Flying Eclectus

[GregWKS]

My female eclectus "melody" is roughly 12-14 weeks old and slowly coming off her formula. She is eating on her own as well as drinking water.
Over the past week she has discovered that she can jump around her cage and fly from the perch to the cage wall.
In the evening she cries for food and after i feed her the formula she gets extremely hyperactive and tries to run away from me. She is starting to flap and trying to fly around our apartment but just ends up crash landing from the couch onto the coffee table or floor.
Im worried that she may hurt herself if I leave her to carry on with this on her own. Should i encourage this behavior of trying to fly around or should i keep a closer eye on her when she is out of her cage?

Her wings were clipped when i got her at around 9 weeks old.

 

[maillet]

Echo was not fledged when his wings was clipped. So when they started to grow back I made certain that right after Breakfast I was giving him controlled flying lessons. Dropping hand and what not near floor to let him practice gliding, and then eventually from standing to couches and perches.

I did it enough each morning until he was panting and worn out. This way he did not try to do it on his own (where it was not safe or I was not surprising). And within a couple of days he had enough practice to be trusted where I no longer had to do it.

In end he will try to fly whether you encourage it or not. It is his natural instinct to learn how to fly. All you can do is encourage it in safer areas, or have his wnigs cut.

 

[rbreck]

Careful of the fragile young wings feathers, this is where my current problem started. Maui was so active he broke all his feathers off. Now I have a big problem that I am dealing with.

 

[4Ziggy]

This is probably very controversial but: do you want her to fly? If not, maybe you should take her to the vet to see if she was clipped properly? We opted to keep Ziggy clipped. I read about the number of accidents related to flying and other issues. I like that he stays where we put him and we don't have to worry about our dogs or stepping on him if we have left the room. He loves going outside with us in the summer. We all sit on the deck together and I even put him in a small crepe myrtle tree next to our seats. I am not sure if we would have been able to do this with a bird who can fly. When he was young, he would anchor himself with his beak to the side of his cage a flap like crazy to exercise. Now, he flaps away but does not anchor himself. He lets me clip his wings. I am sure there are great reasons for both choices! Just a thought for you-

 

[Caesar]

Yeah I prefer Caesar to be able to fly and land safely. With the proper "clicker "training your bird will be able to fly to your shoulder and land without crashing to the ground which can cause problems in the future for your little buddy.