THE PROS AND CONS
The decision to trim your bird's flight feathers must be a completely thought out and responsible one.
For safety reasons, not all households are appropriately set up to accomodate a free flighted bird. Cooking areas, heating units, windows, tops of doors, (often a favorite perching spot for a flighted bird), open toilet seats, filled sinks, and homes where there are people frequently coming and going, can prove dangerous to your bird, and, can result in the loss of your bird.
Birds with trimmed wings should be exercised frequently as an alternatate excersise to flying. Quakers are proving to be prone to diseases of the liver. Excercise, along with appropriate diet can help ward off many of the liver diseases.
The bird with trimmed wings must rely on the owner as a means of transport. Handling is, in many cases, made easier when wings are trimmed.
Even trimmed birds retain limited flying ability. When taking your bird out of cage and particularly, out of doors, the same precautions should be taken to secure your bird from predators, sudden breezes, and sudden frights, which might cause the bird to become airborne.
SOME TRIMMING TIPS
Just as with nail trimming, wing trimming should be preformed by a professional, such as an experienced avian vet or experienced avian groomer. Your avian vet or experienced groomer may be willing to teach you how to preform an appropriate wing trim. It does take practice, confidence, understanding of the make up of the avian wing, and requires the appropriate tools.
When a wing trim is properly performed, a bird should not be able to be able to gain altitutide, but should be able to glide gracefully to the ground. The wing should still be aesthetically pleasing in appearance.
While wing clipping is meant only to eliminate the possibility of upward flight, a trimmed bird may still retain some ability to fly horizontally, and may even gain lift in the wind. Again, it is advised that birds should not be taken outside unless confined to a carrier or cage.
After the four primaries are cut on each wing, the bird should be tested indoors, over a carpeted area, to see if more feathers should be removed. Additional trimming should be based on the bird's ability to gain lift or fly horizontally. It is best to clip conservatively and remove additional feathers as needed. Ask the professional to show you how a bird should land after a wing clip.
Clippers, not scissors, are the tool recommended to use when trimming feathers. If a bird flaps its wings while the feathers are being trimmed, scissor points can puncture or lacerate skin. It is also more difficult to accurately snip the feather at the correct location using scissors, as scissors can slide up and down the feather shaft. Note the notch in the clippers pictured at left. The feather fits into the notch, allowing each feather to be isolated, secured and trimmed accurately, without causing damage to the feathers on either side of the one being clipped.
After the four primaries are cut on each wing, the bird should be tested indoors, over a carpeted area, to see if more feathers should be removed. Additional trimming should be based on the bird's ability to gain lift or fly horizontally. It is best to clip conservatively and remove additional feathers as needed. The owner can be shown how a bird should land after a wing clip. The individual bird's ability to fly will vary.
Most avian veterinarians and aviculturists agree that both wings should be symmetrically trimmed. An asymmetrically clipped bird will spiral and lose its balance.
It should never be necessary to cut into the secondary feathers (those past the bend of the wing). In addition to cutting too many feathers, resulting in a bird that can no longer glide gently to the ground, this type of trim will predictably leave the sharp cut feather shafts, which can prove pointy and irritating to the bird. Birds that have been clipped in this fashion will often chew on the sharp, stiff cut shaft, in an attempt to soften the irratating point. If the cut shaft has been chewed on, it will have a a star-like appearance, looking as if the cut tip has "exploded." This indicates that the bird is being bothered by the trim. With an appropriate trim, nothing should be sticking out to cause aggravation to the bird.
A bird should be retrimmed when two feathers have grown back in where they have been clipped, or when an owner notices that a bird can glide horizontally for some distance.
TOWELING & FLIPPING
Have you toweled you bird, or "flipped" your bird today? No? Well, today is a good day to start! Practiced toweling and flipping your Quaker over so that he/she can lie securely and comfortably in your hand during grooming and/ or vet visits relieves much of the stress associated with vet vistits and grooming. |
