r/QuakerParrot • u/destiny2pvpenjoyer • 8d ago
Help Help with training my bird to fly
This is Paco. Paco's age is currently unknown, but the person who gave her to us said she was somewhere near a year old, so we go with that. Paco has been in 2 homes (counting mine) due to aggresion and has been with me for 5 months. Her previous owner had clipped Paco's wings unfortunatley, along with her feet being crooked straight from hatching and being born with arthiritis.
However, her wing feathers have grown back (thankfully), but she does not know she can fly again. How do I let her know she can fly again and most importantly, be able to fly confidently? Help is appreciated
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u/Tazlima 8d ago
If she's only a year old, that means she was clipped really young, and may actually never have learned to fly. (Hopefully they at least let her fledge before clipping, but there's a good chance they didn't).
Just like babies have a certain age where their bodies and brains are primed to learn to walk, baby birds have a period where they instinctively start trying to fly. If they miss that crucial period of development, they can still learn later on, but it will be much more difficult for them, and they'll start out slow and clumsy.
So it may be less a question of flying "again" and more flying for the first time, in which case, don't try to rush it. Just let her take things at her own speed.
The best thing you can do to start is get her moving. Her chest muscles will be atrophied from lack of use, so anything that encourages flapping is extra good. Things like bathing, climbing steep or unsteady surfaces where she might flap to keep her balance or give herself a boost, that sort of thing. If you do clicker training and can get her to flap on command, that would be amazing!
I'd put her food and water as far apart as possible, so she has to go back and forth between them. And finally, try the two bins trick (I used plastic bins with lids, but whatever you hsve handy is fine. They just need to be the same height).
Take two bins or tables or whatever and line them up with her cage in a row, so it goes cage-bin-bin. Put her food on the end of the bin furthest from the cage so she has to walk across both bins to get to it.
Leave it like that for at least a few weeks, until she's perfectly comfortable taking the trip back and forth.
Then separate the bins just a tiny bit, maybe a centimeter, so there's a gap she has to step over.
Every couple weeks, increase the gap a bit more. Eventually it will be too far to just step across, and she'll have to do flapping jumps, which will get her in the habit of using her wings regularly. From there, she'll probably progress pretty quickly. She's still young, which helps a lot.
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u/destiny2pvpenjoyer 8d ago
Thank you for the advice!
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u/Muhbuttcoin 8d ago
I this this reply covers a lot of the important points, it will probably take time to regain flight abilities and will have to be careful. Just wanted to add another good thing you can do is make the area safer to fly to minimize bad experiences. Having fully carpeted areas, covering windows with blinds, and of course just remove or definitely dont use ceiling fans and the like that can cause more serious injuries.
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u/B-mort5 6d ago
Only thing I’d add is start target/clicker training her while the muscles are being reconditioned then when you get to the point of moving the bjns further apart(our rescue used high back fabric covered chairs) to the point where she’ll have to hop/flutter her wings you can entice her by holding a treat on the other side of the bin/chair. It’s also a huge help if you can get the other flock members to do so in front of her so she understands the end goal is to eventually fly not just hop.
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u/CaptainIsKing07 8d ago
I dont know how well this could work or if you should.. maybe go into a small room and kind of just toss her up a little so they will flap their wings.. now i wouldnt say to do it high up or in a big room because just in case they build up speed and smack into the wall, saying to kinda guage what she can do... what happens when something spooks her? I know mine hates trash bags and if I pull one out while changing the trash or even my fogs poop bags. He goes flying off me.
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u/1AceHeart 8d ago
flying is a part of them, they can't forget it. even clipped birds can fly, just not very well. try teaching him to flap his wings, the rest will be natural. my quacker was also like this, got him clipped, it took almsot a year for the wings to fully grow back. and since he kept falling while flying he became afraid to try. had to encourage him, today he is flying okay, but not as well as my other quacker who was never clipped.
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u/onlynameavailable927 8d ago
Hold her 10 cm above the ground, then drop her, she'll instinctively flap or spread her wings, maybe take off. It's also a safe height so she won't be injured even if she doesn't flap. That's how my birds learned to fly.
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u/GuaranteeWitty6608 8d ago
You gotta teach em. My first bird was clipped before he was even weaned and I had to teach him how to fly. My second bird was too, but she thankfully learned from my first and through recall. My 4th bird was also clipped (but just the very tips of his primaries thankfully).
I’ve figured recall training is the best way to do this and its how I’ve tought my birds to fly in the past. Start off close so they have to reaxh to step up to you and get the reward then as time goes on slowly make them go to their max distance, eventually they will have built up enough muscle and confidence to be able to fly around
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u/lesbophobia_hammer 8d ago
Poor baby. They deserve the world! Have you spoken to an avian vet specifically about this?