Posted: Fri Sep 30, 2011 10:50 am Post subject: Kakariki Harness Training
For a while ive liked the idea of a having a harness to safly allow my birds to have supervised flight out side. earlier in the year i took over rearing a single chick that was the only one to hatch from the clutch and was being a bit plucked by mum who was keen to lay again.... dad wasnt too good at feeding the chick and the chick was also getting quite constipated.... i think to the dad eating mainly seed (hes a new bird this year and is now eating much more veg)
anyhow......... i thought id take advantage of the situation and try training the baby to use a harness.... First i checked out the options and decided on an Aviator Flight Harness.... not the cheapest but sounded the safest.... It arived along with a really indepth DVD with instructions on how to familierise your parrot with the harness and warnings that aproaching the training the wrong way will result in a bad experience for the bird instead of the desired enrichment. well......... i started leaving the harness near his cage and holding it close to him when he sat on me after feeding.... also holding his wings and simulating the movements of putting on the harness.... when i came to putting the harness on for the 1st time.... it wasnt as easy as it had looked with the large parrots id seen on the DVD. he kept hanging on to the harness with his feet as soon as there was a prob id stop and just play with it instead. We got the harness on a few times before he had learnt to fly and it didnt seem to bother him. He has just started to be able to fly in the past week but isnt very confident....but will fly with it on and perch and preen... he even had his first bath today on the lawn with it on.... went for a walk.... ate blackberries straight from the hedge and sat in the pub garden and met a NZ lady who had never heard of a kakariki..!!!!
all in all .... so far.... its a positive experience....
I will try and get some pics tomorrow _________________ May........
And do u now believe most NZers have never heard of a kakariki yet used to be as common as sparrows.....and have to be in England to find out about theM! _________________ My Spelling is Not Incorrect...It's 'Creative'
We chatted for quite a while and i educated her ... told her about the conservation work to re-establish island colonnies and the preditor problems... so..... 1 more person is now aware of the kakariki and the hard times its had due to human interaction :) _________________ May........
That is a real cool pic...putting the harness suibject to one side...
Thanks Steps ... we are having some unusually nice weather for the UK... and especially the time of year.. that helped loads.. :) will try get some more of fitting the harness today _________________ May........
we are having some unusually nice weather for the UK
My cousin and his wife , Couple famly freinds , couple m8s of my son, and the neighbours (who where over for dinner last night to watch the Rugby world cup Scotland /England last night) all just come back from the a few weeks in the UK....
General comment....went in summer and took summer wardrobe...had to by a new NZ winter wardrobe.
England deservered to loose rather than Scotland win....England did win in the last 10 mins.... just..terrorable performance from a top rated team like England....tremendous performance from a low rated team like Scotaland
And Ireland big suprise, Wales as usual never take for granted.
French for a top team again dismail...hell Japan damn near beat them, and tonga really put then down
Teams like Japan, Ireland, Argentina, Canadians causing a few upset even in the top professional teams....
Good to see the Quailty of Rugby so dramatically improved...Hell even the USa and 1st time Russan teams are impressive.
England, France And Aussie..the main challangers for the finals dispointing. _________________ My Spelling is Not Incorrect...It's 'Creative'
i have a bit of a soft spot for the scotts.... Simon Danielli used to live next door to me when he was a kid.. n used to play pretend racing on my motorbike when it was on the center stand..... sweety.....n my sister used to babysit for him ... i also quite like Wales ... they were brilliant when i was growing up and i sort of have some welsh blood.. USA....??? RUGBY....??? i didnt even know they plaied it
i can totally believe about the having to buy new warm clothes..!!! i almost had to light a fire the other week yesterday we had the hottest day in october since 1895.....!!!!! my thermometer was at 30 but that was in direct sun... very strange.... _________________ May........
Hiya, first post on here but,...... we have a 4 1/2 month old female who we have had from 9 weeks and was hand reared from 3 weeks, she is very tame and usually responds well to all of the family when out of the cage..(we have 4 children 11,9,4 and 6 months) we have got an aviator harness for her as we thought if she allows us to do most things it might be an option for her,....have watched the dvd and are slowly following the steps, she is happy to accept the harness as a toy in her cage and for us to touch her head and lift her wings...but....if she sees it while she is out will avoid both my husband and myself and favour the children over us!!! dont know if breeder tried one before we had her????? the question really is how long did you spend with your bird with the harness before being able to put it on? and do you have any ideas that might help us with this?
Thank you
Birds are a bit different to other animals....one hast to be the Alpha 'male' like with all animals, but at the same time trust is a tight balance.
Basiically the same as what happens in a flock..a member of that flock, espec the females do not go anywhere, do anything without the alpha male checking out first.
Children...veery often they has an instinct as to establishing this relationship....and sry ro say they will often do things in a manner a parent may not approve fully of....and we dont find that out untill they grow up and tell us
We had an adult kakariki in a cage..isolation from a new source, so explained the basics of taming to our son ..who was about 7 at the time...and left him to it...important part was watch the body language.
He had that never handled kakariki climbing over him within 3 evenings...and I learnt a lot just watching and an attidude.."u are doing it, dont ask me"
We need not to underestimate our children..
As to the harnes it self, May is the 1st one here trying out, learning curve and we are all following closely....
So at the moment we have 2 'experts' on harness training yourself and May and we are keen to learn from both of you sharing situations ideas and stuff.
Cheers
Steps _________________ My Spelling is Not Incorrect...It's 'Creative'
Ok.... when i was feeding mine... Oscar he liked to have a cuddle after... so when i was cuddling him and giving him a stroke after feeding id hold the harness right next to him ... i didnt do it every day.... and not every time i fed him... probably 5 or 6 times in a week. I did find tho.. that it wasnt very easy to put the harness on it the way they show on the DVD..... mainly because he is so little compaired to the African grey they were demonstraiting on... and he wouldnt just stand there ......cuz hes a kakariki and they dont do standing still for hours mutch...... Oscar doesnt mind being picked up with your hand over his back to hold the wings down so i found the best way was to do it like that... he stands on my fingers while my hand and thumb hold him still.....
I put the harness on when i get him out of his cage... not when he has been out already also I say something like "come on lets go for a fly" and we go outside so he has got to know that the harness means hes going out..... rather than having the harness on in the house....
Ive taken some pics to show how i put the harness on him....
This is how i have the harness before i put it on him so i dont have to mess about fitting it
putting the harness over his head
putting left wing through loop
taking up slack from left side
putting right wing through
taking up the slack so strap is under the wings as it should be
tightening the strap... i leave the loop bit big and pull that through after
lastly pulling the loop tight making sure its not too tight round him
The main prob i have is he tries to grab the harness with his feet and then you get in a right muddle... so ... keeping the strap that goes round the middle under the wings tightish when you have it in the right place helps. hope this helps _________________ May........
Thank you soooo much for the pictures may! they are really helpfull......was starting to wonder how on earth we were going to get her to stay still......shes so inquisitive and always on the go, looks like a really good technique....
Steptoe, i think she sees the children as the rest of her flock... she will play along with them for hours...one of her favourite pastimes is riding the back of the baby walker!!! If we have no joy might pass it over to calum the eldest and see how he gets on with her...
Thank you both sooo much for your replies.
Hi know its been a couple of weeks but we seem to be making slow prgress, kiki is now happy with the harness being around when she is out and is happy for me to hold her in the ways we need to put it on, fingers crossed we arent too far off now! as long as the husband doesnt try......... think she regards him as her mate.......hmmmmmmm power struggle!!!!!!
well done... i think the secret is to train regularly and increase a little at aq time..... it might take a long time to start with but its worth it in the end... Oscar has not been out with his harness quite as much latley due to all sorts and is getting a bit mischievous when he is out free in the house..... but so long as i put his harness on straight from the cage he is fine with it still.
keep up the good work _________________ May........
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