A Reason To Clip?

[JaydeParrot]

I've had my Senegal Hide for a more than a year now, he was purely wild when I got him but is now tame enough to climb on to an arm and sit on a shoulder. The one main problem I had with him though is his flying.

Please read this before you immediately say 'DO NOT CLIP!'.

His flying has always been terrible, flying into walls and such. It kept getting worse until one day (6 months ago) he flew across a large room, turned and flew towards the headboard of piano, he flew head first into it, slid onto the piano keys, rolled off the keys and hit the floor, he was shaken but ok. I had his feathers clipped after that because he'd already hit so many things I was convinced he was going to kill himself. His feathers are growing back now, I'm in two minds whether to clip again or not, it's a shame for him not too fly, but he does do some weird things.

Two weeks ago he jumped off my arm and flew head first into a wall no more than 3 foot away from him. He can see hands coming towards him and walks over and steps up if put my arm near him, I try things like waving at him when he's not quite facing me, he seems to respond.

Is there anyway to tell if he's 'partly' blind? I don't want to clip him, but I'd rather clip him than see him kill himself by flying into one wall too many.

The idea behind clipping him is that it prevents him from picking up speed before he hits things, the speeds that he's hit stuff is quite worrying.

Some people have said don't clip, just keep him in a smaller area, that seems even more of a shame than clipping to me, I've known lots of people who've said they don't want to let their bird out of it's cage because their afraid it'll fly away. I personally think that a parrots better off being clipped and allowed to roam than unclipped and stuck in a cage for the rest of it's life.

I'm getting off topic, as a comparison, my other Senegal, Cain is a perfect flier, completely unclipped and sometimes flies from the top of her cage to land on my shoulder. I'd be quite happy to keep Hide flighted if he would at least show some sign that he knows he's about to hit a wall before he hits it (e.g.- slowing down).

Is there any way to tell why a parrot who can see a hand coming towards it, would still fly into a wall a mere 3 feet away from itself?

[Michael]

Get a set of Parrot Training Perches and TEACH him how to fly. People expect that birds know how to fly and how to fly in he human environment, but how can he learn if you keep clipping him before he has the chance to get good at it?

Of course one of the problems is mental retardation resultant from clipping the bird in the first place before it could fledge. He is mentally behind and cannot analyze landscapes, think on the fly, and understand object permanence like a properly raised parrot. However, most of these skills can be recovered at least sufficiently if the parrot is given the chance to fly. But rather than just let it fly around and crash a bunch to learn, the best approach is to control the flight a little by using the training perches to target the bird between, spread the distance, teach the bird to fly to your hand, and then continue challenging the bird at safe levels. This shapes the way it learns to fly rather than just doing whatever.

[JaydeParrot]

Essentially he had fledged way before I got him, I got him and his partner when they were both 6 years old, from what I could gather they'd been kept as breeder birds and sold from place to place.

You do have a point about him not percieving landscapes appropriately, I did have a bit of a funny incident where he saw a glass door with painted on black diamonds and spent a while trying to climb up the painted diamonds (the paint was inbetween the glass so he couldn't possibly eat it). I have a perch which he will fly to my arm from, about 4 to 5 foot is the most he's ever flown to my arm from the perch. The weird thing is if he's used to what he's aiming for (e.g.- the side of his cage or my arm) he doesn't tend to miss, (though, when he tries to land on top of his cage he usually ends up missing and falling to the ground next to the cage). The main problem he seems to have is that he flies at cupboards and walls like he thinks he'll just pass through the other side, he doesn't and usually ends up smacking his head and hitting the floor.

He can fly to things, he just doesn't seem to understand the difference between a solid wall and thin air. Is there a way to teach him not to hit walls?

[Michael]

He can fly to things, he just doesn't seem to understand the difference between a solid wall and thin air. Is there a way to teach him not to hit walls?

Yes.

A) Teach him appropriate "painless flying" by moving perches around and encouraging flight to them
B) Give the bird a chance to crash into things a few times and learn the difference

By emphasizing the trained/appropriate flying through a lot of repetition, it builds muscles and skills to reduce the crashes. Also turn up the lights. Birds see much worse in low light. If you have just a lamp on or something, he might not see the difference between wall/air.

[marie83]

Harlie flew like she was on a suicide mission to begin with having been kept in a teeny tiny cage with no room to stretch her wings for the first year of her life and not having the confidence to leave her new big cage for a few years after that. She didn't understand objects, walls, windows etc on top of having weak muscles and not having the knowledge of how to brake, make turns etc. I was terrified she would die learning the necessary lessons and it was painful for me to watch her going through the process. Despite repeated and frequent crashes, some of those being at a reasonable speed, she's never done any damage to herself- not that it couldn't happen of course.

Over the past year though she has come on leaps and bounds and very rarely has an accident. She is so much more confident in every single way (less nervous, tamer, happier overall and she doesn't lose her balance half as much as she used to because her muscles work better) now she is able to fly and clearly enjoys it so it has been totally worth it. I love her to bits and would never want any harm to come to her but the benefits far outweigh the risk. She will never be as good as a bird that has fledged, there will still always be the risk she will forget herself and make a silly mistake but I would much rather she is as happy as possible in the however many years she will be with me for.

Michael has given you very good advice about helping your parrot practice- start with small changes and build up. Walk round the room and get your bird to step on and off the places that are safest for him to land on to build confidence, then let him take short flights onto them, first in a straight line, then as he gets better start changing the angle slightly and build up. Take him round again as often as you can and tap the walls and other objects he might fly into and let him touch them with his beak. He will learn and he will become a stronger, healthier bird which in turn will reduce the risk of any flight or balance loss related accident in the long term.

[Pajarita]

Flight is instinctual in a bird but mastering the art of flight is learned and it doesn't happen overnight for birds that have been deprived of it for years so I agree with the 'teach the bird to fly properly' advice. Having said that, it is true that most hand-fed birds are visually impaired. This comes from people exposing babies to light. Parrots are all born and grow in darkness, whether it's a hollowed trunk, a hole in the ground, a nest made out of twigs or whatever. They are born with their eyes not yet developed and, when you expose them to light (as people would do when hand-feeding), their development is arrested causing a condition similar to human presbyopia.