Anybody Use Flightsuits?

[Zygodactylous]

Hi. I am new to these forums. I just recently bought a cockatiel and wanted to get him into a filghtsuit so I wouldn't have to keep cleaning up his droppings around the house. Does anyone else in Alberta, Canada...the Edmonton area specifically, use flightsuits for their birds? Would love to see pictures of birds wearing them so I know what size to buy for my guy?

 

[LordTriggs]

keeping one on a bird when in the house isn't fair on them. Like being forced to wear a coat at all times indoors

you'll do far better potty training them and just sucking it up and cleaning the poo whenever an accident happens. Plus the time to train a bird to wear a harness or flightsuit will most likely take longer than potty training and they may never be happy with putting it on. You really prepared to have a fight every single hour to change the lining?

Let's be fair, you should have known before getting your tiel that they are messy and they will poo. It's not just part of owning a bird, it's part of owning any pet

 

[SilverSage]

Agreed, potty training is the way to go. We use flightsuits as harnesses and love them, but they aren't for all day everyday use.


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[Kiwibird]

Just like a dog or cat, a parrot can also be 'housebroken'. Training to retire to the cage or other "designated" area to poop is the preferable method to training a bird to poop on command (which can cause health issues if they hold it too long). Wearing something for hours a day will likely cause damage to healthy plumage over time and prevent your bird from grooming himself properly. Please keep the flight suits for when he's outside only and put in the effort to potty train instead. My amazon is potty trained and I can't even think of the last time he had an accident (years ago?).

 

[SimplyBirdLover]

If I were you, I wouldn't keep the flight suit on in the house. As the reply above says, it just isn't fair. Poop all over things is something that you unfortunately sign up for when you buy a bird. I would definitely try to get him potty trained as soon as possible. It really isn't something you can rush though. It takes time and patience (as do most things when it comes to birds). For now, all I can recommend would be investing in a large play-stand (size appropriate for his tiny feet of course..) Or do what many people do, make one out of PVC pipes! This way you can place paper towel or newspaper underneath and avoid the poop on the floor while your doing household work. PVC pipes are generally pretty inexpensive and you can customize the play stand to your birds needs. You can look some of them up either on you tube or google images and get some inspo. For a tiel if you were to make one I'd get 1/2 inch pipes. My tiel and budgies love their stand and I have been able to change it around several times without having to purchase new tubing or make any new cuts in the pipes.
Also just a tip, if you were to make one out of the PVC piping the birds can grasp onto the pipes very well so your required to wrap it with some sort of grip, especially for medium/ small birds. I used a horse bandage wrap. It comes it many different colors and patterns and they are safe and non-toxic for birds.

 

[Dogmom1958]

I just received my birds Flight Suit the other day. I’ve been putting it into her cage and I had it laying there with us at cuddle time. So I’m hoping that she will be ready to wear it soon. I had purchased the other harness for him a while back and he wanted nothing to do with it. So when I looked into this one I thought this will be great to have it serve 2 purposes.
I’m always feeling fatigue because I have fibromyalgia, but I try my best to keep everything in my house clean, but I get frustrated when every time I turn around there is another poop mess! So I thought it would help me to be less frustrated. But we’ll see if the flight suit works!
I’ve also been working at potty training too. I guess I should try th more. Does anyone have any good training suggestions ?
I know I need to practice more patience too., it’s only been about 4-5 month now.
,

 

[Sunnyclover]

As others have said, please don't use the flight suit all day because it's not meant to be used all day. The pad inside is only meant to take like 2 hours of poop and can overflow and it's really just unhealthy all around and will make them hot and sad. Use it for car trips or outings and just potty train your bird. I trained my 2 in less than a day. It's wonderful. There are so many YouTube videos on it but essentially you just put them in an area you would like them to go when it's about time for them to go. You wait for them to go in said area while saying "go poopy" or some phrase like that and then when they finally do go you praise them like they solved the Middle Eastern conflict and give them a treat. Rinse and repeat until they understand that when you say "go poopy" they are supposed to go (only if they need to, don't force it).

 

[Inger]

Agree with all. Potty training is pretty easy. Step one is to pay attention and see how often your bird poops. Bumble poops about every 13 minutes. When we’re having play time, I set a timer and at 13 minutes I put her on her play gym and tell her to go poop. If she doesn’t have to go, she flies back and I set the timer for another minute and repeat. Sometimes she still poops where she wants. Sometimes she flies to the gym on her own to poop. She has a flight suit and she HATES it - chews on the shoulder straps constantly and I’m sure she would eventually chew through them - and I only got it for outings.


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