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[Curious Diode]

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[liz]

If you believe it is to exercise then open his cage door and let him fly for exercise. Remember to parrot proof a room for him so he will not get into trouble. It also sounds like his cage is too small.

[Wolf]

Kookooloo does this quite a bit, presumably because she rarely flies. Luckily she waits until she is out of the cage and then she holds onto the perch to keep from flying off. The other day she actually flew from her cage to a tall floor lamp and landed on it instead of nearly crashing when she tries to fly inside the house. It takes a lot of strength and control for the larger birds to be able to fly inside a house without crashing into something.

I think that you should allow your new bird more out of cage time so it can learn to fly if it doesn't know how to and so that it can fly if it does know how, it would be better for the bird that to beat its wings on the bars of its cage where it could hurt them.

[Pajarita]

Yep, I agree with Liz and Wolf, you need to let him out more and, if he is clipped, you need to allow his primaries to grow so he can fly.

[Curious Diode]

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[Wolf]

I really don't know when this species goes through its juvenile molt, but I would bet that Pajarita could tell you. I would not expect it to be very soon however as he has actually just fledged which I believe to be at around 7 or 8 weeks of age. It is a shame that he was clipped especially so soon after fledging.

From what I have seen with Kookooloo and from what I have read this flapping thing is most often done by birds that either don't have enough room to comfortably fly where they are at or if they were clipped too early and did not get to fully learn how to fly properly. Or at least this seems to be the ones that most commonly indulge in this behavior.

[liz]

Rambo was 30 when he grew flight feathers after a molt. I followed Wolf''s and Pajarita's directions and he became healthy enough to grow them. He is so old and has never flown that I know of so he does not have the muscle to fly l but the new feathers give him more control when he jumps off the top of his cage.

[Pajarita]

Yes, what a royal shame that he was clipped before he actually fledged... I sometimes wonder if breeders don't do this on purpose just to shorten the life of the bird because one would think that with all the information available nowadays, they would know better. But, going by my limited experience with clipped birds, it seems to me that the small species do manage, somehow, to learn after they regrow the feathers. I don't know if it's too late for the flight neural paths to form but they do manage to fly. And, going by his flapping his wings, he obviously really wants to. I would not only allow his flapping, I would actually encourage it and exercise his wings on a daily basis.

He should get his juvenile molt at around 5 months of age.

[Curious Diode]

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[Wolf]

I understand your point and agree with it, but truth is that clipping a birds wings is more akin to hobbling a horse to restrict its movements than to any other thing that I have ever seen. This was how the old time cowboys kept their horse from wandering too far of and there is a specialized form of hobbles that are used in Sulky racing that makes the horse have to pace instead of trot during the race.