Macaws:
Red Shouldered (Hahn's) Macaw
Severe Macaw
Blue And Gold Macaw
Blue Throated Macaw
Military Macaw
Red Fronted Macaw
Scarlet Macaw
Green Winged Macaw
Hyacinth Macaw
What is better for taking a parrot outside, a harness or a travel cage? This article will go over some of the pros and cons of using a travel cage or harness for taking a pet parrot outdoors.
As you well know, it is very important to have some physical method of restraint whenever you take a pet parrot outside. Although having a great relationship with your parrot should be the primary reason your bird does not fly away, a back up physical means is best to keep things safe when things outside your control happen. Even well trained parrots and parrots with clipped wings manage to fly away and be lost outside.
You have 3 choices of protection when taking your parrot outside, a travel carrier, travel cage, and a harness. Which is best or which should you get? In my opinion, each of these has its own purpose and you would benefit most from getting all 3. I have each of these 3 for each of my 3 parrots.
A travel carrier is the best thing to use to transport your parrot to go somewhere. Most often this will be to go to a vet, but it can just as well be helpful to drive a couple hours to a summerhouse where you have a full size cage waiting. Unlike a travel cage, carriers usually have solid walls and limited visibility. Some are hardshell plastic carriers (normally used for a cat or a dog, but converted for use for a bird) while others are special purpose bags for transport. A carrier offers better protection for the parrot and less climbing opportunity than a cage. Strictly for getting from point A to point B, this is better than a travel cage.
A travel cage is a smaller cage that the bird can be taken outside in. Ideally, it should be lightweight, have a carry handle, and a perch inside for the bird. Try to avoid using a wire cage meant for parakeets for any larger bird. Those cages come apart easily and a larger bird is more likely to speed up that process. Most things are just held together by friction, squeeze, or bent wire and any parrot from a Green Cheek Conure and up can undo that. The Aluminum Travel Cage from Parrot Wizard is light weight, safe, and convenient for all small to medium parrots. If you insist on using a wire cage outdoors, be sure to zip tie everything secure that isn't immediately necessary including all food doors, where the cage connects to the base, and where cage sections connect to each other.
Unlike a carrier, a travel cage is meant to provide your parrot a more active outdoor experience. The parrot can readily see out of the cage in all directions, climb around the bars, and soak in the sunlight. You can more easily see and talk with your parrot and have a mutual time outdoors. A travel cage is good for sitting with your parrot in the backyard, walking around the block, driving and spending time at a park, or when taking a trip where the parrot will be living out of that cage for a few days at a time. If your parrot is spending less than a few hours in the travel cage, forget about putting food and water inside as the parrot will only make a mess and not even consume any of it. For longer trips, put food and water in when you are not in motion.
Although a travel cage can be used in place of a carrier (especially by covering the cage with a towel in cases where the bird is nervous from being too exposed), it may be bulky to go in and out of the vet's office with. A more compact travel carrier that limits your parrot's activity is still better for those types of outings. However, when it comes to enjoying the outdoors and being visible to you, a travel cage is more suitable. Some parrots may be scared of the travel cage or carrier, but luckily it is fairly easy to train them to accept it.
A bird harness provides the ultimate outdoor experience to both you and your parrot. You can enjoy your parrot's direct company and the bird can freely move about on you. Add a leash extension in a safe environment (nowhere to get tangled or harmed) and your parrot can even fly. The harness provides the maximum freedom, however, it also requires the highest level of training and the highest level of supervision. If you go outside with your parrot on a harness, you need to keep your attention on the bird the entire time. So, if your purpose is to go for a walk with your bird, a harness is great. On the other hand, if you are having a backyard BBQ with guests and want your parrot to be outside, it may be better to use a travel cage since you are too busy (and near a hot grill) to be able to give the bird enough attention. Although a harness can keep your parrot from flying off, you cannot simple tie the bird to something and divert your attention. A bored bird can chew through the harness or get into mischief if left unsupervised even for a short time. So, as you can see, a carrier, travel cage, and harness all have their place.
Travel Carrier Pros/Cons: · Pro: Secure · Pro: Low visibility (good for new or nervous bird or busy environment) · Pro: Lightweight for mobility · Pro: Inexpensive or mid-priced · Con: Not good for getting sunlight · Con: Not good for interaction
Travel Cage Pros/Cons: · Pro: Good visibility · Pro: Good for getting sunlight · Pro: Some interaction with bird through bars · Pro: Bird can live in travel cage for a few days at a time · Con: Midweight, less convenient to walk with · Con: Expensive (or poor quality/security on wire cages) · Con: Heavy or impossible for large parrots
Harness Pros/Cons: · Pro: Maximum freedom · Pro: Flight possible · Pro: Personal hands on interaction · Pro: Inexpensive · Pro: Lightest travel method for large parrots · Con: Requires extensive training · Con: Requires constant attention/supervision · Con: Difficult or unavailable for very small parakeets
Using a travel carrier, travel cage, and harness all have their pros and cons. Each has its place depending on what you are trying to do with that bird at that time. Use a carrier for efficient transport of your bird. Use a travel cage to spend time outdoors with your parrot in a more interactive way and as an alternative to the harness if your parrot is not yet ready to use one. Train your parrot to wear a harness and use a harness for hands on, yet safe, outdoor time with your bird.
There are so many great reasons why you need to get an Aviator Harness and start taking your parrot outside!
First of all, safety! No matter how bonded your parrot is to you, no matter how well trained it is, no matter whether its wings are clipped or not, any parrot can accidentally fly away and be lost outside. Quite likely your parrot will not be able to find its way back to you and will not be able to survive on its own. For this reason, a leash is a great safety net.
Now I certainly don't recommend using a harness as a primary means of keeping your parrot from flying away. Your bond, relationship, training, etc should always be the main reason that your parrot chooses to stay with you. The harness is merely a very unlikely backup plan just in case anything unexpected goes wrong. Think of the harness as a seat belt and not as a chain. Just because you wear a seat belt, isn't a license to drive dangerously. Instead, it is only an important line of protection in the event that something unexpectedly goes wrong. Some folks make excuses not to wear a seat belt, maybe even calling it uncomfortable, but it is the best safety catch in the event of an accident. Likewise, for your parrot's safety it is a reasonable compromise.
That said, the harness should not be a point of torture. Forcing a terrified parrot into a harness just for the purpose of taking it outside is cruel and counterproductive. The bird will be so distraught by the harness on its body that it will not have a chance to notice or enjoy the surroundings. This will also harm the parrot's relationship with you. It is better to take a parrot out in a travel cage or not at all than to mistreat it by misusing a harness. But, there is a way to teach the parrot to wear the harness voluntarily.
Parrots are very intelligent and capable learners. So if we teach them the purpose and method of putting on a harness such that they agree to wear it, then there is no problem. The most important thing that I teach my students is to ask the parrot if it agrees to wear the harness and until the parrot says yes (through its behavior), you are not to make the parrot wear it. Instead, I teach parrot owners how to use positive reinforcement and a carefully developed training regime to teach the parrot to want to wear the harness.
Watching my videos, you might get the impression that it's easy to put a harness on a parrot. And guess what? It is! On a parrot that was properly trained to wear it that is. Of course it is not easy at all to wrestle a resisting parrot into a leash and maybe impossible the next time when it knows what it is used for. However, after spending the initial effort to complete the training, they really do put the harness on easily for the rest of their lives. Realizing how long parrots can live, that's a lot of years of great harness wearing and outdoor adventures that you can have. It more than justifies the cost and effort to learn to teach your parrot to wear a harness properly.
This is just the beginning! There are so many more ways you can involve your parrot in your outdoor life and the Aviator Harness is your tool to being able to do that! Hiking in the forest, roller skating, maybe even rock climbing are just some possibilities. Get your parrot more involved in your active life.
The good news is that when you order a copy of the book and an Aviator Harness from ParrotWizard.com. the $19.99 Harness Training DVD comes free! Patiently follow the steps in the book and DVD to harness train your parrot and you can partake in outdoor Aviator Harness Adventures with your parrot for life!
So what are you waiting for? Your bird isn't going to learn to wear a harness by itself! If you want to enjoy an active outdoor lifestyle with your parrot, you have to start somewhere. You have to set yourself a goal to get the tools and start using them. Then, you have to take a deep breath and calm down. The harness training process requires patience. Patience is the quickest way to successfully teaching a bird to wear the aviator harness. Any attempt to rush this process will only set you back when the bird develops a distrust for the harness. This is where the tortoise beats the hare every time. Slowly work on following the steps you'll learn from me until the parrot is completely comfortable with the harness. And then you can scale mountains and do anything outside as long as you and your parrot are having fun!
The Aviator Harness is awesome. It has played a pivotal role in helping me achieve the awesomely well-behaved parrots that Kili & Truman are. Their beautiful plumage, outstanding social skills, flight capabilities, and showmanship would not be what they are if I didn't take my parrots outside regularly. With the Aviator Harness, I have the peace of mind that I will not lose my parrots to the mayhem that is New York City.
It has been over 3 years since I started using an Aviator Harness for my parrots. Looking back, we've made leaps and bounds in progress going outdoors as such. I'd like to look back at some highlights and offer tips and tricks that I have learned about using a harness.
First there's putting the harness on the parrot. This is where most people start and end. The majority of people that I have come across that purchased a harness gave up because they could not get past this point. But of course without this critical step, all other harness procedures are useless. Why are parrots so unwilling to wear a harness? Part of it is that it is uncomfortable but a bigger part is that they don't like the process of having it put on. The first part can only be solved by time as the parrot gets used to it but the second one gets solved by training. Without solving the second problem, you can't get the duration and practice to solve the first one.
Basically the process of sticking the harness on is a bigger deterrent from the parrot than the discomfort of actually wearing it. I know this, because my parrots can wear it all day long if need be. Even with a tame parrot that let the owner stick the harness on the first few times quickly learns to resist having it put on. After all, why should the parrot let you stick that uncomfortable thing on it? It really gets no direct benefit from it. The parrot doesn't realize that going outside is the result of putting the harness on. But even then, going outside for a house body of a parrot isn't necessarily a good thing! Until the parrot is accustomed to going outsides, it may be scary and unpleasant in itself.
The secret to teaching a parrot to wear a harness is to make it WANT to wear it. Forcing the harness on only makes the parrot want to wear it less and avoid it. But if you can convince the parrot that it is to its advantage to be wearing the harness, you're in business and the rest is just technical! Now how do you convince a parrot to voluntarily commit the equivalent of putting on a straight jacket? Well it's simple. On one hand you bribe it, but on the other hand you make a solid promise to take it off really soon.
So let's take the straight jacket example further. If I wanted to get you to put on a straight jacket, you'd tell me I'm nuts. If I said I'll give you a hundred bucks, you still wouldn't do it because you'd be afraid I'd just leave you tied up like that. But if you had a solid promise from me that all you had to do was wear it for a minute and then have it removed and get a hundred bucks, that's not so bad is it? So how can we demonstrate the promise of removal to the parrot? A verbal promise is useless because the parrot does not understand. Well, we can demonstrate the promise behaviorally.
If you briefly touch the parrot with the harness material, and then take it away and give a treat, you are demonstrating what will become the promise of removal. Continue in baby steps where the parrot is briefly enveloped in the harness but then it is removed. Progress with putting more on and for longer, but always going back to removal. Since you build up the duration, prior removals act as negative reinforcement for future ones, thus you develop the promise of removal. Yet the reward is still mandatory because that is what the parrot is working for!
Another aspect, and going back to the straight jacket example, is force vs volunteering. Think about the difference of being physically forced into that straight jacket (despite being paid and promised of removal). Someone grabs your hands and holds you down while the jacket is applied... That is painful, frightening, and uncomfortable. Now on the flipside, what if someone holds that straight jacket and you can walk over and put your arms into it yourself at your own pace? That is far more painless. Still, someone will have to do up the straps in the back, but you weren't stressed while putting it on so the hundred bucks makes it worthwhile. Don't you see how putting a harness on a parrot is like putting on that straight jacket!? This is why it is so important to let the parrot volunteer to put on the neck collar, promise imminent removal, and give good rewards for the process. With time and practice, the duration can increase, the rewards can diminish, and the entire process will become easier.
However, the Aviator Harness is no straight jacket. It is very unintrusive and allows the parrot full flight capability while wearing it. But at first, to an animal, putting anything on may be analogous to my example.
I'm not going to elaborate on the process further here but I strongly urge you to watch my Harness Training DVD on how I taught an adult rescue Green-Winged Macaw to wear an Aviator Harness voluntarily.
I always clip my parrot's harnesses to my belt loops before even putting the harness on them. I never trust just the wrist strap alone, plus it gets in the way. By clipping the harness to my belt using a 99 cent keychain carabiner, I have the peace of mind that the parrot is secure.
I keep my parrots on the short leash of the harness at all times except when I intentionally want to fly them. At that point, I take out the special yellow kite string that I measured out and prepared for this. I made loops at both ends of the string and secured them so they can't untie. The way I make the swap from harness only to harness plus extension leash is a neat trick. I pass one end of my string through the harness wrist strap. Then I run the other end of the string through the end loop in the string, thus tightening one end of the string around the harness wrist strap. Then I add the other loop end of the string to my carabiner hook. Finally I take the wrist strap out of the carabiner hook and the parrot is now on the long leash. This special exchange ensures that my parrot is never disattached. At this point I'm not particularly worried about the bird flying off in this short exchange but it is still a good practice to maintain.
I never "freefly" my parrots outdoors wearing a harness. That is I don't let them fly at will. I encourage them to always stay on me, a perch, or to only fly to me on command. I don't want them to think it is acceptable to fly at will because there is too much they can get the harness tangled in if they were to just fly. To keep things more controllable and limited to my judgement, I always set things up to allow only controlled recall flight. At first I flew the birds only to the length the short harness leash would allow. Then I proceeded to use longer and longer leash extensions. Virtually every time the parrots flew off "at will" they ended up hitting the end of the line and realized that it's a bad idea. Thus the harness automatically punishes flying behavior. By rewarding only requested flights, the parrots eventually learn to stay put except when called. This works out well in the end because the parrots stay put when they are me wearing a harness. At home they fly off at will but outdoors they stay which gives me confidence to take them places.
Don't forget that hawks and other predators (including cats/dogs) pose a huge threat to your parrot outside even if it wears a harness. I live in a busy city where there are few birds of prey but I do occasionally spot them so it's a point I am aware of. I keep my eyes open and am ready to protect my bird as best as I can. I do avoid taking them to large open rural fields where birds of prey may be more abundant.
I keep challenging my parrots to wear their harnesses for longer. Whether it's taking them to an event (even indoors if things are hectic), camping, on trips, or just about, it helps make them more accustomed to wearing harnesses.
Not only is it fun to take the parrots places but it is also one of the best things for them. Besides the health benefits of receiving natural sunlight, the socialization experiences make them far better pets. As they experience more people and places, they are far more prepared to cope with anything that life may throw at them. It makes them better behaved and less likely to bite.
Finally here is a video that shows how quickly and easily I can put harnesses on my parrots. It's not a race but I want to show how quickly we can do it. By wasting no time, it gives the parrot less time to play around with it or resist. Since we have done this so many times, they cooperate and assist in putting it on by moving their body and wings to go with the flow. When a parrot resists, it is far more difficult to get all the straps on in any reasonable span of time.
My upcoming book is just days away from shipping out for printing! It includes information about harness training parrots but more importantly it presents an approach to attain the relationship that prepares you and your parrot to make use of that harness and beyond. So please stay tuned for more announcements about the book.
Trained Parrot is a blog about how to train tricks to all parrots and parakeets. Read about how I teach tricks to Truman the Brown Necked Cape Parrot including flight recall, shake, wave, nod, turn around, fetch, wings, and play dead. Learn how you can train tricks to your Parrot, Parrotlet, Parakeet, Lovebird, Cockatiel, Conure, African Grey, Amazon, Cockatoo or Macaw. This blog is better than books or DVDs because the information is real, live, and completely free of charge. If you want to know how to teach your parrot tricks then you will enjoy this free parrot training tutorial.
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That said, the harness should not be a point of torture. Forcing a terrified parrot into a harness just for the purpose of taking it outside is cruel and counterproductive. The bird will be so distraught by the harness on its body that it will not have a chance to notice or enjoy the surroundings. This will also harm the parrot's relationship with you. It is better to take a parrot out in a travel cage or not at all than to mistreat it by misusing a harness. But, there is a way to teach the parrot to wear the harness voluntarily.
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