Rasta the Alexandrine parakeet flying on cue

I forgot that I’ve been working on flying and diet all at the same time and recently Rasta has finally got his flying down and on cue. I can now not only cue him to fly TO his cage (which he likes to do because he likes being at his cage anyway) but I can now also get him to fly away from his cage on cue. It is really fun, and I’ve even used some random rewarding to get him to fly back and forth for the larger part of his day – even when I’m not there to reward him.

Rasta getting his treat for his flight

I’ve done this by making the house a safe place, making the parakeet cage a safe place for him to be and putting a little treat dish on top and leaving treats randomly in there so he knows to fly over there. If he doesn’t see a treat, he flies back to his cage to look for one and then repeats it again until eventually there is a treat waiting. This encouraged him to fly when I wasn’t around and now that I’m there I can call him and cue him and he will do it when I ask or need him to.

He is so beautiful in flight that it has been fun to get him to do it on cue so that I can actually get pictures of it.

Just for a little extra proof, here is some video of Rasta flying on cue, to and from his cage:

And here is some of the in between training that it took to get him there so you can see the difference between trained and not quite trained:

The reason I’ve been able to move on in my training is that first off, flying and spinning are two totally different behaviors that I’m asking and how I’m working on them is so different that there’s no way he can get them confused with one another. But also I completely finished the spin training before moving on to other training. Here is what the final training looks like with Rasta as far as the spin is concerned. Notice he does it in other places and for other people.

You can view some of the training this all took by visiting my youtube channel and watching the videos there. I won’t be including them all in posts anymore, but will include the most important ones I feel are necessary.

If you’re looking to find out more about the training techniques I’ve been using on Rasta, check out our training courses.

Tip for aggressive birds: If you have an aggressive bird who is IMPOSSIBLE to train because you can’t give him a treat, consider using a treat dish like I am with Rasta. I can hand Rasta treats but we don’t fully trust each other so I find it easier to use a dish. You can offer the dish with your hand like I am (with one treat inside) OR you can set the dish down for your bird to walk over and get the treat out of and then take the dish back (or use multiple dishes).