taping a birds primary feathers together!

[TheNzJessie]

i friend of mine on facebook who is a huge birdy person one of her friends posted about taping her parrots primary feathers together is the way forward instead of a harness, i couldn't believe someone could be so cruel, the exact convo went like this
'No more need for bird harnesses people, taping wings is the way to go, just tried it maggie and wow, so easy!' How sad it is that someone needs to remove posts and don't want to read about something new and feeling that their business is threatened, all over a piece of masking tape

whats your guys view on this? i have attached the picture

[Adze]

Well. If it doesnt hurt the bird and all. But, dont think the bird will be happy. I thonk you'll do some psycological damage to him and give it confusions that indoor it could fly and out door it cant. Plus the feathers would be damaged

[marie83]

I think thats just as cruel as clipping tbh. Wouldn't the same principles apply to this as do to clipped birds anyway, given the right circumstances I'm sure a taped bird would be just as likely to take flight as a clipped.
Not only the reasons the previous poster mentioned but theres a possibility the sticky stuff on the tape could be toxic to the bird or if chewed up get stuck in little pieces all over its feathers.

[laducockatiel]

And imagine how much it would hurt when you rip the tape off

[macbrush]

Personally, I don't think it is cruel with proper training, let the bird get used to it, and knows when taped, flying is also restricted. Imagine how cruel it would be to just force the bird to wear a harness, but with proper training, it is an acceptable restraining method.

But then of course, I am not in a position to comment on the tape in use, whether it would leave poisonous residue or do damage feathers, I don't know. I am sure if it really become an acceptable restraining method, all sorts of bird safe tape will come out to fill the market.

[Michael]

But the whole point of using a harness is so they CAN fly outside, just within a restricted perimeter! Without even getting into the details of the taping specifically (imagine a non-toxic safe product is invented on the basis of this concept), it ends up creating the same if not worse of a problem than clipping. What if the bird falls off your shoulder? What then? Plummets to the ground? I'm not sure how it affects their ability to flutter down but my guess is it makes it so they can't spread their wings all the way.

With a harness, the flighted parrot can still safely catch itself, turn around, and land back on owners shoulder in event of spook or accidental fall. Just yesterday a strong wind gust (plus freshly clipped talons) made Kili fall off my shoulder outside. Worse yet Truman reflexively took flight (when one bird in flock panics, the rest takeoff and follow). It was kind of a mess as they flew around me in circles BUT they both eventually safely landed on the ground and I recalled them back and put them on my shoulder. If Truman didn't take off, Kili would have just flown back to my shoulder and problems solved. Point is a panic can happen either way but the harness allows the bird to safely fix the situation on its own without getting hurt.

[DanielA]

I agree with Michael, the whole idea of the harness is so the bird can fly, without flying away.

[GlassOnion]

Actually, if that were done with vet wrap instead of tape, and then tape over the vet wrap it wouldn't be bad. But the reason I use a harness is because I don't want Apple to flutter into traffic or a cyclist when I walk with him on a sidewalk. I like knowing that there's a 6ft(?) leash attached to him so I always have control over how far he can go.

[TheNzJessie]

i saw it as cruel, that's like taping someones toes together and saying well you can still walk you just cant run. its not right.

[marie83]

cruel or not I should still think theres a risk of escape by taping the feathers together like with wing clipping. i wouldn't like to take that chance even if I did think it was harmless.