Let's Talk About Clipping

[seagoatdeb]

My position as clearly as I can state it is the mild clip should be used when needed. It does not hurt or impair the parrot in any way. There are no studies so we can only rely on members and their experiences. Anyone who really loves their parrots and gets a very close companion realationship can certainly tell how their parrot is doing.

Most cage bound parrots are fully flighted, and their owners are to afraid to let them out often. Thats the reality and why I feel talking about different clips and being open enough that you do not have to change your own opinion on whats best for your parrots but you allow everyone to make their own decision and support them in the things that will improve their parrots lives, because it is an improvement. You cant expect them to be at your level of experience or be 100 percent sure your position is ever the "right" one for everyone. We have to live with the reality of what some parrots lives are and what we can do to help.

Empirical evidence can only take you so far. In my mind nothing is as important as the relationship between parrot and human. The more quality that interaction is and the more the human can understand the parrot the more enriching for both.

My criteria is the parrot can always fly up.....That it is done very slowly and kindly. That carefull consideration of as many options as you can is used.......

[Wolf]

I have stated my belief that unless there is a valid medical reason for clipping a birds wings that it should not be done and I believe that for the parrot that this is right. But I did not start this topic to prove that my belief or anyone else's is right or wrong, I started this so that we can learn from each other and to improve the lives of the parrots that we can reach out to through our conversations with their humans. This means that regardless of what we ourselves believe to be true and correct that we are going to be faced with the issue of clipping and not only as it pertains to the parrots well being, we are having to face this issue from the perspective of people who got birds on a whim and who know nothing at all about them. We have to deal with the concepts of pets as these people have in their minds that was probably developed from having dogs and cats and they are expecting the same types of behaviors and responses from the birds. Some of them have a hard time wrapping their heads around the fact that parrots are nothing like their dogs and cats and will not respond in the same manners as they expect. I might be in error but I expect that the actual end goal is to bring these people and their birds along so that they no longer feel the need to clip their birds. We can not do this without discussion. I want the right information to be shared so that we all learn. There are no studies specifically about clipping and the effects of various clips on our birds and that is a shame, but it really does not have to stop us or limit us as there are plenty of people that have parrots both clipped and unclipped and anecdotal evidence is useful for our discussion and may be able to provide the answers that everyone is lacking, but only id there is open discussion of this controversial topic, regardless of what we each believe. This is why I started this, education and it is open to anyone who wishes to comment and share their thoughts on this. None of us has all of the answers, or at least I don't and I am here to learn.

[seagoatdeb]

if we can discuss this and let all say what they believe, without pouncing on them, this will be a really good group. The other day I was in a group and the OP had lost their parrot when it flew out the window. The Op finally did get his parrot back, and like so often happens, he stated that his parrot was unclipped. There were of course some comments, happy, but there were a number that blamed him for not clipping his parrot and putting the parrot in danger.

Now if he had said his parrot was clipped, I am sure he would have had a number of people asking why had he clipped, puting his parrots health in danger.

of course a lot of the time the OP leaves the group where this happened, very few will stay in a group where they were rudely treated.

I am sure we all care about the health of our parrots, and they are all intelligent unique individuals and we all want to do the best we can. But the people are individuals and the parrots are individuals. People who have mostly rehomed parrots have a tendency to have strong opinions because they see so many neglected parrots. People who have had a baby parrot grow up to be a companion parrrot with a lot of time and attention devoted to them, have a very deep special realtioship often. The ones who have the hardest time are the ones who took on more than they expected, and they need the most help.

I have had both rehomed and parrots that came to me as babies. There is a satisfaction, in having a rehomed parrot and if you were lucky they were socialized well before they came to you. You can watch them begin a recovery process if they were neglected. They may have damaged feathers that can never grow back.

The parrrot you have had since they were a baby, are a different story, and are very bonded to you, they can tell what mood you are in and you can tell theirs. You actually spend more time with them than your own children, because your children grow up and need less time from you, so you spend a lot more time with that parrot. Those parrots get very good at understanding humans and the humans gets very good and understanding that parrot.

We have all kinds of members and we can learn more and help each other a lot too.

A big thank you to Wolf for starting this post!!!!!!!!

[Tman007]

I would like to say for me flighted parrots work best for me and my flock. I sleep during the day and work at night. I am at work right now. So when I get home my guys cant wait to get out and fly around. It really helps them get out alot of excess
energy. No laughing now, but I run around the house and my galah chases me around, yelling at me all the way. One thing I do before I let them out I do a check of all the doors and windows. Making sure the are locked form the inside so know one can just knock and walk in. To have a parrot that flies to you because you call him to you. Or because he wants to be with you is a great feeling. Also the health of the parrot it builds up his chesk muscles and helps him lose excess fat.
I have to go back to work but thats my take on clip or not clip.

[Pajarita]

Great discussion!!!

Now, just a clarification on what might be key to the argument. I am a scientific-minded person so, to me, scientific empirical evidence is worth 1,000 times more than any anecdotal account because, with all due respect to individual members' observation skills, it's a known fact that nobody is actually objective. Our minds play tricks on us and we all end up doing what is called 'selective reasoning' where our mind only accepts evidence that supports our prior and already established belief and rejects the one that opposes it. Basically, it means that none of us is really 100% open-minded. And that is the reason why scientific studies are so valuable. Because, as they have such strict and specific protocols (of which the fact that there has to quantifiable evidence is key as it is the peer review aspect), they ARE objective and what they find is not anybody's opinion but what it is.

Can people who bought a bird on a whim knowing nothing about it become good parrot keepers? Yes, of course! After all, all good parrot keepers started out not knowing anything. Can people who are freaked out by a bird flying overhead or resent the lack of control over its behaviors become good parrot keepers? Well, although I am sure that there will be some, in my personal experience and generally speaking, the greatest majority will not.

[Wolf]

Even the avian medical texts that I have found use some anecdotal evidence. I don't believe that they are using the anecdotal evidence from just one or two sources, I believe that they are only using this type of evidence after it has been used for many years and by a large number of people. Still, it can't ever replace scientific evidences, but if the same evidences keeps cropping up from a large variety of independent sources then it may well be worth looking at more closely. While I much prefer scientific evidences neither of us has been able to find any scientific evidence about the long or short term effects of these milder forms of clipping on our birds. This evidence is not going to be forthcoming from me as I do not clip my birds wings and have no plans to do so. This means that any such anecdotal evidence is going to have to come from other sources. These other sources are not going to open themselves up very often if they are not received in a courteous manner. If they feel that they are being put down, ganged up on or attacked in any way they are going to not talk about their experiences and that means that we are not listening to everyone as we should. We do not have to agree with them and we can say so as well as present out viewpoints as well, but there is no valid reason that we can't respectfully listen to what they have to say.

I can't say who will or will not become good caretakers for these wonderful birds, I do have my opinions on the matter, but I have to believe that some of them will be able to become good caretakers if we will just respond to them with the best information that we possess in a simple and courteous manner. I know that some of them will not be able to get past themselves and/ or their preconceived notions of how "pets" are supposed to be and I truly feel sorry for them as they miss so much that could be.

[Pajarita]

Of course that anecdotal evidence is valuable! It just depends on the pool it's been taken from. Canary breeding and husbandry evolved to where it is today from mere anecdotal references BUT we are talking about thousands upon thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of birds and hundreds of years accumulating and sharing experiences. Just as an example, I always 'knew' about the solar schedule, even way when I was a young girl and several decades before it was considered for parrots because anybody who bred canaries knew that they needed 13.5 to 14 hours of light to breed well. Canary breeders did not know the why or how of it but they knew this to be so and anybody who 'experimented' with it found it to be a fact creating, thus, a consensus about it.

I, myself, rely on anecdotal evidence and my own observations whenever there is no empirical data. But, when it comes to clipping, there IS empirical data on the danger of it and the anecdotal evidence is not only a mixed bag with people's experiences been both for as well as against (meaning absolutely no consensus) but also of only a few years and a few people with, usually, one or two birds -and that is what makes it unreliable. We are really not good observers of what is close to us (think of all the parents that were caught by surprise by the fact that their kids were doing drugs or all the neighbors that describe serial killers as 'good people') - and this is the reason why scientists conducting studies are not supposed to regard the objects of their studies as nothing but that. Because when we have any kind of bond with another being, our objectivity disappears and we only see what we want to see.

Now, much has been made of the fact that there are no studies on pet parrots mild clipping (and there aren't any per se) BUT there are loads of studies done on lots of things that are related as well as one that represents exactly what clipping does: increased wing load (the mathematical relationship between the size of the wing -as in the total area that 'resists' or 'moves' the air, think of a fan, the larger the fan, the more air it moves- and the weight of the bird's body) as well as what the wing aspect ratio (which is, basically, the actual shape of the wing because it's the mathematical relationship between the width and the length of the wing- and the shape!) does to flight. The studies are not on parrots and few use clipping, most are on birds that were either made to carry more weight (through weighted harnesses) or on birds that are naturally heavier (as in when a hen is forming an egg, for example) but every single study shows that when the wing load is higher (less wing to more weight -as when we clip) the take-off is slower, that slower take-off means more predation and that birds that have a higher wing load feel more vulnerable (see below).

Ergo, even if we leave aside all considerations of personal preference or philosophy on the part of the keeper, and/or physical and/or emotional consequences for the bird, if one goes down to the 'safety' issue, which is, by far, the number one reason people give for clipping, there are, indeed, scientific studies that do prove that a clipped bird (higher wing load) will be more in danger from predators than a fully flighted bird. So much so, that, in the wild, when birds are exposed to an increase in predation, they would lose weight in order to reduce the wing load and increase take-off speed!

See these:

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... al_breeder

http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.100 ... 9-6421-2_1

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3138777/

http://www.rug.nl/research/portal/files ... vdHout.pdf

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/articl ... ne.0022352

In these two, they actually clipped birds:
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... ation_risk
http://beheco.oxfordjournals.org/conten ... 4.full.pdf

[Wolf]

Just stopped in for a quick look see so I have yet to read the links , which I thank you for, but your comments make sense to me and I will read the links later on.

[seagoatdeb]

They are interesting links, but ducks are so different from parrots and fly over great distances, while parrots tend to stay fairly close to their territory. Also, the ducks were tracked in the wild not kept in captivity for most of their lives. I will read the articles more closely later.

I have observed with all the parrots that both my daughter and I flock with, that when we have them outside in their outside cages and they see a predator circling, they all look up and thats when I notice it, often i will see nothing untill the circling gets lower. My daughters conure has a little very quiet clicking sound he makes, we think it is a warning he sees a predator and is done quiety, There was a hawk who was training her babies to circle one time when we were out and the sky was full of circling hawks. The parrots are always motionless and sleek until the predators stop circling and fly away.The pois all look up with sleek feathers. i will stand up an stare without blinking at the predator, because i am sure with their vision, they can see my eyes. They always fly away. I wonder the psychological affect that has on the parrots, who are all in outside cages so are protected, but are watching predators anyway. I must look like a big brave predator stopper. SuperDeb....lol

Our parrots have got used to the neighbours small dogs, they were all afraid of them at first but they are behind a fence, but bark very loudly all at once. The parrots have not shown much fear of cats, but the wild birds in the yard sure do. The sparrows start to squawk, and the quails will all run really fast and hide under a thick bush, if there are magpies they squawk too. Sometimes the parrots chime in when they hear all the squawking. My daughters conure has copied the magpie, danger call, and it is really loud.

The cats that come in my yard are not after any caged parrots anyway, they want to get the quails or any baby magpies, that have got seperated from their parents. I have to hiss at the cats to get them to leave. The parrots are excited to watch the other prey species and they all will blink eyes at each other when they first see each other. This doesnt have much to do with clipping because the parrots are in a cage and it is keeping them safe, but it is a small taste of nature for them and must have huge psycological effects. My observations are that it is enritching to them as long as they are not afraid to be outside. When you are watching all the birds in the yards interactions with each other it is really interesting. The birds that are prey all work together. A few wild bird seeds scattered under lilac trees, keeps them coming back too.

One day last year a baby magpie couldnt catch up to the parents fast enough when i came around the corner and so I sat down and blinked my eyes at the parents and the baby magpie hung around me while the parents looked all concerned. I moved off after awhile but stayed close by to protect the baby from cats and eventually the parents were able to get the baby magpie to make it over the fence. Magpies are related to crows and ravens and are very intelligent and remember you. So they like my yard and add to the rich diversity.

My comments dont have to do with clipping or not but i mentiioned them because clipping has been taken right out of the equation in these interactions. I woud like to see more posts on outside time with parrots, besides needing the sun, there is a whole dynamic world out there, even sitting in a back yard, full of wild birds, rich sounds, smells, the russelling of tree leaves, the colours. My purpose in mentioning mild clipping as an option to severe clipping is to keep quality of life for parrots, and I believe going outside is also quality of life.

[Wolf]

I think that everything that we talk about has quality of life ramifications for our parrots.