Thursday, January 19, 2012

Out Smarting Houdini


I make a habit of taming my birds and training them to stay in their cage when the door is open. Everyday when I add the special food in their small dish, I leave the door open while I take the dish out, fill and return and then close the door.

This works well as I only have to open the cage door once instead of twice. I have about 200 plus birds in roughly 70 cages and day after day I leave the door open and none escape. Even if I forget to close the door well and it falls open, everyone stays in their cage till hours later I notice it.

Today, I was smugly congratulating myself on how much easier it makes life to have birds stay in their cages rather than having to chase birds who escape while I am feeding. (As a matter of pride, I catch birds by hand and do not use a net.)

Once last week and again today, Houdini, a German Roller Male, quickly darted out of his cage and flew around the room. Well what a sight, we moving quickly around the room while Houdini does not even let me get close.

Around dusk, I still had not caught Houdini even though I had tried several times during the day. His cage door remained open and he ignored any treats I put inside. So I thought I might be able to outsmart him by placing a perch through the bars to the outside making it real tempting to fly in. Similar to putting an inside perch near an outside bath to encourage a bird to investigate the bath.



After dark, I went in the aviary to find Houdini as once it is dark, I can walk right over and catch him. Houdini took the bait and was sleeping inside his cage!!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Linda,
I had a houdini also and it was a roller and every time I removed his drinker he was walking on the floor in my roller room good thing my cat never tried to make him a snack..

Ed