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- shanlung
I thought I copy into here a posting I did elsewhere in a poll on whether to clip or not clip
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This is a most interesting thread.
From the polls, the majority of the birdies are kept flighted.
As also seen in similar polls in other birdie forums.
Below is a letter I wrote in another forum just a few days ago which I think has its place in this thread, especially in the poll which started this thread.
That was for a birdie Echo who flew away, and with a happy ending of being rescued.
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The strange part is that the BULK of escaping birdies were birdies with clipped wings , not fully flighted birdies.
Even more strange is that more birdies are kept fully flighted now, at least from the polls I seen.
Surely, shouldn't it be the other way? That more birdies that are fully flighted be lost instead of birdies that are clipped forming the bulk of lost birdies?
It is not the scissors that prevent unwanted escapees.
More often than not, that lead to undeserved complacency.
Consider how my saga with Riamfada started.
She was clipped, and assymetrically clipped on just one wing. A clipping designed to cause imbalance to birdie and about the worse of clipping.
She flew away and landed in a garden with very high walls around it to be rescued by a lady. She looked and asked around the entire neighbourhood. She was a very determined lady walking about the neighbourhood to find whose grey it was.
So it was likely Riamfada flew into her garden from a much further place.
She then gave her to my care.
So not only Riam flew far away with clipped wings, but flew high enough to get over a high wall.
I guess as Riam was a wild caught, she retained enough of her flying knowledge to overcome those clipping done on her.
And as birdies have clipped wings, that would make it almost impossible for them to fly down.
Flying down is a lot lot lot more difficult than flying up. And as clipped birds probably had never been allowed to fly at all, they do not know how
to turn and fly in any controlled way by them. Flying up is about all they can do.
That is the reality.
Not what most folks love to think.
But strangely, folks who clipped birdies and never known of them flying seemed to know so much more about
flighted birdies than I do. And so fond of asking one and all to reach for those scissors to crunch off those feathers on the wings.
Their one infallible solution to any and all problems.
It is ok for folks.
But its the lost birdies that will pay the price.
What chance have they got? Never knowing how to fly with control? Barely enough feathers to fly and no feathers for flight control?
Clipped birds lost outdoors will in almost all likelihood escaped with a death warrant tied to their clipped wings.
Do remember that whenever you reached for that scissors.
If Echo was clipped, instead of having all her feathers, Echo would not have been back and likely to have died instead.
Flighted birds, and birds knowing flight, lost outdoors will survive a lot better than birds clipped.
It is the knowledge and care and attention to details that keep your birdie safe with you.
Nothing else.
Think about it.
Go and clip and hope you beat the odds.
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and a follow up letter from me which hopefully can help those with escaped birdies.
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Needless to say, I am so happy you got Echo back!
I will not, and never will, wish even the worse villian on Earth be him Hitler or Osama or my ex mother in law , that they lost a birdie, especially a grey.
The pain and anguish is so incredible and impossible to bear that it defied words and description.
Now that you got Echo back, can you ever recall the pain and depth of despair that you had when you first saw Echo winging off?
Its just not possible now. That pain was too great and utterly impossible for you to replicate in your heart now with Echo's return.
As for Echo on top of tree and not flying down to you, I believe that you missed what I wrote on getting a lost birdie back. If you had, you might have saved yourself quite a bit of pain and gotten Echo back earlier. It is too long and too detailed to copy and paste here.
You should read it, as you never know if you ever need it again. After all, Murphy is everywhere.
Search & recovery of your lost birdie
shanlung: Angkor Wat & stuff// Wife to say hi to Domdom and Riamfada// Search & recovery of your lost birdie
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Mike, the Daddie of Echo, agreed if he read that , and the 45 degree rule, he probably would have gotten Echo back a lot earlier instead of begging Echo directly under him on the branch.
But I do understand folks with a birdie up on a tree find it more gratifying to grovel and beg directly under the birdie to fly back, not realising that only a birdie
highly trained and experienced in flight can do a flight directly downwards.
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A posting that I did before somewhere long time ago but still relevant
Another posting I did in a couple of forums a short while ago in line with clipping.
I also have to add that I am actually very neutral as to clipping or not clipping. I only draw the line against that incredibly silly fantasy that clipping will keep you birdie safe as your birdie will then not fly away.
Everything have its pros and cons.
Nothing ever is infallible.
Weigh and weigh and think and think from all angles.
Then you decide, in the context of your life and the environment that you can reasonably provide, at least in the NOW that you are in.
Then go and do the best for your birdie and by your birdie, regardless of what anyone else will say. After all, you , having weighed everything that you can, is the person that must decide the best for your situation and circumstances.
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I thought I will post another old piece I wrote a few years back.
Not to do with total free flight outside.
Heck! In what I posted on how to do free flight outside, I hope that put the scare in those that read not to try that at all.
Leave that to the slightly and/or greatly deranged idiots like yours truly here.
But allowing them to fly at home is a different matter entirely.
After all, it is not the flying that birdies get onto birdie911. Especially when the bulk of the birdie flyoffs in birdie 911 have their wings clipped in the first place.
Makes me wonder why folks still hope to the belief that clipping of wings solved all their problems when in reality, many more clipped birdies fly away then fully flighted birdies.
And as what I said in in the poll Do you have full flight birds,
What chance have clipped birds got? Never knowing how to fly with control? Barely enough feathers to fly and no feathers for flight control?
Clipped birds lost outdoors will in almost all likelihood escaped with a death warrant tied to their clipped wings.
Do remember that whenever you reached for that scissors.
And hopefully what I wrote might persuade them to return the gift of flight back to their birdies.
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Written in about end March 2007
More thoughts on wing clipping
shanlung: More thoughts on wing clipping
The extract
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Dave wrote:
Proper wing clipping will allow a bird horizontal movement and the ability to glide downward to a floor. The ideal wing clip is one that allows a bird to fly about 8 ft before gliding down.
Hi Dave,
In an ideal world, what you say above may be right.
The other extreme will be extremely severe clipping of wings. When I was in Riyadh and in a parrot shop, this grey jumped off the top of cage about 5 feet from ground. The sound of him hitting down, the spray of blood around him, and the screaming of that poor guy hurt me crazy. I do not wish ever to have another keel bone broken even if not in front of me.
People clipped for a few key reasons.
1. They had been conditioned to that because of what they read or were told. This seemed to be peculiarly American. Tinkerbell wings were so nearly clipped by me at the beginning as the books I read all recommended that (all American books) as well as forums in 2002 when I first had Tinkerbell. I was lucky enough to bought a British parrot mag to give me second thoughts.
2. The sight of initial flights, the crashing into walls was extremely frightening and I thought my precious Tink was crazy in trying to fly through walls while I stumbled about chasing her with a pillow to cushion her falls after hitting the wall. Once again, I so nearly reached for that scissors and Tink the flyig grey of Taiwan so nearly did not exist. But that british mag persuaded me to let that continue for a few more days.
She then found her flying skills to turn, slow, hover and stopped banging into walls.
Folks, this episode is inevitable. Your birds may be natural fliers, but even so, they MUST develop their muscles , flying skills and sense of balance. But at this early stage, their speed will be very slow(even if it appeared fast to you) and chances of harm to them will be there but not that much.
You can minimise this by letting them fledge in a small room, with curtains or rope nets around the walls for them to fly to and cling too. Or you can run around like me with a cushion.
If you see a human toddler trying to walk and falling down, will you have fear for his/her safety and not ever let him discover balance and walk? Will you have him/her crawl for the rest of their life because you are afraid to see them fall?
This is same as your choice for your bird.
3 By clipping wings and thinking thus the clipped bird will never fly away. I need not repeat my earlier postings of clipped birds that flown away.
In what Dave said , that is true in an ideal world. Unfortunately, we live in the real world.
But most people then went on to extrapolate that then, their bird will never be able to fly away. That is where I draw that line.
So after you got that 'perfect clip' and your parrot then fly about 8 feet and not gaining height. But again, have that clip been tested under worse case condition? Such as a sudden blast of air horn , or a strange hat thrust in front to see if that parrot cannot gain height in a spook situation?
Can you bear to do a sudden spook, or allow others to do that to your parrot? To see if that clipped wings hold good in spook conditions? And with Murphy at your elbows, how about throwing in that gust of wind at the same time?
Can you ever guarantee such conditions will never ever occur to you?
People had thought so. Their parrot paid heavier price than they did.
Your choice again to see if you can beat those odds.
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In saying that I gave anecdotal evidence, then what is it that scientifically approved of by you? Do give me the scientific evidence that you have that made what I said to be only anecdotal.
After all, as far as I know. folks that kept greys or parrots have only a few or even one parrot. If that made what they say to be anecdotal, then will the words from breeders of parrots with hundreds make what they say even more scientific? And then why not managers of poultry farms who might bred a few hundred thousands of birdies. Will then those managers of poultry farms be guru emeritus with impeccable scientific credentials to expound themselves?
Then go to them by all means and ignore all that I say as merely anecdotal and not worthy of your time to read.
If folks feel heart and mind is of no place in this modern scientific world, then obviously, my thoughts should be discarded as trying to prove heart and mind scientifcally, I leave that to those inclined on that path.
I have seen enough of bird alerts, but I guess that's only anecdotal.
People can even write to John Hayward of Parrots Lost and Found Register UK Lost and Found Registry and hear his anecdotal views that more clipped birds than flighted birds are on his register.
In that forum and that thread I was on in ,Wing-Clipping: a poll, please join in!, which I send my postings here from, that went to 224 postings on 12 pages.
After my two postings above, some one decided to go through those 224 postings on their own anecdotal accounts and this was his summary on 8 Dec 2011.
Results:
Hi guys, I've tallied up the results from the start of the thread, it is fairly rough but the general idea is there. The results are actually quite interesting. Hope everyone agrees with the figures.
Number of birds:
Clipped: 58
Un-clipped: 255 (some are aviary birds)
Injured whilst clipped: 15 (main reason, keel damage and broken legs)
Injured whilst un-clipped: 16 (main reason, collision with windows and walls, a few chip pan and fire incidents)
Escaped whilst clipped: 2 (1 injured, 1 killed by cat)
Escaped whilst un-clipped: 8 (most recovered unharmed)
Feather-pluck whilst clipped: 10
Feather-pluck whilst un-clipped: 10
Feather pluck seems to be more due to conditions kept and behavioural problems than clipping.
Hope this helps! If any one wishes to try and get better results please feel free.
Needless to say, an entity there decided clipping and not clipping gave the same results for feather plucking as she saw either way, 10 plucked giving rational and blessing to her already predetermined desire to clip. Yes, she later went on to say her maths is very good. I guess seeing 10 and 10 and recognising those numbers are identical made her maths to be good. She claimed to be accountant as well. I hoped she used a nick because if I happened to be the boss and see her mathematical skills, she will be doing accounting anywhere but in my company. It seemed those determined to clip will keep doing so based on the maths that they want to use or scientific evidence that they deemed more scientific then mere anecdotal conjectures.
I then added.
And not to forget, with flighted birdies very much the majority, 911 bird alerts consist largely of clipped birds. As reported in the survey summary, it seemed that flighted birds were recovered unharmed. Which meant that never went to the HELP! MY BIRD FLEW AWAY and consisted largely of clipped birds and likely never recovered . As I said before, clipped birds that flew flew away with a death warrant tied to their clipped wings.
And yet, folks with clipped birds who dont know how to fly will keep urging others to clip their birds to prevent birds from flying off when it is their own clipped birds that flew off.
I then I said enough on this.
I have said before this must remain the choice of the individual.
After all, why should we care for the choice of the birds themselves?
What say have the birds on this matter?
After all, whatever the bird say, that cannot be scientific enough.
(I think they like his hair -good nesting material). He started out only being able to land on something large, like a cage top, but now he can land on perches, atoms, boings, and my head.