16/11/2024
If anyone in the U.S. wants to join me in breeding cockatiels for free flight, please let me know. Aesop and Arkady have another clutch, and I would like for a bird from this clutch to go to someone who shares this passion of mine and likewise wishes to breed successful free-flyers. I start birds on free flight BEFORE adopting them out so that we can, at the very least, determine whether they were able to do it successfully as babies--following their parents, taking HUGE flights without getting lost, and coming down to me for food--which is a good baseline.
As you probably already know, cockatiels in captivity have, for the most part, been bred either 1.) at random or 2.) for aesthetic reasons (crest size, recessive colours/patterns, etc.) I have been trying, working within my means, to start moving away from this and towards breeding for function--that is, the ability to free-fly successfully. So far, I have worked towards this by:
Producing offspring from Linnaeus, who was one of the most successful free-flying cockatiels I am personally aware of.
Producing offspring from Linnaeus' son, Aesop, and Arkady, both successful free-flyers.
Starting birds on free flight before adopting them out and certainly before making any decision as to whether to breed them. I have incurred two baby cockatiel losses this way, both of whom were white-faced and carrying the pied gene. This combination does not seem to be well suited, genetically, for the pressures of free flight, on average.
I am keeping Baby #3 from Aesop and Arkady's clutch this year; he is a grey male who strikes me as very similar to Linnaeus in temperament and mannerisms. I will continue free-flying him, and, if he continues to succeed, he will most likely be father to the next generation of free-flying cockatiels when the time comes. (And yes, I have a bias towards breeding phenotypes that are more "wildtype" if possible because they seem to do best with free flight, on average, compared to some of the more recessive mutations, though this is by no means a black and white issue.)
I can't keep all of the cockatiels. I have already adopted out/found homes for several babies with free-flyers or people interested in free flight who are otherwise great bird owners anyway. However, I would like to start placing birds with people who are not only free-flyers but who also want to embark on this difficult and exciting journey with me.
Even if our only short-term initiative is simply to pair up and breed healthy birds who have free-flown successfully (made possible by the fact that I and whomever else would be flying them as youngsters, so we never have to commit birds to a lifelong mate without at least a little bit of free flight data), we are already taking a step in the right direction that has never been bothered with before.
Long-term, with more data and more individuals to choose from, we might even manage to breed males whose adolescent dispersal instinct is diminished or absent; I have noticed, at least from my personal experience, that males with a great knack for free flight--confidence, survival skills, predator evasion, intelligence, etc.--nevertheless seem to harbour this instinct. I suspect that this facilitates genetic diversity in the wild when males leave their "home flock" to find another.
I believe we can change the future of cockatiel free flight and impose selective pressures on the captive population that will lead to free flight being safer, birds being healthier, more cockatiels being capable of free-flying, and people who wish to free-fly cockatiels having a better source for where to obtain their birds.
This is not easy, there will be losses, and some people will hate us for free-flying this species, but it is possible that fifty years from now, if enough people care about chipping away at this goal, we might have a line of cockatiels which are objectively better suited for free flight than any of the birds we have had access to thus far.
Parrot Volancy offers bird training assistance, flight education, and free flight mentorships.
![Baby update! Let me know if you're interested in adopting, preferably if you would like to free-fly. :] All five babi...](https://img3.voofla.com/038/496/1082454840384961.jpg)
