Feathered Family Inc.

Many of us have discovered that the common parrot harnesses available on the market today can be bulky, ungainly, and some of our birds just don’t like to wear them. But as we all know, a harness can be a bird’s best friend, allowing for adventure where they could not go before. In frustration I created my own bird harness, from simple materials that most any of us can get easily and inexpensively. I hope that this helps you better your companion parrots life!

What you will need:

• 1 appropriately sized dog or cat harness (don’t freak out, your going to change it)
• 2 appropriately sized dog or cat collars
• 1 thin leash (usually marketed for cats)
• Sharp knife or razorblade
• Patience

How to begin:

First, when you purchase your harness and collars, be sure to get ones that buckle closed with tough plastic buckles. You don’t want your bird to have to wait while you feed the ends through anything more complicated. Being quick to get the harness off and on is vital to getting your parrot to wear it. No one, not parrots or us like to have to wear anything that is a pain in the tushy to put on. Also, its nicest if you can get a harness with a ring for clipping the leash to on both sides of the body, so look for ones with 2 available rings!

Ok now your going to take apart the harness. Let me explain this as best as I can.

When you get your harness it will be two circles (one for head and one for body) with one or two (two is needed for this, shop for it, they aren’t terribly hard to find) bands of material between the two circles. Usually one circle is mobile, meaning you can move it completely around in the harness, and the other is stationary, meaning it is sewed in place. The first thing you’re going to need to do is to take apart the harness into its composite pieces. You should end up with 2 buckling circles, and 2 center pieces. To accomplish this you may very well have to cut the circles loose. This is easiest if you slip a very sharp knife between the circle and the center piece, where the threads holding them together lay. Be careful not to cut too much, you want that center piece to still have a loop for threading a body or neck strap through. I had to loosen the threads on the other side of the center pieces also, in order to fit a neck strap large enough for comfort.

Once you have managed to get your harness into all four pieces its time to begin to fit your parrot. Take the two appropriately sized collars you bought and slip them around the chest, being sure to buckle there, and the neck again buckling. Remember which collar goes where!

Time to assemble. Take the chest collar piece first (we ended up liking the fit of the one that came with the harness, but it is still cut free so we can move it where we want) and feed it through a loop on the center back piece. Then take the neck collar piece and feed it through a loop on the center chest piece. You should end up with two T pieces. Hopefully with a place to buckle the leash onto included in each T.

Now comes the putting the parrot in. You can also do this on your arm to assemble, if you’re worried that your parrot will fight the harness. (By the way, this makes it easier to harness train the parrot, as you can put on just one piece at a time to get him or her used to wearing them.) Your harness should look like two circles with two pieces in between.

Putting the harness on the parrot is easy with this method, as you first buckle the neck strap into place, leaving the chest piece to dangle down the bird’s chest. Then you slip the back piece into place, under the wings, and buckle it through the dangling chest strap. You can buckle the neck strap to the back strap before or after putting on the back piece, but I find it easier to do after. I simply unbuckle the neck for a moment, feed the neck collar through the back center piece, and rebuckle. The bird is completely in the harness then. Of course I have a very patient parrot too! This might take time for your parrot to learn, but if you make it into a fun activity it should go well. Good Luck!

I want to take a moment here to thank Ceebee for being so patient with me while I created her harness. Also for being patient for this above photo. What an incredible friend and companion she is to me!