Opinions on Clipping

Ok,

I only have my female for about a week now, but im trying to fully prepare for all of this.

The guy I rescued her from, said her last wing clipping a few months ago had her freaked out and she did not like her wings touched anymore, nor did she want to be handled. In my short time with her, I have her stepping up, sorta unstable, but still doing it. I have been petting her wings and head, with a little growling and nipping, but she is MUCH better.

To the question. I don't NEED to have her wings clipped. I would eventually like to get her an aviator harness.

In training and building a bond between us, should i just let her wings grow out, or should I have her clipped once or twice more to help training and trust?

To add, she is 4 years old, and has always had her wings clipped. I know it sounds silly, but my concern really is for her to be happy. Would there be any benefit at all to have her clipped?

My bird is flighted, and I use an aviator harness with her. She stays in a screened in deck most of the time, and flys to her food and back to her perch. When she is in the house, she is usually on my hand or on my shoulder, and I supervise her. I never leave her alone in the house where she might start flying around. You have to know your bird. To me, the only reason to clip is for the safety of the bird in a household, otherwise I don't advocate it. But you have to take responsibility for that too. It sounds like she will be happier as a flighted bird, especially if you already have the intention to harness train her. Birds are meant to fly, after all!

Mine was clipped and that helped us handle her- she wasn't tame when we got her, but now that she is tame we are letting he wings grow. There is no reason to clip.

We clip wings, trim claws and beaks about once per month. Since starting this, Winston and Montego are much easier to handle.

The wing clipping issue is one that has been beat to death and a very volatile subject. It's really up to the individual owner and how they feel about it.

My personal feeling is this: Pet birds are not equipt to care for themselves in the wild. If a flighted bird got loose through an open door or window, they really couldn't fend for themselves like their wild raised counterparts can. Plus I live in a state that is subtropical, which is the perfect environment for non-native species of animals to thrive and florish, which has caused countless peoblems for the native species as well as humans.

So to me, I feel that it's my responsibility to ensure that my animals are safe and do not become an added problem to the environment. When I was a lot younger, I felt differently and lost two birds to opened doors never to be seen again.

I agree with mike in that it is the owners responsibility to make sure the animal is safe. So only you can make that judgement call. Since being a member of this forum for about 4 months I have seen several posts about flighted birds getting out and though most of them so far are successful at getting their babies back, it does not always happen and one of them took several weeks of worry. But if you feel you can keep that from happening and are sure about it, there may not be a reason for you to clip. My CAG is not clipped at the moment, but he also is cage bound. Once he trusts us more and is willing to come off of his cage where I can take him with me places I will clip his wings as it would kill me emotionally if I lost him as it would be my fault.

I clipped my female when I first got her, but never clipped her again. She is a very sedentary bird and has only attempted to fly two or three times since I got her. They say that if you are attempting any type of training or bonding, her wings should be clipped because if she flies somewhere out of reach, you will never be able to get her down. Also, if she wants to be moved to another perch, YOU are the one who will move her which helps in bonding. However, my vet told me that he hates when people clip their birds wings because it can cause other issues. For example, clipping causes birds to pay more attention to their feathers and they may start plucking or shredding.

Thanks for all of the advice. I appreciate the input. I know this subject has been overdone already. I just wanted to see some thoughts. She is gettin so much better every day. And she basically glides from her cage or perch to the floor. Im going to wait a few weeks and see. My biggest fear is that whatever she went through at her last clipping will come back if i bring her somewhere.

So far in my house no doors will be open if she is out of the cage. I am trying to train my family to understand. My windows all have screens, and my doors are all at the end of hallways.

I will post updates as time goes.

Thanks again for all of the opinions

I keep Ruby clipped. She is just over a year old and came to me clipped. As she got new feathers she was flying into things and crashing, so I had her clipped again. She goes everywhere with us, I have even taken her to the grocery store after a trip to the pharmacy to pick up her medicine. She just sat perched on the buggy handle, although I did get some funny looks from some shoppers. She enjoys meeting new people and loves the attention. Clipping means I dont have to harness her for these adventures. It is a personal decision for each individual IMO.

I know i'm late to this thread but the "to clip or not to clip" has always been sensitive with me. On the one hand, they are birds and part of their nature is to fly. On the other, they are birds and it is not 'natural' to be pets.

My budgie had been fully flighted his whole life, and he was happier for it. He also was a great listener and would fly to me every time i called him. (he was so good, 100% of the time, he listened.)

Then when i got Georgie, the vet clipped her before i brought her home. He recommended it for safety in the home environment (but admitted my budgie was healthier for flying.... and lucky he never was harmed). I let her flight feathers grow in but she did crazy things in the house (tried to fly into a frying pan while i was cooking because she wanted some.....and other 'dangerous' things). So i clipped her again.
It may just depend what works for each bird in each situation for the safety and health of the bird. Ideally my bird could be flighted and safe, but the frying pan kamikaze stuff just scared me senseless!!

I wanted to keep Neytiri fully flighted but after several flights at the bird shop where I had to get step stools to get her down I gave it more thought. Right inside my front door it goes up to the second story. There is a light and window up there that if she decided to hang out on I don't have a ladder tall enough to get her down... So what I ended up doing is having her given a "light" clip so that she can still fly but she can't really climb. This has worked very well for our household.

Sassy

I'm also a bit late posting on this thread, but I came across it because I am deciding whether to clip Pritti's flight feathers again. He had it done a couple of months ago (left on long side by vet), and now he's jumping off my shoulder, crashing down, sliding across the tile floor into cabinets, crazy stuff. So I believe that as hard as it might be to do, if it is the safer thing for your birdy, then do it and feel good about taking the tough step to protect him/her. My experience with Pritti is that he'll fly if he can and, because he is super independent and curious, he'd go out an open door quite swiftly if it was in front of him. He likes going outside around our house in Florida all year round. So, as always, when it's trim time, I go through this battle of deciding, which you might too. Perhaps later, there will be a time when you want to try the flying out between clippings and see how it goes. It's always an option.

Most birds take 6 months to a year to molt their feathers... So it's not really something you can just 'try out between clippings'...

I think training is the answer, but... if you have kids constantly opening and closing doors.... clipping the wings might be better.

I'm training my birds with a hand signal: stop... palm towards the bird - do not fly after me, when/if they do, they go back where the came from... and repeat...

I do live alone, and have full control of the doors in my house...

Many years ago I lost a Corella, Cory... The wind took him.. He was clipped.. Thankfully I found him a week later, very thin, but alive... and I told myself I would never clip another bird... If the bird were to escape, it would have to be able to fly. The clip on Cory gave me a false sense of security...

If i ever did get another bird i would try my absolute hardest to train it and have it flighted. I was never really for clipping, but peoples opinions on this forum have shown me that it is sometimes a better option.
But i still really wish i could have seen Pickle fly, even just once.