Saturday, December 4, 2010

Wing Clipping

Do you want to be your budgie's friend? Do you want to be there for him, comfort him and gain his trust, so he can be sure that he is in safe hands?

I suppose the answer is yes, otherwise you wouldn't decide on buying a budgerigar.

Some people like to clip their budgie's wings. Their main reasons are so that the budgie can't escape or hurt itself while flying in the room. There are also stories of budgies with an "agressive" behaviour that get a lot calmer after their wings are trimmed. Some other people just like to clip their budgie's wings because they want their budgies to be tame. That's the "easy way", you know.



My answer to this is very simple: you can avoid all this trouble without even touching their wings.

Budgies are airborne creatures that need to fly around every day. But you can't let them escape out into the wilderness where they will only perish. So you must let them do it indoors.

Here you can find a checklist to make sure the rooms are clear of hazards when your budgie wants to fly around inside. Don't come up with lousy excuses like "I don't want my budgie to get hurt so I have to keep him in the cage", just clear a safe path for him. If you don't allow your budgie to fly around freely, you're not suited to be a budgie owner.

If you have an "aggressive" budgie, don't just brutally clip his/her wings but try to get to the source of the problem. The budgie may be stressed, or jealous (e.g. when you're keeping two females and one male). Or maybe they're living in a space that is too small? After you find out what the problem is, get to the solution. Remove the element that causes the budgie to be stressed (this could be an annoying noise like a barking dog, the rattling of a child toy, the buzzing of a lawn mower) or just move your budgie to a quiet room. In the case of jealousity, you can temporarily keep the two females apart until they both calmed down. Of course, when you clip their wings, they calm down because they're too scared to make a wrong manoeuvre and fall down without being able to fly back up again. Wouldn't you be?

Besides, there are very few to no conflicts between budgerigars. They love playing and they might go as far as playfighting, but they would never injure each other. When it comes to breeding, they might be a bit more aggressive. But then again, it usually doesn't go any further than a single peck that serves as a warning.

If you want to tame your budgie, you have to do it kindly. Clipping their wings is not kind at all. There's not only a high risk of hurting them, but you're also horrifying your budgie while you are doing it. For the rest of your life, he will regard you as the monster who stole his wings so that he cannot be a real budgerigar anymore. Real budgerigars need to fly.
With doing it kindly, I mean that you have to gain his trust. Whisper soft words to him, feed him little tidbits of food, just talk to him and tell him you're there for him and care about him. After a while, he will come to you automatically and offer you his friendship in return for your kindness.

Do you want to know why I'm writing this? Today, my mum bought a young dark green budgie in the local pet store. The little budgie is not even eight months old. When I saw him, I immediately saw the horrible thing they had done with his right wing. His breeder has cut HALF of his wing off. It looked so ugly that I was amazed that the budgie had survived it. If you still want to have your budgie's wings trimmed - consider all of the above facts first. The budgie that my mum brought in today is not able to fly and flutters around like a drunk hurricane. This can be just as dangerous as letting a budgie fly around in the room - and much harder to avoid accidents.

12 comments:

  1. What an easy and destructive solution to a minor problem. If you can't take the time to tame your budgie in a humane way, consider whether you should keep budgies in the first place!

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    1. Just asking how long can this take. I just bought my first parakeet his name is Rio. I got him yesterday and did not let them clip his wings. For fear of him getting hurt he is stuck in cage for now. But I'm new. He but me when putti g some fresh food and water and perches in there. Mistake one not having cage ready.I know he is scared and I want him to get comfortable. Because we having a 2 bedroom apartment with 5 ceiling fans I have decided for a least a week or so until we can remember to keep them off he is safer in cage. Plz help I read so much before doing this and still feel lost

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  2. True :( One of the budgies pecked at our dark green budgie (just to play with him), which made him fall off his perch and hit the bottom of the cage. He's allright, thankfully. Curse those wing clippers!

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  3. Or you could just clip their wings and risk them ending up behind a tv, in a fan or stuck somewhere. If you want to risk things happening, then don't clip their wings, by all means.

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    1. It's called having a bird safe room. If you won't make the effort to make things bird safe you don't deserve to have a bird. Cruel assholes clip their birds wings. Why don't you cut off a fishes fins next.

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  4. When I first got my bungee his wings were clipped. It's a year later and he has all his flight feathers. I have his cage that I leave the doors open and I have a perch that I have hanging from the ceiling. He really likes to come out of his cage and jump onto his perch as he pleases. The other day I had him on my shoulder and I walk through the door and he took off flying outside landed on my neighbor's roof. Luckily I was able to get on the roof and grab him in time. So as much as I don't want to cut his little white feathers going to have to because if he gets away he'll die if the outside cats don't get him first that elements will so as cruel as it sounds to clip his wings its the more safer and smarter thing to do

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    1. They make bird harnesses for this reason. Do your research -.- Shouldn't have your bird outside anyways. All the poloution and possibility of spreading disease to your bird is not worth your enjoyment of taking them outside.

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  5. If you're reading this, please clip your bird's feathers. IT DOES NOT HURT THEM AND IS IMPERATIVE FOR THEIR SAFETY. Ensure you leave enough flight feathers to allow them to glide... you don't want your bird to fall like a rock.

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  6. Feathers grow back. I clipped a few of the flight feathers when I first got my bird and for 2 months he couldn't fly and during that time I came to him and train him I've had him for almost 2 years now and after the first two months his feathers grow back and he flies around all the time and lands on me and we have a wonderful relationship. It doesn't have to be so extreme all or nothing. You can clip their wings at first and then never clip them again.

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    1. Why don't you cut off a fishes fins while your at it. People like you are just awful. It's a bird, it's going to fly and you have no right to tell it not to. Don't own a bird if you don't want something that's going to fly around.

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    2. Hello can you help me please.

      I got my baby budgie blu a few days ago he's 3 months old. He loved his new cage and we already had a budgie when we got him so he had a friend.

      He was very chirpy and happy on day 2 but on day 3 we got him out and he crashed around a lot, we had already clipped our first budgies feathers and she was fine so I did the same to blu.

      Since then he has been very quiet and barely made a sound..I've tried to introduce my hand into the cage for a few days now and he just seems petrified..when I clipped his wings I wore big black gloves in hope of him not reconising my hand but he just seems miserable :( I'm scared that I've damaged his impression of me.for life and made him unhappy as he's so quiet now!..any advice?

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  7. Hello can you help me please.

    I got my baby budgie blu a few days ago he's 3 months old. He loved his new cage and we already had a budgie when we got him so he had a friend.

    He was very chirpy and happy on day 2 but on day 3 we got him out and he crashed around a lot, we had already clipped our first budgies feathers and she was fine so I did the same to blu.

    Since then he has been very quiet and barely made a sound..I've tried to introduce my hand into the cage for a few days now and he just seems petrified..when I clipped his wings I wore big black gloves in hope of him not reconising my hand but he just seems miserable :( I'm scared that I've damaged his impression of me.for life and made him unhappy as he's so quiet now!..any advice?

    ReplyDelete