Bird Afraid to Fly

[IrishTea27]

I have two wonderfully sweet and tame (and talkative) cockatiels, both of whom I adore. The female, Roxie (a normal grey), has never had a night fright, sings and talks as much as any male, loves her head scratches, and is the queen of the roost. Echo (a white-faced grey) is my sweet boy. He loves being held, petted, and preened. His sweet songs are the highlight of my day.

However, Echo has had three terrible night frights in the two years we have had him. The first night fright, he broke many blood feathers and had to be taken the vet for feather extraction, losing 16 feathers total. He looked like a poor little angel with hacked wings. The second night fright, I did what the vet had instructed and pulled the one feather that was causing problems. The last night fright, he broke two of his flight feathers, but they were plucked with no bleeding.

After each night fright we have intensified our response; from leaving only soft lights on, to leaving a night light on for the birds; now we leave a small lamp on, because he gets very scared in complete darkness. We even tried rolling the cage (we have a massive affair on casters) into our bedroom at night so I could hear him when he panics.

The night frights are scary enough, but they have had an unpleasant side effect. Each time he breaks his flight feathers, my fully-flighted bird has to sit it out and wait for them to grow while Roxie zips and swerves around the room. Echo has now become afraid to fly. He stays on the cage with its play gym, but if we move him to us or somewhere else in the house, he will happily stay and be petted. He used to seek out affection and fly to where we were, but now if we leave him atop the cage, he will just put himself back up and roost instead of trying to fly and have fun.

It breaks my heart to see my happy bird isolate himself. How can I teach him it's okay to fly again? Is there anything else I can do about the night frights? We have thought of separating them at night in two smaller cages, but they just endlessly flock call for one another if they are apart.

Any help would be appreciated. I am very worried about my sweet Echo. He is the tamest, gentlest, and sweetest bird, and I hate to see him so afraid.

 

[Featheredsamurai]

Sadly there's not a lot you can do other than avoiding the night frights so his feathers don't need to be removed. It's understandible that they would be afraid to my when they don't know if they'll fall or not.

Rosie, my galah cockatoo, is still a little afraid to take off sometimes. She's been flying well about a year, yet only takes off if startled or is absolutely desperate to reach me. Whn I got her she was over clipped, and is still afraid she may fall to the ground even after all this time.

 

[Jayyj]

Alice was clipped on one side when I got her, which led to some horrible crashes after something panicked her into taking off. Now she has her full flight feathers back but won't fly unless something terrifies her and she takes off without thinking. She does lots of posturing and wing trembling, but never flies to me. I can't offer any solutions: it's a worry for me as well. But short of occasionally chucking her in the direction of her cage and hoping she gets the hint (no, not actually tried that!) I can't really think of any way of dealing with it other leaving it to time and hope she figures out for herself that it's something she can do.