Phew!!

[Deleted]

Most of you know, I was going to move my birdies upstairs. I haven't found the time to. So this afternoon, I was changing my buds newspaper lining and suddenly I heard a fluttering and a flash of yellow as Biscuit flew onto the roof. I took immediate action and ran upstairs, opened the window and climbed onto the roof. I looked around. I thought I had lost him but I just saw him on the edge of the roof. I almost caught him when he flew into a tree at mid height but still too high for us to reach. I ran downstairs, called him but he's not tame so it was no use. I got a ladder but the tree was too slippery. So my family members had some ideas, one suggestion was to wait, but the best suggestion was to throw sticks at him to scare him into flying down. He flew very high over the houses(I thought I had lost him forever.) and into a very tall tree. I was almost in tears at this point. Suddenly, he flew down into the neighbor's garden right in front of us. The  gate was open so we ran inside. The neighbor had seen Biscuit fly onto the wall. He was thankfully tired at this point so it was easy to catch him. I was so relieved.  I put him and Bluey in a different cage( Biscuit was panting a lot!). I had decided to bring the cage upstairs and take out the water and food before doing so that it wouldn't spill. While I was taking out the food bowls, I saw the door that Biscuit had escaped through so I decided to tie all the doors so that they wouldn't slide open but left the huge door in this pic.

They are now inside. I have a very popular question that many people ask. To clip or not to clip wings? I'm planning to clip the wings until the birdies are tame and like me then not clip the wings anymore. 



Biscuit after his attempt to escape. 


The cage upstairs.

[mona]

Poor Biscuit! He must have been so scared and tired. I hope he isn't injured anywhere and that fall down into the garden wasn't a bump and fall. I hope you are fine too! It was risky for you to climb all odd places.

It isn't advisable to clip their wings, whether tame or not, unless there's any medical reason like blind bird or birdie without toes, etc. Clipping their wings is like chopping off human's legs, in my mind.

Also, sorry but throwing sticks to scare the birdie to fly down was also not a good suggestion. That would portray humans as predators instead and could have scared him to fly away instead. When birdies fly outdoors from the cage, they have no idea how to get back. It's tough for them to understand their way back to their home. Oh, it's even tough for them to make their way back to the cage from the ceiling fan. It's a giant scary world to them.

You did right by tying all extra doors, but you could make an extra effort to make sure the room door/window is closed, where they are in, whenever you choose to open the cage.

I have my birdies in one spare room, where I keep the doors and windows closed. In such birdie rooms, it's advisable to have double doors, so that if the birdie escapes, you still have a cover. I can't have 2 doors in a rented apartment, so I have placed a full length wide curtain just outside the door fixed with velcro too and had been planning to have one inside too a bit farther from the door.

Anytime, as a practice, the birdie room door is always closed. If we are in other room, we don't lock it but keep it just a bit open, not enough for them to get out. My hubby has got strict instructions to keep the bird room door closed if he changes the birdie's drinking water in the morning. Other parts of the house also don't have any open window or door at all times.. we have a mosquito net installed on all windows..If they fly into the room, that's always okay. They'll come back to the cage for food.

Mine aren't hand tamed yet, just training them. But, when they came out of the cage for the first time, they had nothing to do with me..they won't step onto a perch or my hand. Just eat from my hand. You could start planning on letting them out of cage and training them to go back, using food. However, before that you would have to make sure that the room is bird safe. Mine follow seeds anywhere. I am using the same technique to lure them into travel cage, while working on step up training at the same time. They stay in their cages currently till 12pm and out of cage till 5:30pm, when they navigate on their own for food and I close the cage door.

I think we can be more careful, instead of clipping their wings. There are a lot of disadvantages of doing that, including bird frustration, loss of confidence, lack of exercise, etc. When these clipped feathers grow back, they cause a bunch of other feather issues, not being able to fly properly and bumping here and there.

[mona]

Also, please make sure to cover the cage at the place where the window is. They could be spooked by any flashing light from the window.

Also, make sure there are no creeks in the window to let wind flow inside.. I'm not sure about the house construction over there, that happens over here. So, I avoid keeping them directly near the window. But beside the window. 😊

[Deleted]

Dec 29, 2020 10:37:01 GMT mona said:

Poor Biscuit! He must have been so scared and tired. I hope he isn't injured anywhere and that fall down into the garden wasn't a bump and fall. I hope you are fine too! It was risky for you to climb all odd places.

It isn't advisable to clip their wings, whether tame or not, unless there's any medical reason like blind bird or birdie without toes, etc. Clipping their wings is like chopping off human's legs, in my mind.

Also, sorry but throwing sticks to scare the birdie to fly down was also not a good suggestion. That would portray humans as predators instead and could have scared him to fly away instead. When birdies fly outdoors from the cage, they have no idea how to get back. It's tough for them to understand their way back to their home.

You did right by tying all extra doors, but you could make an extra effort to make sure the room door/window is closed, where they are in.

I have my birdies in one spare room, where I keep the doors and windows closed. In such birdie rooms, it's advisable to have double doors, so that if the birdie escapes, you still have a cover. I can't have 2 doors in a rented apartment, so I have placed a full length wide curtain just outside the door and had been planning to have one inside too a bit farther from the door.

Anytime, as a practice, the birdie room door is always closed. If we are in other room, we don't lock it but keep it just a bit open, not enough for them to get out. My hubby has got strict instructions to keep the cage door closed if he changes the birdie's drinking water in the morning. If they fly into the room, that's always okay. They'll come back to the cage for food.

Mine aren't hand tamed yet, just training them. But, when they came out of the cage for the first time, they had nothing to do with me..they won't step onto a perch or my hand. Just eat from my hand. You could start planning on letting them out of cage and training them to go back, using food. However, before that you would have to make sure that the room is bird safe. Mine follow seeds anywhere. I am using the same technique to lure them into travel cage, while working on step up training at the same time. They stay in their cages currently till 12pm and out of cage till 5:30pm, when they navigate on their own for food and I close the cage door.

I think we can be more careful, instead of clipping their wings. There are a lot of disadvantages of doing that, including bird frustration, loss of confidence, lack of exercise, etc. When these clipped feathers grow back, they cause a bunch of other feather issues, not being able to fly properly and bumping here and there.

I know, I shouldn't have thrown the sticks but we didn't have any other options. About clipping the wings, I won't do that.  

[Deleted]

Dec 29, 2020 10:40:45 GMT mona said:

Also, please make sure to cover the cage at the place where the window is. They could be spooked by any flashing light from the window.

Also, make sure there are no creeks in the window to let wind flow inside.. I'm not sure about the house construction over there, that happens over here. So, I avoid keeping them directly near the window. But beside the window. 😊

Ok.  Actually, when the window's open they love the cool air but when it get's windy or rains I close it.

[mona]

Sorry, i meant about covering the cage from that side "at night" to avoid night fright.


If you can, have the window covered with a mosquito net.. so that with open windows, you minimize the risk of escape during the day. The windy thing is for winters when they can catch cold..not sure how the weather is there..

[ffiscool]

You were very lucky indeed, as was Biscuit. Moma has given very good advice. Please keep everything closed when the cage doors are open. Make sure they can’t get out the cage when there are windows open. And please don’t clip them.

[Deleted]

Dec 29, 2020 11:46:43 GMT ffiscool said:

You were very lucky indeed, as was Biscuit. Moma has given very good advice. Please keep everything closed when the cage doors are open. Make sure they can’t get out the cage when there are windows open. And please don’t clip them.

Correction: it's mona not moma. Ok won't clip the budgies' wings.

[mona]

That's okay @birdlover123. It's just a typo. As shakespeare said, "What's in a name!" 🙈🤗🥰

[tweetiepiesmom]

So happy you caught Biscuit @birdlover123! You both must have been so scared. I've read so many stories about pet birds that got away and were gone forever. Even very tame birds can escape, a door or a window could be opened, something startles the bird and out it goes.

[Hezz]

Clipping your birds’ wings will not gain you more trust but rather set back your taming as you take away their only ability to escape from predators. Flight is essential to a bird, not only for its sense of security but also exercise. Making sure that all windows and doorways have some closure is imperative to owning a pet bird. Even something as simple as a fly screen will contain a bird inside the house. A budgie can and will chew holes in them, though, so should always be supervised.

[Deleted]

Dec 29, 2020 21:50:51 GMT Hezz said:

Clipping your birds’ wings will not gain you more trust but rather set back your taming as you take away their only ability to escape from predators. Flight is essential to a bird, not only for its sense of security but also exercise. Making sure that all windows and doorways have some closure is imperative to owning a pet bird. Even something as simple as a fly screen will contain a bird inside the house. A budgie can and will chew holes in them, though, so should always be supervised.

thanks for the advice Hezz!

[frankensteinsmother]

That all sounds *super* exciting and I'm very glad to hear it turned out well in the end. Obviously, throwing sticks at a bird is never ideal, but I'm sure I've done less ideal stuff in panicked emergency situations. It also sounds like you got good advice on the clipping. Before I had to take Frankie to the vet, I had the idea to target train him using a chopstick, verbal praise, and millet. I might try it again now that he's a little more comfortable in general and see if the millet's more motivating than it was last time I gave it a shot, or give him a different treat altogether if it's not. Are you familiar with target training? I think I heard about it on Youtube for the first time in the past month, and my idea is that if I start with him now, if he ever does manage to escape a safe room, I'll be able to call him back without getting to the stick throwing level of upset.

Honestly, I'm glad you posted. I've been so busy with other stuff the past couple of weeks, I plumb ol' forgot about my plan to work with him in a more structured way.

Oh! And I forgot to mention--the plus with target training is that it seems you can do it with untamed birds, starting with the chopstick through the cage if need be. Who knows? Might be the thing

[Deleted]

Thanks for informing me about target training!!

[frankensteinsmother]

@birdlover123 Totally! Let me know if you get into it. Could be fun to compare notes