Arguments for & against clipping

[Joolesgreyuk]

I thought I'd start a (friendly - no arguments please) debate about wing clipping.

I have to be against, my reasons:
1. Birds are born (hatched ;-)) to fly or they wouldn't have wings.
2. If they do (God forbid) manage to escape at least they stand a chance of survival in the wild.
From a personal point of view:
3. When Beau lands after flying he looks so proud of himself.
4. Any bird in flight is a sight to behold.

Please feel free to add your reasons why you are for or against.

[Tycos_mom]

I also love to see abird in flight and the areobattics they preform are so much fun to watch. I do clip a birds wings once when they come into my home if they are rescues or older birds the reason for this is to help them adjust to the other birds and them to a new flock member. I have a sunroom in my home and any new birds must learn that all those windows are solid so they don't fly into them and possibly hurt themselves or worse I have lost 2 birds like this so now everybird I have gets a training session every week to remind them the windows are solid a new bird gets this training everyday until I'm sure they know they can't fly through I take them around to every window and mirror in the house and get them to touch the glass with their beak.I call it an adventure. my baby birds I never clip.They usually arrive from the breeders clipped because for some reason most breeders clip the birds before they sell them I don't know why. Adaya will never be clipped I got her at 5 weeks old so there is no reason she has settled in very nicely with the other birds and has been taught about the windows. So I guess what I'm saying is I can understand that sometimes there are legit reasons to clip a bird but I don't beleive that it should be done forever birds where meant to fly.

Post edited by: Tycos_mom, at: 2009/04/30 17:53<br><br>Post edited by: Tycos_mom, at: 2009/04/30 23:22

[PrettyPax]

Mahhhvelous topic. I agree with everything you say completely. I can see why others may decide to clip, but when it comes to this I have to ally myself with the PETA types. LOL!
First and foremost, birds are meant to fly. In my humble opinion it would be cruel to deprive my baby of her only natural defense. I'm not worried about her escaping outside, as all of our windows have screens on them. Like I said, having a fully flighted bird in my house is not an issue. I understand that in other homes it might be.
Needless to say, I am NEVER considering wing clipping . I also understand that wing clipping can affect the neurological development of birds that are under 2 years old. Or Something like that.

[Joolesgreyuk]

Tycos_mum, that is a VERY good reason, I usually partially close my curtains to remind Beau about the glass. B)

[Dave007]

I'm against wing clipping but it's true that this subject needs to be dealt with with kid gloves. I'm now putting on my kid gloves because if legitimate deep debates occur, it can stimulate unintentional nastiness between people. Those people usually contain people who've had birds for quite a while and people are newer owners who may be following advice of others who say a certain thing is standard practice without knowing the whole scope of wing clipping. There are things that can happen to greys who are clipped that have to do with personality, physical development, lack of independance.
Different species of parrots have different personalities when they finally reach adolescence. Many times, when a very young grey is purchased, the bird is extremely dependent on the owners for a variaty of things. Most owners are thrilled about this and look forward to the grey always being this way through adolescence and into an older age. That's when many problems start occuring. Now before I continue, I'd like to say that this isn't an insult to anyone. It's never done on purpose nor is it a person's fault because what I'm gonna say may rub people the wrong way.
It's because of a grey's adult personality which causes many people to say that a grey shouldn't be a person's first bird. The reason that's said is because of a natural personality change which can upset many people because that change is totally different than when the bird was dependent. Concerning the personality of a grey---eventually, the grey become much more aloof, doesn't want to cuddiled as much, shows a tendency to wanna be alone, wants to do things when it wants to do things, how to do things and where it wants to do things, exhibites more nipping and biting than when it was a baby. Many people look upon this a loss of love to the opwner and it upsets them. It's simply a grey's personality and it has nothing to do with love. Look at other species of birds and a variation of these things are present or not present. A grey can give the appearance of a bird who's lost interest in the family structure but that's not happening. People though, insist that's what is going on and proceed to do things to bring that bird back to be dependent. Problems start. Plucking feathers, chewing feathers,otrher types of self mutilation,moodiness, an increase in biting, lack of interest in things, a huge increase in vet visits and many other changes.
Now, it's recently be brought up here that people shouldn't be so negative to others about wing clipping especially since wing clipping has been accepted for a long time world wide in the bird world. Well, I can say that it's not true at all.
In Europe, the huge majority of parrot owners in many countries consider and look upon wing clipping as being akin to animal cruelity.
I realize that many people here can't do this but in Europe, they have a totally different way of avioding many problems concerning potential problems and that method is to give parrots as much outside time as possible concerning flying creatures so when those parrots are back in their homes, they have little desire to fly away. People in Europe are very good at training parrots free flight and harness flight that have extremely long leads on them. Many of these parrots are outside for most of the day.
If anyone here is into various nature shows that feature people who are telling and showing the lifestyles of other animals that have nothing to do with birds, you'll often see parrots of all types standinng around the owners and they all have the ability to fly away and they do and they come back. Many of these birds are the long tailed varieties which have the ability to fly miles away which they do. When back in a house, they have no desire to crash into windows in order to get out. The young captive birds here do that because beyond those windows is an area where they wanna be. It's a bird's nature to wanna be there because parrots are wild animals who will always stay as wild animals throughout their lives whether they're free or are indoor pets. I'm not telling anyone here that they must follow those methods. My only point here is that wing clipping isn't accepted world wide as a final solution. There are many methods to achieve different things.
So basically, this is my take on wing clipping.

Post edited by: Dave007, at: 2009/04/30 19:47<br><br>Post edited by: Dave007, at: 2009/04/30 19:53

[Jane08]

Well said Dave and I totally agree. Your comments on Europe are very true and I love the way people where I live treat their animals. We have no rescue centres of the likes I have seen in the US and other countries.

I am also against wing clipping, they are born with wings for one reason and that is to fly not for them to be clipped. I don't care what issues people have with their birds and decide to get them clipped there are always other options like training which takes months and months of consistency.

This is where I think people go for the easy option, clip the bird problem solved. The other option to train the bird is just too damned hard and time consuming so the easy option is always taken.

This sadens me, as an owner you have an obligation to give your bird the best you can and that includes spending 100's of hours to train and teach your bird. If you are not prepared to do this don't get the bird.

With our first bird Rangi I got advice to clip him because he had problems getting on with my boyfriend. There was no way in hell that I was going to clip him, so instead my boyfriend spent months and many hours trying different things to gain Rangi's trust. It was hard work, but we owed that to Rangi he didn't ask to come and live with us and he didn't ask to have his right to fly taken away from him and who were we to do that to him.

Of course the 100's of hours of training paid off and they are now friends.

Training before clipping is my motto.

[Supernova]

Short answer---------------------------


DONT NO! NO! NO! NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How would you like your arms cut off.

Rant over.
Bernie.

[Tycos_mom]

I do agree I don't clip my birds after the inictial and as for My Grey Tyco I rescued her and when I got her she had barbered all of the flight feathers on her left side I inagine because of a bad clip as a baby because she wasn't permited to fledge she is six years old and is just starting to learn to fly back to why I clipped her she was so off balance from barbering her left side and would fall hard on her keel constantly. I took her to the vet and had her wings evened out in the hope it would stop her from falling and it did it also stopped her from barbering that left wing, and now she is fully flighted. I have reasons that I clip and only do it if it seems nessesary. I never clipped my Severe Macaws wings when I rescued him basicly because he was cage bound he wouldn't come out so I didn't want to further damage his confidence by clipping. He's gotten allot better now he comes out and lets me scritch his head but still doesn't like to leave his cage area for long I do take him into another room everyday for some intence one on one fun but after about an hour he wants to go back to his cage I'm hoping in time he will prefer me over his cage.

[danmcq]

We'll said Dave and in a very informative neutral way. :-)

I must say this entire thread so far is only comments by us "Flighted" ones. I hope others that do keep their Greys clipped, do not feel compelled to just NOT post due to the possibility of being attacked.

Hopefully that would not happen and their reasons/views on clipping would be respected as the other comments here so far.

We have debated this before on the forum, but had a real "Heckler" that made it a nightmare which finally resulted in him being banned from this site.

With that said, those of you that keep your birds clipped, on out and get friendly with your conversations. :-)

If there are none, then I guess everyone here has been converted to the flighted side of the fence. ;-)<br><br>Post edited by: danmcq, at: 2009/04/30 21:00

[chimaysmommy]

Chimay came to us with a "partial" clip from our breeder, which is fine by me because his primary flight feathers are still quite long and he is very very able to glide safely to where ever he wants to go in our apartment.

That being said we do plan to allow his feathers to grow out and not clip them. My primary thoughts on it prior to reading any of the posts on this forum were a) Safety--as previously stated here, I feel that if Chimay ever escaped somehow I would feel much better knowing that he has the capacity to escape a predator or other dangerous situation. Also, he would be better equipped to find his way home. b) Confidence--I want Chimay to be a confident happy grey for as long as he's with us, and I don't believe that clipping could be good for his psyche. c) Fun!! I really believe that with the progress that Chimay has made with getting acquainted with his harness that we're in store for a lot of fun in the sun, and I want him to be able to experience flight...he is a bird after all