# Need help for reckless danger-adict!



## Jesska (Apr 24, 2018)

Hi everyone,

Kowhai's finally gotten his wing feathers in and has mastered flying. He spends most of the day outside his cage now. I was thrilled when this happened because I really wanted him to be flighted and have the exercise and safe free-reign of the house, but now I'm seeing some big issues popping up!

First off is the floor. Kowhai loves flying onto the floor, and landing around everyone's feet - regardless on if they are moving. He's got no sense of fear or danger from being near moving feet that could easily hurt him. I'm going nuts trying to get him off the floor because my 5 year old son, though aware of Kowhai, can't always tell where he has landed. I've put perches high up and Kowhai has spots all around the house that are safe - but he just loves the floor! But then, this should not surprise me considering in the wild Budgies forage from the ground. Any ideas what I could do?

The second is he now refuses to go back in his cage, and can fly away from my hand when I go to put him in. I can bribe him in with millet sometimes, but he usually just flies away when he get's any sort of hint it's cage time.

Any ideas, tips, or thoughts? I want Kowhai to be out with us, but I don't want him in danger by always going to the floor. I don't want to clip his wings, but I don't know if that would be safer, or just make the floor problem worse.

Heeeeelpppppp. inch:


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## JRS (Sep 3, 2016)

This is tricky and I'm not sure that you can have all that you would like.

You may need to limit his out of cage times to those time when you can directly supervise him. As you are well aware, a 5 year old will not have the spacial awareness that we do. 
A regular routine and positive reinforcement can help the 'back in cage' situation. Have his favourite foods only available in his open cage to make that place appealing and necessary.

I think you need first to watch Kowhai and observe what he actually does when he's on the floor:
If it's crumb searching, eliminate the crumbs I.e. does your son sit on the carpet with his lunch/snacks, leaving tasty crumbs to find? Maybe a new person rule to only eat at the kitchen table? 
If it's investigating toys, you could consider whether buying a tuff spot or something similar would help https://www.amazon.co.uk/CrazyGadge...sr=8-19-spons&keywords=tuff+spot+stands&psc=1 they're great for containing small construction toy pieces into one area.
If it's just that he wants to be around you and your son then I'm not sure how much you can do about that, other than limiting Kowhai's freedom to times when either your son isn't around, or you can supervise. 
You could perhaps also consider a small sturdy portable bird stand that could be placed on the floor beside your playing son if you feel that Kowhai might stay on it.

Whatever you do, I think it would still be good to have a routine with Kowhai confined to his cage for at least some part of the day. You would all would benefit from him being used to amusing himself there, as you may at some point need to board him, or have a lot of visitors around etc.

So my advice is observe first, consider if the attractions can be removed or contained, think through your human routines and how you can devise a timetable to allow some freedom for both humans and bird, consider how you can perhaps split Kowhai's favoured food allowance to make confinement more appealing and also consider the room layout; could you perhaps reposition the cage beside the human favoured end of the sofa so Kowhai feels less isolated.
Best of luck.


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## RavensGryf (May 8, 2015)

Some good advice above from Julia. I would definitely limit and closely supervise out of cage time, and especially because of his obsession of the floor. Some birds do like the floor more than others, regardless of being a ground species or not.

Several years ago, I had a situation with one of my parrots, who insisted on being on the ground until I, no pun intended, 'put my foot down' and put a stop to it. The way it came to a stop was (luckily he is fine now), I was busy cleaning the room when he got under my foot wearing flip flops, and I stepped on his head. Rushed to the avian vet and a couple weeks recovery. I was "always" so careful with him on the floor since I was "always" conscious that this nightmare could happen if I wasn't paying attention. Well, I'm only human, so my "always" just wasn't perfect enough when I was in a little more of a hurry one day.

I spent many weeks shooing him up off the floor every single time he just barely touched down. It was very difficult to get him accustomed to staying up even with positive reinforcement, but it _did_ finally work with persistence and patience, and he is an extra stubborn guy too. Now he only does it maybe 1-2 times per year, and I shoo him up right away. A little budgie doesn't have a chance. I know you'll do what you need to do to keep Kowhai safe.

He needs to associate going back to his cage with positive reinforcement, or else he'll see no reason to go back where he doesn't want to. If there is a special favorite treat; at first while your training him and establishing an "in" routine, only give it then. It he is persistently hard to catch, it might help during training if you can dim the light in the room. It is easier to get them to step up and comply when it's darker.

While he is going in, it's inportant to use either a cue word such as "IN" or whatever word you choose, or a clicker or bell sound to associate with going in to find a positive reward. With some time and patience, they can be taught to go home. I've taught this to my boy mentioned above, as well as budgies. I wish you the best with Kowhai .


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