Letting Birds Out without Training

User Question
You're site has been very helpful. Thanks!

I'm staying with my boyfriend's parents for two weeks. They have a keet

they found outside about to be caught by a cat. They brought him home and

got a nice cage, toys and mirrors for him. We have no idea what kind of

home he had before, but here he's ok with hands in his cage. If he was

hand trained before, he isn't anymore.

He's totally into the mirror, and will sometimes pace and may unhappy

squaks. My guess is he's lonely, and probably bored, too.

The owners care about him, and in the summer would hang his cage in a safe

place near a tree so he could have fresh air. However, they really don't

want to let him out of the cage. The mother stepped on her son's pet bird

years ago. It was just a horrible accident, but now she's afraid to be in

the same room as an uncaged bird.

With the owners' permission, I've started to hand train him. My goal is

to get him out of the cage a few times, so that the owners can get used to

the idea of letting him out. Really, I'm trying to train the owners.

I'm following your advice on hand training. However, I won't be here long

enough to finish the training (judging by our progress so far). Also, I

don't want the little guy to get attached to me, only to have me abandon

him.

I want to cheat a little, just to get him out of the cage once or twice

before I leave. I can get him to fly to a perch with a mirror attached to

it while I hold it. I guess being near his mirror friend is more

important then avoiding me. My thought was, to use the mirror perch to

get him back into the cage when I let him out. Hopefully, once the owners

get used to letting him out in a safe room, they will be more inclined to

hand train him. They know he'll be happier if he can fly around a bit,

and hang out with them. I just need to get them used to doing it.

What do you think?

Lisa's Answer
It really isn't a great idea to let a bird out of the cage before the bird is hand trained. If there was any sort of emergency, you would have no way of getting the bird back into the cage and to safety. If the bird went up high and you just wanted the bird back into its cage, it might not want to go. Now you'll be stuck trying to grab it and upsetting it even worse. Or "hoping" it'll eventually decide to return to its cage. It could be really traumatized by this whole situation and take months before it trusts a hand again.

The owners really need to work on hand training the bird - even if it's just for general safety reasons. What if someone comes to visit and opens the cage without permission?

The aim should never be to get a bird out of the cage. The aim should be to get the bird to trust being on your hand. That should be why the owners work with the bird. If it then also likes coming out with them, that's a nice side benefit that they will get used to over time. They will want him to come out, when they realize how much fun it is to have him hanging out on their finger ...

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