Not allowed to fledge

[laurelk]

I'm not sure if any of you guys have heard this before but I was told that if a bird is not allowed to fledge (learn to fly) before its wings are clipped for the first time that it can negatively affect their mental development and wellbeing.

Is that true? What do you guys know about that?

I'm curious because I'm not sure if my senegal Pablo was ever allowed to fledge and she has been clipped ever since I got her. She just started her second molt recently and I'm sort of wondering if I should let her learn to fly just incase she never fledged. Would it do anything positive for her emotional or mental wellbeing? Or does not being allowed to fledge cause irreparable damage and letting her learn now wont help anything?

I may being worrying for nothing tho coz she very well might have been allowed to fly before her first clip but I can't say for sure. I just want her life to be as happy and enjoyable as it can be and I want to make sure I'm doing everything I can to give her that.

[pennyandrocky]

it's always positive for a bird to have full flight.

[marie83]

If you have no plans on keeping her flighted once she has learned to fly then there is no point, it may even be detrimental to her wellbeing to give her a glimpse of how life could be then snatch it away again.

I always believe that flighted is better and there are very very rare exceptions as to why a bird should ever be clipped but I'm not going to go into that unless you want me to.

But yea if your going to allow flight, make it a permanent thing.

[laurelk]

Marie83: I'd love to hear your thoughts on flight vs clipped. I did kick around the idea of letting her have full flight but the reason I've decided against it up until this point is coz I didn't want her flying into something and getting hurt somehow. I am new to all this, I've only had Pablo for about a year now so maybe I'm just being an over protective first time mom. Any advice or thoughts you'd like to share with me I'd really appreciate it

[Michael]

I'm not sure if any of you guys have heard this before but I was told that if a bird is not allowed to fledge (learn to fly) before its wings are clipped for the first time that it can negatively affect their mental development and wellbeing.

Is that true? What do you guys know about that?

Yes, it is terrible. Kili is a bit retarded for life as a result. That said she is slowly learning and getting pretty good but she will never be as good a flyer as Truman. He has a way of thinking on the fly that she simply cannot follow because she never learned as a baby.

I'm curious because I'm not sure if my senegal Pablo was ever allowed to fledge and she has been clipped ever since I got her. She just started her second molt recently and I'm sort of wondering if I should let her learn to fly just incase she never fledged. Would it do anything positive for her emotional or mental wellbeing? Or does not being allowed to fledge cause irreparable damage and letting her learn now wont help anything?

Yes, letting the bird fledge sooner than later is still better. It will never entirely undo the damage of clipping but it will help a great deal. Of course don't just do it to reclip again but the good news is that you don't need to support that outdated barbaric practice. People used to think that "birds will fly into walls" and "the bird won't want to spend time with me" but these are all myths (likely carried over from the wild-caught trade days that are no longer relevant to domestically hand raised birds). Please read this article because it goes over a lot of the myths and demonstrates direct solutions for these issues:

http://TrainedParrot.com/Clipping

PS, from chatting with avian vets I got the impression that more clipped birds get hurt as the result of being clipped than flighted birds as a result of flight. Far more clipped parrots get bruised or broken keel bones from falling off their perch than flighted parrots flying into things to the point of getting injured.

[charlieandkiwi]

My little white eared conure wasn't allowed to fledge until he was about 4. His personality changed for the extreme better when that happened.

Also, while it did take him years to catch up, he is now an extremely accomplished flyer. He can hover in mid air for 30 seconds, is extremely fast, transitions well, and is a super fast learner of tricks.

Before I allowed him to fledge, he was very needy, whiney, and loud. He would also recover slowly from little frights. Now he is many times more confident, the most quiet parrot I've ever owned, and fearless. The only downside is that it scares strangers when he alights on their shoulder out of no where after staring at them for a couple minutes, but they get over it He's the ultimate cock.

[Polarn]

I think it is a case of mental stimulation and if the birds brain is anything like the humans in the way it basically shuts down bit by bit that isn't needed during the first couple of years, casing orphanage children with little stimuli becoming slower and have longer response times (even as adults) than children who grew up being stimulated, I'm not saying these two category's of children learnt different things or one is "dumber" or knows less or has less capabilitys than the other, it just takes longer time retrieving the information and respond to it properly.

One of the avian vets around here outright refuses to clip bird before the bird is atleast two years old unless it's really really needed due to medical issues.
Oh btw I'm happy regarding this subject since most likely it will be classified animal abuse and you will be investigated and loose your birds if you clip them from we years ewe 2013, I just cross my fingers it will be listed as abuse.

[laurelk]

Thank you guys so much for all your input, it seems pretty obvious that the best thing for Pablo is flight. I never really liked the idea of having her wings clipped in the first place, it always seemed mean but when it was recommended to me for safety reasons I thought that it was for the best.

I'm really excited for her to get her feathers in now I can't wait to see her start flying. I'll be such a proud mom and maybe once she starts flying she will hopefully spend less time on the floor chewing on my carpet *fingers crossed*

I'll make sure to keep you guys updated on how things are going. She still has quite a few wing feathers that need to come in but we'll see how she looks when she's done her molt.

[charlieandkiwi]

Thank you guys so much for all your input, it seems pretty obvious that the best thing for Pablo is flight. I never really liked the idea of having her wings clipped in the first place, it always seemed mean but when it was recommended to me for safety reasons I thought that it was for the best.

I'm really excited for her to get her feathers in now I can't wait to see her start flying. I'll be such a proud mom and maybe once she starts flying she will hopefully spend less time on the floor chewing on my carpet *fingers crossed*

I'll make sure to keep you guys updated on how things are going. She still has quite a few wing feathers that need to come in but we'll see how she looks when she's done her molt.

I don't know if she'll stop chewing on the carpet. She's probably trying to forage for goodies on the forest floor that is your carpet. If she doesn't stop, try providing her with an area on the ground covered with toys, scattered food hidden under and in things, and toilet paper. My white eared conure adores scavenging the carpet and dark corners, and has a dog-like obsession with the trash that makes it so you have to watch him constantly around it. But if you put a roll of toilet paper on the carpet, he'll spend hours excitedly shredding it and kicking it around. Thankfully it's not that hard to clean up. You could put out some newspaper to put all this stuff on (although be prepared to also have the newspaper shredded) or make a foraging mat like this:

http://foragingforparrots.com/ideas/lit ... aging-mat/

[Polarn]

I like the:

It was from a very tiny manufacturer. But they were packaged so I didn’t get to ‘sniff’ them.

hrm, may I tel lyou all that I dont care how well packed a toy or product is I'm getting for my birds, I will open the packade to feel and smell and so far noone has complained, if it is sealed packages where you have to destroy the package to get to the toy, I've just asked if I could check it out, borrow a sharp plade open it as nicely as possible and then just tape it up... never been denied todo this either. My point is if you ever run into something you feel slighlty hesitant about, just ask if you can open the package and look at it and if it is to your satisfaction then ofcorse you buy the opened package...