Spending thousands of dollars on a bird and not bother to put a screen on the window... is negligence, not a reason "the bird should be clipped".
I agree and clark goes with me everywhere and soon zod too. Zod's already met the local merchants.
Me and Clark even planted a bush outside together, whenever I go outside for walk we check it out.
I'm a centrist, I'm in the middle. A bird should be able to evade but not risk themselves by gaining altitude.
I'm in absolute awe of those that post videos of outside free flight...I also hear/read the bad stories.
I recognize it is their birthright. It really is, thats why I let them fly, to a point, and mostly downwards.
Like I said this is the third rail..I don't even know why I posted again other than to meh forget it....OWNERS, do what you feel is best....thats all I'm saying.
But you have to remember not all of us own macaws or birds that are thousands of dollars. Most of us have birds that range around $25-$200, so when you think of it that way, I can see how people can be negligent about this aspect of ownership. There are far many more cockatiels lost in the world than macaws.
My neighbor raised horses , abd did this in the 70s I witnessed it, the horses spirit was broken after that, it was terrified, it was terrible and the horse was not the same....he was mad at the horse when he started, these where American Saddle Bred horses he bred, and this colt was high strung and flighty and he was frustrated....I wish I had been old enough to call animal cruelty...Love the fact that he does a lot of imping.
I can't wait till this is a commonplace procedure (again).
(Sunny would probably really be helped with more suport for the new forming feathers)
I still do not believe that disabling the fly-away-option will make for a tamer /better trainable bird. (The famous freeze/flight/fight being the options they start out with being confronted with something potentially dangerous to them) No animal frozen in fear will have a positive or succesfull trainingsession. I do realize being forced "to face your fears" might have positive results, but I am convinced there are also a lot of cases where the absolute opposite happened.
(fight: My bird is soooo agressive, and bites me...)
To me it is almost as absolete as "sacking" a horse to desensitize it.
(Tie it down so the terrified animal cannot escape, and then touch/hit/etc. it with empty bags all over its body till he stops fighting alltogether -> then it is "tamed")