Archie is flying, but should he?

[Ira]

I had Archie clipped about 5 months ago. He was still a youngster of course, and really hadn’t done any flying prior anyway. All of a sudden, he did one or two short flights that scared me, so off to the vet we went.

I was a little pissed because when we got home, he tried to fly and dropped like a rock. I thought they “over-clipped” him. He didn’t attempt any flying since, until this week, now at 19 months.

And he’s flying like a helicopter. Real steady altitude...he’s not soaring up and swooping down...just steady, and slow.

I inspected his wings (boy, did he love that), and those are the same feathers still fully clipped.

I gotta assume he’s just reached the age where a bird gotta fly, and he figured out how to do it. His speed is so slow that I’m not worried about him escaping at breakneck speed (my house is small, I’m always close to him), but it definitely scared me because my wife was boiling water at the time.

I just wanted to relay this experience for parronts who clip their fids to say that clipped doesn’t really mean no flight, and it certainly varies on how the bird was clipped.

I used to be of the train of thought that clipping ONE wing was a better way to go, because he just turns in a circle, but came to the decision this is more dangerous, putting the bird in a flight pattern he doesn’t want to follow.

 

[Kenzie]

A bird is going to try it's dambdest to fly. It's what their bodies were made from from their respiratory system, to their bones, even to the functions of their heart. If he wants to fly, please let him fly! He will thrive.

 

[Anita1250]

I don't know about that. My Sam is 37 and he has never attempted to fly. He shows absolutely no interest in flying. We practice flapping all the time, and he seems to enjoy that. But as far as taking off from his cage goes, he never does it. I work from home, so he is always out on his playtop. In 37 years, I think I have seen him take off three times, only when something really scares him. I only clip the last two outside flight feathers in the summer when things are open around the house.