To clip or not to clip...

[LadyWoofstuff]

Hi everyone!

I have to start by saying that I am adamantly against clipping - as a general rule. However...

Stewie (a 2 yr old Maxi. Pionus) is essentially untamed but has been playing on top of his cage for the last few days. I have been advised that you should never give an untamed, flighted parrot out of cage time until they've at least learned the 'step up' command.

Whilst I understand this logic (for health and safety reasons!), I couldn't stand to see him confined to his cage. My thinking was, let him have his out of cage time and continue with the taming and training when he's inside the cage...

Last night was a huge disaster!

As usual, I was sitting in the living room, watching TV and talking to Stewie and he was clambering all over his cage. After a few hours, I noticed him looking at me intensely. I spoke to him again and with that he decided to fly (for the first time!) straight at me.

Just before he reached me, he got spooked either by the prospect of landing on me or the new experience of flying (or both!) and veered off...crashing into the wall.

In my ignorance, I thought that birds naturally can fly - they can, but navigation is clearly a different matter!

Long story short, I made the decision to towel the poor little guy and place him back in his cage as he was getting increasingly distressed flying and crashing around, having no idea how to get back to his cage. I was terrified he was going to do some serious damage to himself.

Thankfully, my baby is absolutely fine and our fledgling relationship seems not have suffered!

My question is, what to do next?

Do I get his wings slightly clipped (as a one-time thing) to tame and train him?

I realise he will still have to learn to fly, but maybe, once trained, he will be less scared so his flying will be less frantic??

Or he will at least see me as a "safe zone", fly to me, and step up so I can place him on a suitable area?

I have read that clipping a birds wings can make them more nervous because you're effectively taking away their main defense mechanism and can make them more prone to behavioural problems such as feather plucking, etc. But, for his sake, I can't risk another incident like last night's.

I just don't know what to do for the best...

Any advise would be most welcome and appreciated!

Thank you,

Emma

 

[BirdSquawk]

Sorry he had such a traumatic experience! It seems a slight clip, just to get him really well trained, and when it comes back he can regain his confidence. Hope he is not too freaked out. Good luck!

 

[BillsBirds]

When I take in new birds, I always clip them. Then, after getting them accustomed to me & my house, I let their wings grow in. And all my birds are fully flighted. I think it helps to have them a bit more under control. Plus, they learn to depend on me for getting around better in the beginning. By the time the wings are grown in, we are better bonded. Plus, it avoids the panic flights like you just experienced, because they are more confident in me & themselves.

 

[khaiqha]

I am not a fan of clipping birds, or forcing them to learn to be dependant on you. I had a parent raised IRN that could fly growing up. It took me a month to get a bond going but after that it was amazing. If you are afraid of your bird injuring itself by flying, start in a small room. Once it learns to fly safely in a small room, you can expand to bigger rooms.

Many birds when they first learn to fly start off slowly as babies. This is the best time for birds to learn how to fly indoors, as they won't move around so quickly. As they get older, they fly much faster. A bird who was clipped young and then is learning to fly as an adult is much more likely to start flying at fast speeds before they get a proper handle on things, which means colliding with walls.

 

[Featheredsamurai]

I am not a fan of clipping birds, or forcing them to learn to be dependant on you. I had a parent raised IRN that could fly growing up. It took me a month to get a bond going but after that it was amazing. If you are afraid of your bird injuring itself by flying, start in a small room. Once it learns to fly safely in a small room, you can expand to bigger rooms.

Many birds when they first learn to fly start off slowly as babies. This is the best time for birds to learn how to fly indoors, as they won't move around so quickly. As they get older, they fly much faster. A bird who was clipped young and then is learning to fly as an adult is much more likely to start flying at fast speeds before they get a proper handle on things, which means colliding with walls.

Rosie hit walls fairly often when she was getting better at flying, now she is very good at turning and knowing were she is going. She was already tame and bonded to me though.

 

[MonicaMc]

Flying is instinctual. Knowing how to fly isn't. It's a learning experience. They need to learn how bank, turn, land, lift, etc.


Have you tried working with Stewie using positive reinforcement training techniques? Often under the guise of clicker training?

 

[cdnbirdlover]

There are so many more experienced bird people here but here is my two cents:

Basil was clipped when he came to me (he was one and had spent his first year with his sibling in a cage, having been mostly parent reared with very minimal handling). He was very frightened of hands. With much patience and time, he learned to step up and has become my little friend. I had him clipped once during this time to keep him balanced and steady. A proper clip allows birdie to fly but safely coast to the ground.

When he started moulting those clipped flight feathers out, I decided not to get him clipped again. He is tame enough and whenever he would fly and coast to the ground, he would just run to me anyway. He flies now but only when it's safe to do so (no cooking on the stove and only when I am there). My daughter will have him practice flying to her from the top of his cage but if given the choice, he will fly to me. I wouldn't have wanted him to be flighted before we became friends and he had learned that I was safe.

I have also learned from a wonderful bird resource in my city that some birds are more prone to "fly first, think later" behaviour than others. Lovebirds aren't like that and they aren't the greatest fliers anyway. This person has all of her large birds and lovies flighted but keeps her cockatiels clipped to control where they can fly to (as they are the ones who would take off without thinking). There are degrees of clipping but you have to make sure you have an experienced person do it so the bird is safe and steady.

Good luck with your new friend.

 

[newclassic]

If the environment your parrot flies in presents fairly serious dangers (e.g. things your bird shouldn't get into, things your bird could fly into other than walls, fans, other pets in a different part of the house, easy means of escape, if you're not around to supervise your parrot, etc) or isn't big enough for it to navigate safely in, clipping might be the best option.

Both of mine currently have unclipped wings--we used to clip them because everyone told us it was simply standard, but there was no point in continuing the practice. My lovebird is excellent at flying/navigating; as mentioned above, she 'thinks first, then flies'. She always calculates her course before taking off. She came clipped as a baby, so I'm not sure if it helped tame her or not. My cockatiel is still pretty awkward at it though, but there are plenty of places to land safely on the rare occasion he decides to take off.

 

[MonicaMc]

Birds who are clipped at a young age and learn to fly as adults often think before they take flight. If they never learned how to fly, flight itself is a learned behavior rather than instinctual. That is to say that they must decide where to fly before they decide to fly.

Parrots who have always been flighted and have good flight skills don't have to think of where they want to fly before they take off. They think on the wing.


Birds who are skilled flyers often have controlled panic attacks. That is to say that they will take flight, but they will not fly into anything as long as they have room to maneuver. Frightened, unskilled and clipped birds have a higher tendency to fly into objects, of course there's always going to be exceptions.


Cockatiels are one species that tend to frighten easily. When you hear about night frights, probably over 90% of the time, it's about a cockatiel(s). Many believe that they have extra sensitive hearing, which is why it's so easy for many to have night frights.


The following articles goes more indepth into this. (Thinking on the Wing)
Flighted Parrots - Thinking on the Wing by Steve Hartman    The Parrot University