- Hey everyone, Jamieleigh here with BirdTricks.
And today I'm going to be talking about
how to flight train your budgie or parakeet.
Featuring Blueberry, come on Blue
(wings flapping) good girl.
This is my little blue budgie, Blueberry,
and she's gonna be helping me demo
how I flight trained her today and how you can do it too.
Even if your budgie or parakeet is clipped currently, right?
(pecks the bird)
(upbeat music)
Good kiss, good kiss.
Alright, go on, go on.
(wings flapping) (chuckles)
Having a flighted budgie around the house
is probably the most fun ever.
Just gonna say it's more fun than car cooky soot
being flighted around the house, just saying (chuckles).
Blue, good girl (bird chirping)
Good girl, can you show everybody how you go upside down?
Ready, upside down.
Good girl, good job.
(pecks the bird) I love you.
Okay, you can go (wings flapping)
You can go play.
So the first thing I wanna say about this topic
is try to when you're doing this training,
try to really reinforce your bird coming onto your hand
and landing on your hand, not on your head,
not on your shoulder, not on your arm,
but on your actual hand.
And this will let you know how well-trained this is.
Now for those of you that have birds
where you're just automatically thinking,
my bird's terrified of hands,
this is never gonna work for me.
You can definitely start by flight training
your bird to your shoulder.
I've known plenty of cockatiels (chuckles)
because cockatiels tend to be very hand phobic
naturally, where people just flight train them
to their shoulder, and then they slowly transition
that down to the hand.
So if you're in a position where you need to start there
you definitely can.
But I would highly recommend trying to start
with flight training to your hand
just to keep it clean from the very get-go.
So you're probably wondering what do I do
if my budgie or my bird in general, won't land on my hand
but only lands on my shoulder or my head.
The idea is that you transition them off.
So whether you need to lure them down your arm
onto your hand, or if you can target them down
which we'll talk about a little bit later
anything you can do to not give the positive reinforcement
as far as the treat is concerned
up on your shoulder or your head.
So don't deliver the treat up there,
if you're really working towards the hand
you wanna make sure that the treat only ever comes
to the bird when your bird is in the proper position
of being on your hand.
That will really clearly communicate that your bird needs
to get there, to get the treat.
Even if they hop right back off, you're gonna be able
to extend that amount of time
that your bird hangs out there later.
So you might be wondering why have my bird landed
on my hand, why can't it go onto my shoulder
or onto my head?
A lot of people like having their birds on their shoulders
because it's just more convenient when they go to do
their day-to-day things.
And the thing that I like about having your bird land
on your hand is it actually looks
like a more trained behavior.
It's a lot more safe so that you just know
what your bird is up to, how your bird's feeling,
how your bird's reacting.
A lot of the times going to the head or the shoulder
is kind of a retreat, where the bird might be escaping
something that it might find a little intimidating,
whereas you know that your bird's a lot more comfortable
on your hands.
So that's why I really say, have your bird go to your hand.
So obviously if you found this video,
you're already interested in teaching your bird
to come to you, but a lot of the reasons why you would want
to train something like this
is just for the utter health of your bird.
Just like when you have a dog, you're supposed
to take it on walks and get it exercise,
and get it outside.
Birds need exercise too.
And sometimes that can be proven
a little bit more difficult in captivity.
So flight training is a great form
of exercise for our birds.
The second reason that I really recommend flight training
is just for your overall relationship with your bird.
I believe that flight training is one of the number one ways
to build a really amazing relationship with a bird.
It's probably some of the best feelings that I've ever had
is having my bird choose to come and land on me.
The third reason that you'd wanna train your bird
flight training, is just for skill development and safety.
So keeping your bird safe, where it can get out
of situations that it needs to, and come find safety
I.e you, or get itself to safety.
So really flight training builds skills
that your bird should have, should something happen
or should it be in a predicament where it needs to be able
to have those skills to escape something
or find its way to safety.
So this is my daughter Capri.
She is - Hello
at the time of this video, seven years old.
And one of the things, well actually, some of the things
that we did with our budgie Blueberry before she could fly
were forms of exercise and enrichment.
And we're leading her to being able to flight train
or re-culturing to us. Do you remember some of the things
that we did for Blueberry?
Can you name one of them?
- One of them, when she was like first coming out
of the cage, I wanted to cuddle her
cause she looked so cute, and so we let her out
and we basically made a circle with our legs
and she could like hop.
- But what did we do towards flight training her?
Do you remember?
Do you remember how we set up those ropes
and things for her because she couldn't fly?
You wanna explain that?
- We setup like ropes on like the trees, the toy trees,
cause she can't fly so she can climb up the ropes
and she just loved those to climb up.
- Yeah, so it was a great form of exercise
and taught Blueberry how to get out of trouble.
So if there is any reason that she needed
to get up off the ground,
because she was clipped at the time
she could just easily find her way to these ropes
and climb her way to safety.
You have to remember that birds like being high up
that means safe to them in nature.
And so instinctively in captivity
they want to be high up too.
So giving them ways where they can be self-sufficient
and get there is really, really awesome
because still to this day she uses ropes and ladders
and all the things.
So make sure that if your budgie or your parakeet is clipped
that you kinda set it up where it can do that.
The other thing that we did is walking recalls.
So if your bird cannot fly you can simply ask it
to come to you and it can just
walk, hop (chuckles)
and eventually what Blueberry did,
do you remember when she kinda hovered across the ground
she was starting to be able to fly
- Yeah and those
cute little transitional periods are really important.
- Its so cute. (chuckles)
it was really cute.
So keep in mind that even if your bird isn't capable
of full flight, do things within its abilities
and make sure that you're always working towards
the greater goal of, if my bird was fully feathered
right now, would this be working towards that goal?
And if the answer is yes, keep doing that.
- And we also had this like kind of a tree stand
that we put on this like desk (mumbles).
- Just like it's a tabletop - Yeah
- play stand - Like a table top
and then we have a play stand.
And we actually just use ladder for her on that,
but she still can't fly, and she still goes up it
but she mostly would fly to it.
- Yep, so once Blueberry could fly, she started bypassing
the ladders and the ropes, but they're still really awesome
for those birds that start out clipped for whatever reason
to eventually start using those muscles
and getting used to getting themselves around.
(beak chattering)
- [Capri] Good.
(beak chattering)
(indistinct murmuring)
(pecks the bird)
So as Capri was mentioning, we have a lot of play stands,
T stands, foraging trees, all around our home.
We have one in at least every single room of our house
and we have multiple shower porches.
So our birds know all the safe spots in our home.
It's really important to get your bird used to knowing
what places are yes places where your bird can be,
where it's out of trouble, it's safe
and it's not gonna get into anything it shouldn't.
So having these yes spaces around the house
is incredibly important, especially if your bird's obsessive
about certain areas of the home, you can make sure
that you have these either tabletop play stands
or whatever suits your needs.
Maybe it's just a single T stand we have a variety
of ones that we use.
You can have them on wheels,
so you can kind of move them around, which we do.
We kind of - (chuckles)
redecorate all the time
But having these safe spaces is going to go a long way
and teaching your bird your house and your home
and your environment.
And that will teach a lot of skill building
that you don't necessarily have to work really,
really hard at, your bird will actually be working on it
on its own time.
- Even like, if you don't really have a lot of T stands,
you can also use the cage.
- Yes - For a safe spot
- You can have multiple cages.
Yeah, so in Capri's room, she has a tabletop play stand
which is near like the top part of her top bunk bed.
And then she also has a cage for Blueberry to be in
that we often find Blueberry putting herself away.
(chuckles)
And especially when we have company over,
she tends to not wanna hang out with company.
And she goes and puts herself away
just to kinda be away from the chaos.
And so having multiple cages is another aspect
that you can definitely do, if you don't wanna do
open play stands
- And also you are a safe spot (chuckles)
- Yeah, people of the home should be the safe spot.
So make sure that you're always reinforcing
that you are a safe place to be.
(bird chirping) Blue
(bird chattering)
- (Capri mumbles)
- Blue (wings flapping)
Blueberry, a little upside down(chuckles)
(bird chattering)
(pecks the bird)
So I know that this next technique is something
that everybody's really resistant to.
And I think that life for parrots in captivity
would be so much easier if humans weren't so resistant
to this technique.
But teaching targeting is your number one thing.
The reason is, especially for clipped birds
this is your foundation.
This is something that you're gonna be able to fall back on
when recall isn't working or you've made mistakes
in your training session, or what have you.
But target training is it.
So can you tell them what target training is?
- Target training, it's like a chopstick.
You can break them like separate
and then you can actually use the target stick
and like hold a clicker and you can call the bird.
And if they touch the tip then you can click it
and give a treat.
If they like bite it, you wanna give a treat for that.
- No (mumbles)
So you really want to be mindful that the bird's
just touching the end of the stick
and that does mean with their beak.
So they'll touch the end of the stick with their beak,
but you wanna make sure they aren't biting aggressively
because then you're just putting aggressive on cue.
So you kinda want a curious tap or touch.
- And sometimes they'll also touch it with their tongue.
- That's a great method, especially for larger birds.
So those of you watching that maybe have larger parakeets
like the Alexandrine parakeet, those birds definitely
have a big beak for their body size.
So you may wanna resort to teaching them to touch
the end of the stick with their tongue.
I did this with the high Simphona corb,
because you can imagine how easy it was for him
to accidentally break the end of the stick
just since we use chopsticks and they're made of wood.
So keep in mind, however you need to get that gentle target,
you just want a gentle touch, you don't want
an aggressive bite down.
- And also it's super important for the parrots to learn it.
It's probably the first thing you should teach them.
- Yep, we've actually helped save a lot of birds
that have gotten outside accidentally and ended up in trees
and, sorry I was pushing you back.
But the other thing is that target training
is really powerful for birds who may be scared
of human interaction, especially dealing with hands
or just dealing with people in general.
So it's a really great hands off training technique
where you aren't asking the bird to interact
with your hands.
So having that foundational training technique
and having your bird be 100% at it is really important
because if your bird isn't coming based off your recall
you might be able to pull out your target stick
and ask them to target instead, and here they come.
- And also like, I forgot what I was gonna say.
(chuckles)
- That happens to me all the time.
The other thing I wanna say is just target training
really comes in handy when you are reaching failure points
in anything else, you just kinda go back to basics
back to your foundation and target training is really it.
So I'm gonna show you some examples of target training
with my budgie, Blueberry.
How we helped her learn the layout of the house
all the different areas that we give her to be able to land
and have fun around the house,
and some of the flight training that we do
to keep it interesting for her.
One of the things I will say that we kind of failed
at early on, right before we lost Blueberry outside,
luckily recovered her.
So check out the video in the video description,
I will leave a link to that video
cause that was so scary for us.
- I'm glad we got it back.
- Yeah, but one of the things that I had a failure point of
was I didn't really work with Blueberry on ascending
and descending, wow, I did that backwards.
But so (chuckles)
So one of the thing I didn't really focus on
was putting her at high up areas and asking her to come down
and putting on the brakes was a failure point for her
when she was outside.
Which is why she totally missed me in slow motion.
(chuckles)
So I will say with small birds, we tend to overlook
that stuff just because of their flight patterns,
how they tend to fly, how they tend to be really
flighty and fast.
So keep in mind all the skill building stuff
you still wanna focus on with them,
especially the ascending and descending.
Especially the descending, descending, descending.
(chuckles)
So definitely work on that.
Try to find ways to make it really fun and interesting
for your bird and make sure that flight training
isn't the only thing that you're working on,
work on other things too, to vary it up
and keep training fun and interesting.
And always stop before your bird gets tired.
You don't want this flight training
to become an exercise regime where you're just
like (chuckles) bootcamp and exhausting your bird.
You want your bird to always look forward
to it and almost initiate a play.
- And another thing is don't ever force your bird to do it
if they don't want to.
- Okay, so Blueberry is right there,
I'm gonna get her to come into my room.
(bird chirping)
Blueberry (wings flapping)
(chuckles)
So hard to catch going in here (chuckles)
Good girl, Blue
(bird chattering)
Okay, You wanna go into the main room and then Capri's room?
(bird chirping)
Let's see if we can do it.
Blueberry
(wings flapping)
So hard to catch her.
Good girl, let's keep going.
(bird chirping)
Blueberry
She's on that second tree.
Blueberry (camera shuttering)
Blue, Blueberry
(wings flapping)
Good girl, good job Blue.
Good job.
(bird chirping)
She knows the house.
Wanna do it again?
(indistinct murmuring)
Come on Blue
(wings flapping)
(chuckles)
You got it, yeah lets go (chuckles)
Good girl, Blue.
Good job little Berry.
Way too good at this game (bird chirping)
way too good.
(bird chirping)
Come on Berry (wings flapping)
(chuckles)
Blue, Blue.
Blueberry, come on over this tree.
(wings flapping)
Good job.
(chuckles)
(bird chirping)
I'm doing awesome.
Blueberry (wings flapping)
Oh, you missed (chuckles)
Blueberry (wings flapping)
Good job.
Alright everybody, thank you so much
for watching this video.
Let me know what you liked about it in the comments
and what questions you still have
about flight training small birds.
And hopefully we can create that content
for you in the future.
- And don't forget to like and subscribe.
- Yeah.
(upbeat music)