Well, not *my* flight suit, but I just bought the starter package flight suit from Avian fashions and I just noticed it came in the mail today! I've already been working on touching Coyote's wings to get him used to it (he hates it currently, I'm sure most do). I'm going to let him play around with the suit for the next couple of days and then try it on him. I am way, way excited about this because I am not the biggest fan of getting pooped on and I love the idea of being able to take him with me when I pick the kiddo up from school or go to the pet store for supplies or whatever.

I'll start with just having him wear it around the house and then in the back yard and stuff of course. I've been trying to get him comfortable with going with me to various rooms of the house without babying him too much about it because I want him to get used to the idea that if *I* am projecting confidence in going into a new area, that *he* should feel confident about it too, you know? He's still young enough that I want to try to expose him to as much as I can now so he won't be fearful of new things as he gets older and more set in his ways.

He's a lot more confident about stuff as long as he's on my shoulder now that we've been practicing around the house (like with me washing dishes with him on my shoulder, or folding laundry, which involves flicking out clothes which usually freaks him out, etc). He was never a particularly fearful bird, so I lucked out on that, but I want to run with that and see if he can be trained to being OK going out in public and such with his flight suit and lanyard and such.

I'm so excited! I'll post a picture of him in his plain white flightsuit as soon as I am able to get it on him.

On one of the forums I go onto, a lady has trained her birds to out with her. they go on school visits, camping, walks, she has them trained by the clicker method..... so I see no reason why the flight suit wont be a hit once your bird is use to it..
Cant wait to see it on!

Why must they be so smart? It's like he just KNEW what it was and won't go near it as if it were made of hot lava. I filled it with Nutriberries and he still won't even go on the same (long) perch it's hooked on. Stinker.

Cockatiels are actually one of the most difficult birds to train to accept a flight suit, since they don't like to be touched on the body. Many of the larger parrots preen each other all over the body, so it's natural for them to be touched on the body. But cockatiels only preen each other on the head and neck, and usually don't touch each other anywhere else unless they're mating or fighting.

Well, I am a bad person and am generally a trial by fire type person, so I put it on him. Not too traumatic and he doesn't like it at all, but he's getting the hang of his balance being a little different with it on and is currently nibbling at the straps while sitting on a perch. My only concern is that he can get a foot inside the pouch if he tries hard enough. I adjusted the fit so it's a little snugger around the trunk area but I think if he tries, he can still get a foot in there.

He's currently 7 months old. Is he going to get much bigger than he is now or should I try ordering a slightly smaller size? I don't have the lanyard attached (that won't happy for a while) and since it attaches in between the two velcro straps like a sandwich, I wonder if that will affect the fit enough to make it a tiny bit snugger around the trunk as well?

He's so sweet. I offered him a treat after I put it on him and he didn't want anything to do with it. Instead, he put his head down for a scritch instead, so he received many scritches. I am going to try to put it on him every day that I'm not working so he gets used to it. The process didn't take too long and I know others have had difficulties with getting the wings in the holes, but we managed OK. One of his wings has almost grown out all of his clipped feathers and the other is half way there, so they're not full grown yet but not short either.

This would probably have been a horrible idea for anyone else, but I'm telling you, Coyote picked me that day you brought him over and I think that he was smart to do so. We're obviously on the same wave length personality wise. Best. Pet. Ever.

He's still trying to figure out how to preen it off of him but he's calm and taking breaks from the preening session to ponder now and then. I'm going to leave it on him for a couple of hours and then try again tomorrow.

Meanwhile, the budgies are all taking turns seeing who can hang upside down from a tiny, slick plastic mirror and all failing because there's nothing to grab on to. I love having them all out in the living room!

It's amazing to see how much animals can relate to a person. My best pet ever award goes to my cat Shelby, whom I've had since I was 9. Beaker and Jaid are a close second, but don't tell them.

I actually didn't pick any of those guys. I adopted Shelby without knowing anything about her other than she's orange and her name was Shelby. Beaker I saw an ad in the newspaper saying "Male cockatiel for sale" with no description other than that.

Broke off from the original topic, but I love my animals, all of them.

It sounds like he'll adapt to the harness pretty well if his reaction is that calm! Most of my birds would be totally freaked out if I did that to them. I'm sure it helps that he's still young and has been handled a lot in general.

He's basically full size now. It's possible that he might broaden out a little more, but not enough to need a bigger flight suit. If you want to keep his wings clipped and need some help with it, you can bring him to the next bird club meeting which unfortunately isn't until March 8.

How nice you two can meet up...
I don't know anyone where I live who likes birds, they all seem to be into rabbits and dogs

I'm actually thinking about letting his wings continue growing in, since he's now taking regular flights around the house and is really adept at navigating his way through the living room and dining room and hallway without hitting any walls, mirrors or windows. Even with two missing tail feathers (one broke and one fell out from his molt) and one wing having longer feathers than the other. He's an impressive flier! So I'd like to let him get back to full flight if it's safe and as long as we're able to make it work with the flight suit.

I haven't put it on him yet today, but yesterday, I put his wing with the longer feathers into the suit backwards and then put his other wing in the "regular" way, but really, it just bends the feathers a bit as long as you keep the wing held in the right way as you're slipping it on. I think it will be doable with full length feathers, but we'll see.

I was paying close attention to how you clipped his feathers, and I think I'm OK doing it myself if I need to. We clipped 5 from each wing, but if I were to clip him again, based on how well he flies, I will just clip like 2 or 3. Is it OK to do a clip like that or does it need to be 4 or 5?

After letting him eat some Nutriberries tucked inside it, I just put it on him again, 50% less drama this time and I figured out that I can actually put both wings on using the backwards technique, so no bending of any flight feathers required. He's still getting his feet caught in it as he struggles against it after I first put it on but it seems like he remembered from yesterday that didn't work, so he's now perched on my shoulder trying to chew the thing off. I did have to give him a good face scritching for 10 minutes to help him calm down but he's smart and he seems to remember how it went yesterday and gnerally struggled a lot less. He also got his balance back much faster than yesterday, since it does (obviously) change their weight distribution, which is disconcerting and makes them clumsy at first.

So, day 2 with the flight suit is so far another success! I'm still unsure on the size, I feel like a teensy bit smaller size would fit him better but we'll see how it goes before I decide to order another one. I'd like to get a black or dark grey one that is less goofy looking, although the white is much better than the neon colors they offer (in my opinion, it's a fashion choice at that point after all). I'd like to have be the least noticeable as possible, so if we do ever end up venturing out in public, it will just look like he's hanging on my shoulder all Free Willy style. Of course, the rainbow colored lanyard kind of ruins the plan but whatevs.