeps' out to us flapping his wings and calling out loudly every word in his vocab, obviously dying to be out there with us.

We are going back to the 'experts' today and having his wings 're-visited' but I am a little gun-shy now...how long should a decent clip really last?

Do harnesses stress the birds? is it easy to train them to like them? What are the best ones? If we don't do a harness, and stay with clipped wings will he keep trying to take off again and potentially hurt himself?

Any advice gratefully received.

Hi!
First of all, although I love alexandrines, I have no experience with them at all. But, I would imagine they wouldn't be too much different to harness train than other birds.


I love having Gilbert harness trained. I like the level of freedom he can have, while still being safe. He was super easy to adjust to the harness, but I know some other birds have to take it more slowly. I still think it is 'do-able'.


Maybe someone with an alex can give more specifics regarding their experiences. But I say, give it a try! The peace of mind is fantastic. And then your bird can actually fly around a little too.

Harness takes patience and training to keep the harness from causing stress or fear, but once you do the training it is a awesome tool, and personally I feel it's a must for taking parrots outside.

I use a harness on Rosie, Kenji is not a touchy bird and is afraid outside anyway so no harness for him(travel cage instead).

First of all, with small birds it's the first four outer primaries. A lot of people leave the outside primary and "show" clip them. BAD IDEA. One primary is enough to make them flighted.

And on windy days they can still catch the wind and go where ever it blows them, and fly just far enough to get lost. Then when the wind dies down they are NOT flighted.

Some birds take to harnesses. Others its a struggle. I've harness trained two birds, but they really never cared for it much. Mine were recalled. (I've still lost them. Found them again, but it was really scarey!)

If your bird is stressed by the harness, you didn't do the training right. That said, some birds just cannot be trained to like it. I have had clipped birds fly away, like bird man says, with a little wind they are gone! Also a clipped bird has a hard time controlling their flight. I am not saying you need to leave him flighted, I am just saying that a clip is not enough safety for outdoors. I very much believe in harnesses, or as a second choice a lightweight carrier. All my chicks are introduced to harnesses before going home to their new families because it is easier top do it at an earlier age when they are still accepting almost every new thing they see.

All awesome tips. We've had a full trim and the manager of the 'Bird Barn' told us he had a few 'flight feathers' including the outer primary. All gone. Haven't found a decent harness yet, but will get one and see if we can get him trained on it. Thanks everyone.

Aviator harness is great for gently clipped birds!! I use it on my cockatiel and take him to walks and to grocery stores with me. Just introduce it slowly and make sure both you and your bird are comfortable putting it on and taking off (it can never get REALLY comfortable, just he shouldn't get too scared). My tiel doesn't even notice when I put the harness on him, and chews and plays with the leash while sitting on my arm - so it's a harness and a toy, two in one.
Sorry I know nothing about Alexandrines, but it should work fine with any bird.

Ive got an Alex and ive got an Aviator Harness.

Well, more truthfully, Ive got a second-hand Alex adopted recently at 8 months old, ive had him for 3 months now and we've had to do a lot of basic training, stepping up, touch training, not being scared of EVERYTHING, not biting peoples faces off, you know.. the basic stuff lol. And ive got an unused Aviator Harness.

I got the harness cheaply about the same time I got the bird with the knowledge that it is going to take ages to get this bird harness-happy but if we ever got to that point, id have a harness ready and waiting to be trained!

With my last bird, a half-trained old Lorikeet who wouldnt have been able to be harness trained, we used to just push his cage outside onto the deck with us and he was happy to have a bird cracker held through the bars whilst we ate chips, it let him feel like he was part of the excitement.

I would like to stress that rushing the training process is a big no-no. Buy your harness new so you are sure to get the DVD, and watch that DVD before you even take the harness out of the box. I am serious.

SilverSage said:

I would like to stress that rushing the training process is a big no-no. Buy your harness new so you are sure to get the DVD, and watch that DVD before you even take the harness out of the box. I am serious.

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I agree! That worked well for me. And even if you find you don't use the harness much or the bird isn't really fond of it in the end, the training of getting used to being really handled (holding up the wings, covering eyes, etc) is helpful! I get out the harness now and after I get it looped over each wing, I say "do wings" one more time and he holds them both up high so I can tighten the belt without pinching a feather. He learned "wings' because I was harness training (I didn't teach this as a trick on its own.)

I am still waiting for our Alex to arrive and therefore I cannot speak from firsthand experience.

I have been reading as much as I can about training in general and watching as many u tube clips as I can find on the subject.

From what I have seen and read, harness training is about breaking the process down and training for each individual step.

There is a bunch of stuff on youtube, and I have found [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdJ8mLoep4k"]these ones[/ame] quite amazing as he makes it look all so easy. He trained his bird to wear a harness in 3 or 4 days.

I think I would be lucky to achieve these results in 3 or 4 months.

I brought a harness for my Ally she don't like it I'm trying to get her used to it it sits on her cage and plays with it for now she is 9 months old I know it's going to take a while to get her to ware it the dvd is fantastic that comes with the harness paid $50 you can get them of eBay the Aviator harness it's fantastic