Thank you!! I just worry because he'll be new to my home and me. Once I know he can behave is like to let them fly, but until then they are 'grounded'. Any tips on Harness training?
Actually, a week isn't enough for full fledging. You need enough time for your bird to actually become a good flier before clipping... if clipping is then deemed necessary.
You see, the avian brain is forming new neural pathways as your bird is learning all the ins and outs of flight. It's when a bird is initially denied this developmental time during this critical stage that having them flighted becomes a greater danger. It's not that they can't learn to fly later, or even become good at it. But they'll never be the instinctual fliers they might otherwise have been.
Here's an example. Many of you know of my dearly departed Bixby. I never allowed the bird store to clip him, as I always keep my birds flighted. They complied with my wishes, with the proviso that I harnessed him whenever I visited and took him out if the cage. (An understandable rule, given the massive floor to ceiling windows at the front of the store.) He was still weaning at the time, which meant I had to force him into his harness all the way up until he was ready to go. He wasn't fond of the harness, so putting it on him was always... challenging. (Unfortunately, given the proviso, I couldn't take my time as illustrated in that video.)
Turns out all I'd done was still technically insufficient. Because the little bursts of flight that he got when I would come to visit him in the store weren't enough for him to fully fledge.
I got him home and trained him exhaustively. Trained him to the point that he became a pretty good flier. So I didn't really see the extent to which he'd been deprived of his full fledging until I got Jolly.
Jolly is also an eclectus, but he was hand-fed and weaned by Laura (labell). Laura allows her birds to fully fledge while they are being weaned, and the difference is amazing.
Flight skills that took a week of concentrated training to teach Bixby, Jolly would pick up in minutes. Bixby had learned to navigate the house fairly well, but Jolly can make effortless circuits of my home without showing a hint of fatigue. And the biggest difference? Jolly's composure during flight is unflappable. (Lol! Can't believe I found occasion to use that word with a bird! Hahaha!) If something happens unexpectedly, it doesn't break his composure in the slightest. He merely makes adjustment and moves on. He even changes his mind in mid-flight. "I think I'll go there... no, wait, over there... ooh! What's that? I'll go there instead!"
The difference is that, with Jolly, flying is second nature. With Bixby, despite how good he got through training and his own steely determination, it just wasn't. So flying is safer for Jolly than it had been for Bixby. He's just far less likely to crash into anything. He's unflappable.
