I totally understand what you're saying...But it is very possible that his flight-feathers could totally grow back in just fine, the only way to know is to have a Certified Avian Vet or Avian Specialist Vet pull each remaining feather shaft to allow the follicles to start growing new feathers (no "Exotics" Vets, you need an Avian educated and trained Vet with experience to do this)...It's very, very possible that Charlie's feathers will grow right back in normally once what is there now is pulled out....As long as whomever clipped him like that didn't actually cause damage to the feather-follicles, they should grow back in...It will take a while for them to completely grow back-in, probably around a year once a CAV pulls what is there, but they usually do come right back just fine...
It's extremely common for people to have to do this, you're not alone, that's for sure. And most-all CAV's and Avian Specialist Vets have done this many times. It's unfortunately not uncommon for breeders to actually do this to their baby's before they sell them, and sometimes even before the baby's get to fully-fledge. So in order to spark the follicles to grow new feathers, they have to pull the old feathers/shafts out the follicles, which typically "sparks" them or encourages the follicles to start growing new, totally healthy feathers almost immediately after removing the old feathers/shafts from the follicles. So it's a very common procedure and is not painful at all for the birds...
They typically use a very short-acting Isoflurane Gas to sedate the bird and then they quickly remove the feathers/shafts that are there...So they don't have to put the bird fully-under or deeply under medical anesthesia, and Isoflurane Gas is very safe for birds and is used regularly with birds to take x-rays, put IV-catheters into a vein or an IO-catheter into a bone, and even for some grooming procedures on more anxious/stressed or larger birds that have trouble being toweled.
I've seen this procedure done a few times to parrots that have been surrendered to the Avian/Reptile Rescue I work at, and I've never seen any issues at all arise during or after the procedure, and I believe that in every case I've seen the bird's feathers grew back-in either fully and the bird was able to fly normally, or in a couple cases most of the feathers grew back in and the bird was able to glide across a room with control and glide safely to the floor, they just didn't get quite enough new flight-feathers for them to be able to get altitude, but the end-result has always been well-worth doing...And I don't think the entire procedure ever took longer than 15 minutes from start to finish, as they typically have multiple Vets/Vet-Techs assisting because they want to get the bird out from under the Isoflurane Gas as quickly as possible, and the actual process of plucking all of those feathers really isn't at all as tedious as you might think. And I've seen hundreds of birds put under Isoflurane Gas, and I've never once seen any bird have any issues at all with it, not once...The really nice thing about Isoflurane, besides that it is very short-acting and safe, is that it dissipates from their bloodstream almost instantaneously once the mask is removed from the bird. The birds usually wake-up within a minute or two of the mask being removed, and they are fully up, aware, and back to completely normal within 5 minutes of removing the mask...It's not anything at all like normal, medical anesthesia that is used for surgical procedures...
And as I recall, having this procedure done is not at all expensive, the only part that costs anything is the gas, but most offices have a set-price for this procedure as a whole, and it's not anywhere close to the cost of any surgical procedures...You'd be paying for simply a regular office visit, whatever that fee is based on what CAV or Avian Specialist you go to, and then the procedure fee, which is probably around $100 or so on top of the office visit...not much more than that...You just have to really make sure that the Vet you take Charlie to for it is an experienced CAV or Avian Specialist Vet that only treats birds, because there is a right way to pluck feather-shafts and a wrong way, and it has to be done the right way in-order to encourage re-growth from the follicle...
I'd absolutely have it done, because it usually does work. Worst-case scenario is usually that Charlie would be able to glide a good distance horizontally with total control and glide to the floor safely, best-case scenario is that Charlie will be able to fly completely normally like any other bird...So definitely a win-win procedure...
****If you need help finding either a Certified Avian Vet or an Avian Specialist Vet that is closest to you, we can help you with that...There is a very good search-tool for this, in both the US and also World-Wide, and the link to this locator-tool is all over the forum, I'll go look for it and post it here when I find it, if someone else doesn't beat me to it!
