Clipping your Pet Birds Feathers
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The two most common reasons for clipping your bird’s feathers are to restrain its flight and to prevent it flying altogether. You may like the idea of keeping birds such as ducks or pheasants at liberty in your garden, but if you buy and release them without clipping their wings, they will disappear.Clipping the wing can also solve the common problem of one bird dominating and bullying another, as might be the case at the start of the breeding season if the male comes into breeding condition before the female. By clipping the male’s wing, you are impeding it from flying after the female and harassing it.
The most practical option to solve these problems would be to clip their wings, and by the time they have moulted and the new feathers have appeared, your birds should be familiar with their surroundings and, if they are contented, you should have no problems keeping them on your premises. This approach is not advisable with parrots or any other expensive birds.
The correct procedure for clipping feathers is to remove nearly all the primary and secondary feathers – the longest feathers – from one wing. The object of clipping only one wing is to unbalance the bird so that it will only gain lift on one side and thus be unable to fly. If you clip both wings you will discover that the bird will still be able to fly. It is important to leave two or three outer feathers, so that the bird still looks neat and attractive when it closes its wing.
If you stretch out the bird’s wing, you will see several layers of feathers. There are approximately 10 primary and 10 secondary feathers. The primaries are the longest feathers, and these are further away from the bird’s body than the secondaries. When the time arrives it is best to have someone to help you by holding the bird and gently stretching out the wing as you remove the feathers carefully one by one. Your bird will suffer no pain whatsoever, as there is no feeling in the feathers. If you feel unsure about this procedure, your veterinarian will clip the wing for you.
The effects of feather clipping only last until the next moult, when completely new feathers will appear. If you wish your birds to have permanently clipped wings, you may have to clip the feathers two or three times a year. But do not become complacent; check your bird every month to see if the flight feathers are growing back. Complacency could easily lead you to lose your bird.
An important point to watch out for when clipping wings is to avoid touching the blood feathers. These are feathers that are still growing and so have blood continuously being pumped into them as they develop. Quite often you will find that half a blood feather will be out of the quill and the other half will still be wrapped in a silvery skin. If you come across such a feather, take great care not to cut it as it will bleed profusely.
If your bird has been used to flying, it is very dangerous to clip one wing and then put it straight back onto a perch. The bird will naturally think that it can still fly and jump off the perch. Without the power of flight, it will fall to the floor and could injure itself. The best approach is to clip half the required number of feathers from the wing and return it to the floor of the aviary.
Hopefully, it will attempt to fly from the floor and discover that it cannot. After a few days, remove the remaining feathers (except for the outer two or three) and leave the bird a few days to get its bearings.
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Tags: Bird Feathers, Bullying, Discover, Ducks, Fly, Keeping Ducks, Outer Feathers, Parrots, pet birds, Pheasants, Premises, Primaries, Secondary Feathers, Stretching, Surroundings, Wings