To clip or not to clip

[mack0311]

I've been struggling with wheather to clip my black-capped Conure or not. The reason I'm considering it is for training purposes. He loves being on me. If he's out of his cage and (if he's not on me already) if I leave the room, he flies to me. When training him, if I have treats in my hand, even hidden in my fist, he'll fly up on me and try to snatch them. I hate to be cruel, but if he was clipped he wouldn't be able to fly to me and would have to wait for me to pick him up. Then I could also place him down when he is being naughty and he couldn't fly to me. What are your thoughts?

[marie83]

My thoughts are that you need to be more patient, clipping will obviously solve the flying to you issue but i do think there are other ways round it and the reasons you give for wanting to clip isn't a good enough reason to risk damaging his psychological health and physical health. You could keep the treats in a small pot and hold it with the palm of your hand covering it so he cannot snatch them, if you use a ''bridge'' between the behaviour and the treat like a clicker or a good bird you don't need to have a treat in an instance so don't need to hold them in your fingers to give it to him straight away (as long as you aren't too slow).

When you put him down and he flies back to you put him straight back down, don't speak to him or anything, just straight back down. He will get the message eventually. When he stays put where you want him go straight back and reward him, you will slowly be able to increase the time before you go back to him to reward him.

Btw, im not 100% against clipping but i think there are very very few and rare circumstances that warrant it and I don't think your situation does at all.

[Shelby]

Please read Michael's Clipping article.

I suggest teaching some targeting with him in the cage. Once he is good at that in the cage, you could use targeting to get him to go from being on you to standing on his perch. The click and reward for leaving you to stand on his perch should help convince him it's an ok place to be.

Give him rewards when he comes to you after you cue him (either by asking him to step up or targeting him onto yourself), and put him down and ignore him for a few seconds if he flies to you when you didn't call him.

[mack0311]

Thanks for the good advice, ladies. I'm going to get a clicker today

[Shelby]

Great! You are going to have SO much fun. I've done some training with budgies and a cockatiel and even though the budgies were super stubborn, trick training is really fun and actually quite addicting.

You'll have to clicker condition him before you can work on any other training. You'll have to figure out which treat you're going to use for training, then only give him that food when he's training. Clicker conditioning usually only takes one or two sessions. Basically it's just teaching him that "click sound" = yummy treat!
Here's a video that demonstrates it:
Clicker Training Made Easy

[liz]

If you clip his personality will change. You may loose your bond.

Myrtle is the same way. If she is not destroying something or tormenting Rambo or eating she is on me. Shoulder, front, back, hanging upside down off the hem of my shirt it just doesn't matter to her as long as she is involved in what I am doing. On my shoulder she hangs on to my ear when I turn or bend over. When my ear gets sore I brush her off and tell her "fly".

You need to come up with some ingeniouse ideas rather than clip. I have found that the only thing I can't make Myrtle do by asking her is to take a shower (you just can't keep a flighted bird in a shower if it doesn't want to)

[mack0311]

Thank you all SO much. I'm so glad that I asked. I will try all of those suggestions.

[Arshia]

My thoughts are that you need to be more patient, clipping will obviously solve the flying to you issue but i do think there are other ways round it and the reasons you give for wanting to clip isn't a good enough reason to risk damaging his psychological health and physical health.

+1

[Michael]

The byproduct of teaching flight recall is also teaching to stay. Over the years Truman has become more patient and waits for the call rather than just coming for no reason. Inadvertently if you are always rewarding coming on command and not the other times, coming uncalled becomes negatively punished. Over time the birds learn patience and to stay.

If training is something that you are interested in doing, then there is no reason to clip! Use training to solve the issues instead!

[mack0311]

Thanks!