I just want to spout off here a minute as the general concept of "its more like nature intended it to be" is quite lame IMO. There is nothing even remotely close to as nature intended in captivity. Whether it is county, state or federal, jail is jail.
Now that little rant being said, is the only part I disagree with about being flighted. The breeder I got Sophie from is so adamant about clipping he does it for free even if he didn't sell the bird. Because owners make mistakes.
My guys are usually clipped. I am the only bird person in my home. I love my birds with all my heart and quite often my wife is jealous of them. But she still wins when it comes to how our home is set up.
I take Sophie outside all the time. I'm bad in that I don't use a harness. The one I had she shredded. The way she is clipped even the day of, she can fly 20 to 30 yards with out head wind. I play with her at it. When she lands she always turns and waits for me to come get her. Zoey I flighted for a bit and the only reason she flew was to get away from me when it was medication time. Otherwise bless her too smart self she would wait me out to come get her. I let Benji have his wings most the time and he only flies to the ground or now to Crickets cage. Cricket is in Kelly's care and she is also adamant about staying clipped.
Sophie was way past due for her trip to the breeder for a clipping and she was quite capable of flight. Sadly it didn't help her when she fell off her cage to break her beak. When we got to the vet "I see she is flighted" was the question as at this vets office Sophie was the their first non flight broken beak. All the other broken beaks were due to birds flying into objects. Dander up? hehehe The last one they had was 5 years ago. It doesn't happen often.
Oh yeah........... I leave my blinds down in front of the sliding glass door and Sophie still flies into it on purpose. Chest and feet first. Its a mystery to me. She has a thing about her reflection.
So the FACT is for me, if I could knowingly have a safe place for my birds to fly, you bet I would let them. Which may be why I always wait too long to have them clipped. As pets in my home, it means they are my responsibility to keep from harm as best as I can. As I am not able to keep control of all situations in their living environment I clip them.

Folks,

Sorry that I caused such upsets here by tagging onto this old thread.

This is a sad enough world with conflicts bombs and death from intolerance of man towards man. We all do not have that much time left anyway from the way we consume our planet resources and fossil fuels.

I rather see things we have in common such as our love for our birds rather than how you care to keep flighted or not flighted. That they have a good quality of life is enough.

Birds are lost, clipped or flighted, through lack of knowledge. And I like to contribute what I know to minimise that and to give them and their caregivers a better time together safely.

I had been so strongly pressured to clip at the beginning that I now will never want to add further pressure onto anyone one way or the other.

Ultimate choice must be left to the individual, as only he or she know the circumstances. Let us all enjoy without pressuring others who chose differently.

When I started in 2002, I was desperately searching for information as to how to keep a flighted parrot. Those information did not exist then.

I hope the accounts of my life with Tinkerbell my CAG and later with Yingshiong my shama will be of help to those who might have thought of trying the same.

After all, kids will grow up or chew up all those poisonous plants in the house and lids found to cover all those boiling pots of water.

The circumstances which compelled you to clip the wings might have changed and you can reconsider again.

:-) or perhaps the material I provide might give you confidence to try what you do not wish to try earlier.

If you chose to keep your birds flighted, it is of paramount importance that you must train together and develop that bond even further.

Part 2 Tinkerbell Legacy was written as a guide as how you live and train with your flighted bird. That will contain much more details than what can be written in this reply.

Do not even try to look for shortcuts. Stop and think at every step.

YOU NEED TO live with the flighted bird to bond with them, to read not only their moods, and even more important, the nuances of their moods.

You cannot develop such bonds and understanding if the bird lives in a cage or in an aviary.

You must have a good sense of humour to live with a flighted bird. You cannot be a control freak and you must be prepared to give more than you take.

You cannot even begin to understand them if you take the approach you are the Master giving commands and they as pets who must obey.

They are not pets, they must be your friends and companions and as your equal.

Your bird must fly to you whenever you call them. Part 2 will take you through that process from the point you started formal clicker training.

Your bird must also fly to you sight unseen. In what I term as 'hide and seek' recall, he/she must fly to you from different room as you call for him/her. This is no guarantee that bird be with you safely outdoors.

No one can ever give you such a guarantee. The safest way for your bird to be with you outdoors will be in a harness you make for the bird to the design of Tinkerbell harness. Tinkerbell harness weigh 3 grams for Tinkerbell. The harness I made for Yingshiong (30 gram weight) nudge the jewelry scale at 0.6 grams.

This is only the beginning. The details are in Tinkerbell Legacy and the blog of how shama Yingshiong lived with me and how we trained together.

Svolk,

Flying down is very difficult.

For those birds got up a tree, perhaps this posting I did earlier elsewhere might be of some help.

And the following letter might be interesting to you too.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007

In this bundled series of letters, I was talking about what I termed as the gyrodrop. That was in the context of the mechanics of bird flights as to how they fly downwards. You can gauge how much I know about the difficulties of birds flying downwards.
Feel free to dispute with me on what I wrote, if you have some such experiences.

About the end of that article, I suggest the best flight angle for you to
induce your clipped or unclipped bird to fly back to you. You never know
one day you might need to use this.

An article from Part 1 Tinkerbell Early Period
http://www.geocities.com/shanlung9/w6gyrodrop.html



And if above works for you and you are grateful,
send a nice cheque to Gerald Durrells Wildlife Trust

http://www.durrellwildlife.org/

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

March 30th, 2007
8:56 pm More thoughts on wing clipping

Dave is an old friend from another forum. His CAG Smokey is flying about inside his house after he saw Tink page and started corresponding with me.

Dave wrote:

Proper wing clipping will allow a bird horozontal movement and the ability to glide downward to a floor. The ideal wing clip is one that allows a bird to fly about 8 ft before gliding down.


Hi Dave,

In an ideal world, what you say above may be right.

The other extreme will be extremely severe clipping of wings. When I was in Riyadh and in a parrot shop, this grey jumped off the top of cage about 5 feet from ground. The sound of him hitting down, the spray of blood around him, and the screaming of that poor guy hurt me crazy. I do not wish ever to have another keel bone broken even if not in front of me.

People clipped for a few key reasons.

1. They had been conditioned to that because of what they read or were told. This seemed to be peculiarly American. Tinkerbell wings were so nearly clipped by me at the beginning as the books I read all recommended that (all American books) as well as forums in 2002 when I first had Tinkerbell. I was lucky enough to bought a British parrot mag to give me second thoughts.

2. The sight of initial flights, the crashing into walls was extremely frightening and I thought my precious Tink was crazy in trying to fly through walls while I stumbled about chasing her with a pillow to cushion her falls after hitting the wall. Once again, I so nearly reached for that scissors and Tink the flying grey of Taiwan so nearly did not exist. But that british mag persuaded me to let that continue for a few more days.

She then found her flying skills to turn, slow, hover and stopped banging into walls.

Folks, this episode is inevitable. Your birds may be natural fliers, but even so, they MUST develope their muscles , flying skills and sense of balance. But at this early stage, their speed will be very slow(even if it appeared fast to you) and chances of harm to them will be there, but not much.

You can minimise this by letting them fledge in a small room, with curtains or rope nets around the walls for them to fly to and cling too. Or you can run around like me with a cushion.

If you see a human toddler trying to walk and falling down, will you have fear for his/her safety and not ever let him discover balance and walk? Will you have him/her crawl for the rest of their life because you are afraid to see them fall?

This is same as your choice for your bird.

3 By clipping wings and thinking thus the clipped bird will never fly away. I need not repeat my earlier postings of clipped birds that flown away.

In what Dave said , that is true in an ideal world. Unfortunately, we live in the real world.
But most people then went on to extrapolate that then, their bird will never be able to fly away. That is where I draw that line.

So after you got that 'perfect clip' and your parrot then fly about 8 feet and not gaining height. But again, have that clip been tested under worse case condition? Such as a sudden blast of air horn , or a strange hat thrust in front to see if that parrot cannot gain height in a spook situation?

Can you bear to do a sudden spook, or allow others to do that to your parrot? To see if that clipped wings hold good in spook conditions? And with Murphy at your elbows, how about throwing in that gust of wind at the same time?

Can you ever guarantee such conditions will never ever occur to you?

People had thought so. Their parrot paid heavier price than they did.
Your choice again to see if you can beat those odds.


Shanlung

http://www.geocities.com/shanlung9/

__________________
Warmest regards

Shanlung

http://www.geocities.com/shanlung9/

Shanlung,

I would love to read your article on flying down, but your link does not work for me - is this just me or does it not work for others as well?

Your posts are very well thought out and I agree with everything you stated.

One of my biggest concerns with clipping is that every time the bird is clipped the balance is thrown off all over again - no clip will be exactly the same every time, and the bird's balance is most definitely affected by a clip. Meaning that the bird has to learn to manuever/glide with the initial clip and then when they are taken in for another clip after some flights begin to grow in, they are constantly having to adjust for the balance shifts. And in that period where their flights are growing in, they are ALWAYS having to adjust because one or two grown in flight feathers can make a big difference when it comes to balance.

And this is why I believe that a lot of crashes happen, their balance is askew all the time. Lulu was most dangerous to herself when she was clipped because she could not control even a simple flight.

Sarah, they're working here.

Very interesting and a very good point.

Does anyone have any thoughts as to WHY it's so commonplace to clip wings in the US but not elsewhere?

Sarah, what you just stated about clipping and throwing off the balance is very true for some of my birds here. Through the winter this past year, I let everyone's wings grow out. They weren't clipped from September through April. At the beginning of the summer when I took them in for clipping, I had them clipped gradually over a period of weeks so they could get used to the series of clips vs. a full blown clip. The transition went well. Just something to think about for those who do clip.

I just skimmed this thread and the responses, so forgive me if I missed any details, lol. I will go back and re-read later, in case I missed anything and my response is totally off mark.

Cindy- I got Higgins because he was aggressive, period. He was known human aggressive, and when I got him, his wings were clipped. He did have a conure housemate in his former home, but I don't have a glimmer of an idea of how that dynamic worked out. I do know, however, that he is extremely bird aggressive. He has attacked my amazon, unprovoked, on several occasions, where my amazon was simply eating on the playstand, and Higgins lunged from the back of the couch to go for the amazons throat. Luckily, my amazon is a big chicken and no harm was done to either bird. I know I cannot trust him out with any bird, so the caiques always get seperate out of cage time. But, he will get out and jump on the others birds cages and try to get at them through the cage bars.

Joel- open floor plan means the whole house basically means the whole house flows into one another- its not broken up into 'sections' like a normal house. The kitchen, living room and dining room are all connected with no walls separating them, the bedrooms are all connected (no doors) by a hallway, etc. The caique is fine inside his cage- he cannot get out- but whats the point having a flighted bird if he is severely restricted about what he can do in the rest of his environment outside the cage? As of now, the caiques and parrotlets are in a separate room, but if the caique took it in his mind too, he could easily cross the hallway and go into the room with the parrotlets to hassle them. And I would not put it past him for a second, either. I have been doing behavior modification for the two years that I have had him- he is 5 now, and its like its ingrained in him.

Just a gentle reminder: We are here to discuss, not to argue. I don't believe we have crossed that line in this thread yet, but we can all sense some tension building, and we need to address it. We all are aware that a subject such as whether or not to clip our birds wings is guaranteed to stir strong feelings. There is great passion on both sides of the debate, but there is also overwhelming common ground. Remember, whether we clip or whether we choose to let them fly, we do it because of the love we have for our birds. We must recognize that, and we must respect it.

Our purpose here is to share ideas, and to educate. Informed choice is our goal, not to strong-arm someone into agreeing with us. When there is something new to bring to the table, we should feel encouraged to do so. There are some things we need to keep in mind though. One is to make sure our posts remain non-confrontational, as this is plainly stated as one of ParrotChatter's rules. Another is to avoid circular arguments. When we find ourselves going over the same key points over and over, we need to consider whether it really serves a purpose to revisit that which we have already stated, perhaps more than once. The third point I'd like to make is that there is little to be served by trying to "convert" someone who has heard the reasoning behind a given method, but has opted for a different conclusion, based on their experience and informed reasoning. We can try to justify this by saying that we are educating, but we know it's not the same thing as providing all the information to someone who is trying to make up their mind, or perhaps has not heard the reasoning behind an opposing view.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't hold our beliefs as important. There are few issues as important as whether to clip or not. Should we shrink from controversial issues such as this? No, absolutely not. But please, resist the urge to "challenge", resist the urge to "beat a dead horse", and resist the urge to "convert" someone who has no interest in being converted. Afford others the same respect for their views that we all expect and deserve for ours, which is also a cornerstone and rule at ParrotChatter.

Tempting as it is to think that we could, recognize that we are not going to resolve this question any time soon, perhaps not even in our lifetimes.

Yeah you people (you know who you are)! ... Quit trying to convince me to clip my birds, I will NOT do it because I know all birds are healthier & happier fully flighted in a safe environment. I will do everything in MY power to see that I provide that safe environment - I will not choose to clip (handicap) my birds for whatever reason(s) that some of you try to come up with suggesting I or anyone should (to include convienence etc., whether you admit that or not)!!!!


I think there is most always "tension" in debates, discussion, arguements - confrontation and revolt has changed the world in many positive ways. I hope this Board never turns into a some kind of Church Group where we maybe would be required to always have to say please and thank you and sugar-coat all of our words so as not to possibly offend someone or be unfairly labeled as "confrontational" (in a negative way).

Being confrontational is NOT always a bad thing as bringing together all of our ideas in this thread, for examination and comparison is how people normally are gotten to change their minds on certain issues - this issue being clipping/non-clipping. So far I see no overly heated or nasty remarks and I personally see no one "strong-arming" anyone. Therefore I see no real need for warnings or reminders. However if one was needed, one should maybe be "reminded" privately, rather than openly - maybe?

Passion over one's position does cause repetativeness - such is the nature of the beast. Maybe those that are sooo sensitive that anything we say in these threads bothers them (even if some of us say it more than once), maybe they should just go on doing what they have been doing (right or wrong, better or worse, etc.) and not even open up these type of threads.

Yesterday when I posted my position on clipping/non-clipping I did fail to realize then that this was an old thread and that I had already stated my position clearly earlier in this thread. Y'all please forgive me for the repetativeness, I was going to delete yesterday's post of mine until I saw it was already quoted a couple times - so therefore there was no point in doing so.

Peace.