First day out!

Narley

Regular Member
Hi all! I hope you’re all well and keeping safe :) just wanted to pose a question to you parrot folks, Kiko is moving along really nicely although we are working through a few issues though, his target training has gone backwards a little, I think it’s because the motivation aka treats is not quite high enough, it seemed to coincide with me starting to leave me hand in his cage with some of his old seed mix, which has worked amazingly for getting him to happily sit on my hand and chow down (he even fell asleep on my hand yesterday) NOW all he wants is for me to do that rather than target train 😑 which I can understand I mean why work for just one treat when you can chow down on a whole handful. I really wanted him to become more comfortable with my hands before i let him out the cage which is going to be this Saturday and in that sense it’s worked amazingly well but I’ve kind of shot myself in the foot or rather hand 😬 because I also wanted his targeting to be quite strong before I let him out for the first time. Oh well 🤗 I know the target training will come along eventually... but yeah back to my main point. I’m just going to outline what my plan is for his first outing out of the cage and see if you guys can give me pointers or things to think about that I may not have, or whether I need to something differently?
basically the plan is... Saturday i’m going to give him his breakfast in his cage, then I’m going to open the door...I’ve not got any plans or need to leave. So I can stay and watch him all day if that’s how long it takes for him to either leave the cage or take himself back inside the cage. I’m not going to try training him or approaching him this first time, it’s up to him to interact with me. I will give him some treats if he does come and check me out so I’m a nice experience for him. But I won’t try to target him to me. All other food will be in his cage and he will have to go back there to eat. In terms of food I’m just going to mix some of his seeds in with his veg meals and then when I really want him to go back in and stay in his cage only then will I let put in his old seed mix in all its glory (with some sneaky pellets mixed in) so that it’s extra rewarding for him to remain in his cage. We’ve really worked on parrot proofing the lounge so I shouldn’t have to intervene or rescue him unnecessarily 😅 anyways that’s sort of my “plan” is there anything in there you guys think I should do differently or maybe something I’ve overlooked? So excited to finally let this little dude have his first fly around but also really want it to go perfectly so we don’t take any steps back in terms of trust and bond building.
 
Just make sure the room is safe, no windows or doors open or accessible fire places. No upright empty flower vases etc. hot drinks and so on.
Be nice if you have a little stand he could see & flt to, you can easily make one. Do let us know how it goes and good luck.
 
first of all be prepared for your bird too fly in panic and go towards windows and mirrors, these can harm a bird if it crashes in to them. Now I do think that the first few times of letting a bird out, this should be done before there first meal of the day, use your birds flight time to clean the cage and place his morning feed that should when Kiko is ready and hungry make him return to the cage. you never want to chase him, the cage must remain Kiko's safe place and the place of main feeding.
 
Oh ok! So before breakfast! I shall do that! And yes I’ve actually made a stand already :) it’s all made from safe material and has been sitting near his cage for the last few days so he can get used to it :) we’ve only got one main window in the lounge, I’ll make sure the blinds are down, the rest are sky lights which are quite high up but I can close the blinds on those for the first fly around, I just don’t want to make it too dark?
 
So the cage door has been open for the last 1.5 hours still no interest in leaving which I guess I’m a bit surprised by, I have to admit around the 45min mark I caved and gave him his breakfast, the poor boy was starting to get cross for just sitting there with my breakfast and not giving him his 😅😅 I didn’t put any of his old seed mix in though which I normally would mix in at least a tsp of still whilst he transitions to full veg breakfasts, so hopefully if he does decide to come out and explore today I’ll still have a very powerful lure to get him to go back inside with. I literally have all day to wait though so plugging on for now :) not trying to encourage him out or anything though just sitting here browsing the parrot forums 😁
 
So the cage door has been open for the last 1.5 hours still no interest in leaving which I guess I’m a bit surprised by, I have to admit around the 45min mark I caved and gave him his breakfast, the poor boy was starting to get cross for just sitting there with my breakfast and not giving him his 😅😅 I didn’t put any of his old seed mix in though which I normally would mix in at least a tsp of still whilst he transitions to full veg breakfasts, so hopefully if he does decide to come out and explore today I’ll still have a very powerful lure to get him to go back inside with. I literally have all day to wait though so plugging on for now :) not trying to encourage him out or anything though just sitting here browsing the parrot forums 😁

I remember the first time i opened the cage door for Fifi, she didn't come out and wasn't interested but you could bet that at the start if the door was open slightest and i wasn't ready for her to come out she would happily leave her cage then 😂
My grey on the other hand comes out the second you open the cage door and has from the day we brought him home, he loves been out and was never scared of returning or leaving his cage.

I left the door open for Fifi for a while and eventually she flew out, she was like a mad little bird flapping everywhere flying non stop and landing on anything like curtains etc (she didn't have a stand my mistake) eventually she landed on us and we returned her and then gave her a treat, after that she started to go back herself and watch us for a treat 😂 if she returns and doesn't get one she comes back out lands on us and then returns as if to say, human slaves get me a treat im going back. Funny little birds!

I hope your little guy will be out flying around soon, let us know how he gets on! The first flight may be a bit panicked and stressful but he will get better with time 😁
 
He’s out!! I don’t actually think he meant to it just sort of happened so even more panicked than I was expecting! Literally heart in my mouth everytime he takes flight atm whilst he figures the room out and where is good for perching and where isn’t 😱😱😱 making myself sit still whenever he does get it slightly wrong and ends up on the floor. 😰
 
Wooo so he’s back inside his cage 😁 he put himself back in bless him, I think he found the whole adventure to be quite overwhelming. No interaction with me but I don’t think it would have affected any trust that I had managed to build up, going to let him decompress and then see if he wants to do some target training in his cage this afternoon :) I’ll open the cage another fly session tomorrow if he wants to :) all in all really pleased with how that went! Would have loved if he had come to say hi but I can understand how he would have found everything a bit much!
 
Wooo so he’s back inside his cage 😁 he put himself back in bless him, I think he found the whole adventure to be quite overwhelming. No interaction with me but I don’t think it would have affected any trust that I had managed to build up, going to let him decompress and then see if he wants to do some target training in his cage this afternoon :) I’ll open the cage another fly session tomorrow if he wants to :) all in all really pleased with how that went! Would have loved if he had come to say hi but I can understand how he would have found everything a bit much!

So glad to hear that it went well! 😁
 
Update: day two, so it’s going well so far! He’s not out and flying around but I think we’ve taken a massive step in the right direction in terms of taming him!! Here’s what happened!!!
I gave him his breakfast without the seed mixed in. opened the cage door not really expecting him to fly straight out after yesterday’s stress 😅 and I sat down to eat my breakfast and he went and had a bit of his. After he had finished he went up to the perch which is directly opposite the door area, and then he started to call for me, he does this weird sort of wing quiver/flitter when he’s really trying to get my attention. It’s only been in the last week or so, but it’s almost like a baby bird begging for food. It’s so freaking cute and I’m hoping this is him starting to take me as a member of his flock.
So I went over and put some seed on my hand and put it on the outside of the cage but right up against the Door. He hopped on the cage entrance and the walked on nervously onto my hand. The thing I got Really excited about was that he wasn’t nervous of my hand rather it was being out in the room that made him slightly apprehensive. I kept my hand up against the cage door and he gradually relaxed and ate some seeds. He did some preening and foot cleaning and stretching all whilst checking the room out and then after about 15mins he hopped back inside the cage. I’ve left the cage door open just in case he wants another go but I’m super happy with how that went even if he didn’t fly around again.
 
Hey all :)
So I thought I would put this here for continuities sake, although it’s a separate question. Just before that though quick update, Kiko had his second proper fly around yesterday afternoon, this was because he actually asked to come out the cage and flew out himself for another five minutes of heart in my mouth panic flying 😖😖 he’s like a toddler learning to walk except he’s got wings! Ugh anyways my own nervousness aside he didn’t hurt himself and took himself back into his cage again after that period of time. I let him chill for a bit and then walked over and spent some time with him just to make sure we hadn’t lost any trust and he actually moved to the perch closest to me and sat with his feathers ruffled, chittering away looking very content! So all good!! Today I opened the cage again but he didn’t take the option to fly around the room, instead he seemed more keen on interacting with me and eating seeds off my hands... it was really good I managed to encourage him to take his first hop onto my hand, as well as walking from one hand to the next by placing seeds in both and putting them together.
Now here comes the next question I must ask of you guys 😅 he suddenly became very curious about these warm entities which hold seeds for him so willingly, today for the first time he used his beak and applied some serious pressure! Not in An aggressive way at all just curiously nibbling 😰 my problem is that I really don’t want to lose any trust but at the same time, how do I react in a way that stops him biting the hand but doesn’t spook him or give him ideas that this is something fun to do! 😅😅 Today I tried to keep my hands as still as possible and just lightly moved my finger and said OW, he didn’t spook but he did stop nibbling thankfully. But I’m not too sure that was the right response?
 
Omg guys just have to share this with you all! Today I put some seeds in my hand and Kiko stepped onto it and then very gradually we took a walk around the living room. He sat there eating his seeds and basically checking out the view, a little bit nervous but not to the point of a flight response, we did it slowly, I’ve realised he’s quite nervous of basically everything in the room which probably made his two flights around even more terrifying for the poor guy so i thought maybe the best way to desensize him would be to carry him around and show him the place. We did this and I also sat down on the sofa with him to see if he could fully relax there, it was going great until I needed to stand back up again, I think maybe rising up, even though I did it slowly triggered him to take off, he landed on his cage, and THEN when I stood about a meter away he flew back to me and landed on my arm!!! 🥳🥳 unfortunately he couldn’t grip my skin very well and ended up slipping off of it when he tried to adjust himself on it, so he ended back up on the cage. But I put my hand back up near him and he climbed back on quite happily, we went back to the cage door and he sat there for ages just picking through left over seeds on my hand. I started handed him seeds with my other hand and just getting him more used to my fingers, after about 10min of that he let my finger lightly scratch his cheek feathers 🥰🥰🥰 he also quite liked it when my finger shuffled the seeds around so he could pick out the uneaten ones. SO happy with that session 🥰🥰
 
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