How To Hold a Bird in Your Hand

Introduction

A lot of times, people think that it is really easy to handle a bird and to hold it in their hands as though they were holding a kitten or a puppy. However this is not true. In order to hold a bird properly in your hand you need to develop a ‘bird hand’. This is nothing but a hand which can handle birds gently and properly without hurting them. Birds are very different from humans and mammals because they do not have diaphragms. Therefore you need to have a bird hand so that you can handle it without suffocating it or restricting it from breathing.

 There are five steps in order for you to develop a perfect bird hand and these are given below:

Step 1

Step 1: Do not ever use your bird hand to press the bird’s chest when you are holding him because this could suffocate the bird since it needs to expand and contract its chest in order to breathe. You can hold the bird by grabbing its tracheal ring which is very strong. The tracheal ring is located around the neck of the bird and you can hold them firmly by placing your hand there without hurting the bird.

Step 2

Step 2: You need to pay attention to the fact that the bird’s head should be restrained with your gentle bird hand. Try to restrain the bird’s head by wrapping the entire bird with a towel and gripping the bird’s head with at least three fingers, one on the top and two on each side. Also, ensure that you are holding the wings carefully and not letting it flail about because that could fracture their fragile wings.

Step 3

Step 3: Since it is necessary to use a towel along with your bird hand in order to hold a bird, it is essential that you convince the parrot that the towel is a good thing first. Allow your bird to step on the towel, play with it, tug at it, eat from it, etc so that the bird would get familiar with the towel and not see it as a threat or associate it with negative feelings.

Step 4

Step 4: When you are holding the bird in your bird hand with the help of a towel you can bring your palm close to its feet which would otherwise be flailing about since the bird might be scared. Allow the bird to perch on your finger or rest its feet on your palm until he/she is calm because it is very difficult to work with a bird that is flogging about.

Step 5

Step 5: After you have held the bird in your birdhand and you need to let go of it, you should consider feeding some treats to it if it has behaved well.

Tip

It is beneficial to develop a bird hand because this will make the task of handling the birds comfortable for you as well as the bird. It becomes necessary to hold the bird in your hand when you are feeding the bird medicines, taking him to the vet or simply transferring him into another cage or carrier.

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