Clipping - for behavior

[Crow]

Hi everyone,

So I've had Pearl & Bruce for 3 and 2 1/2 years respectively, and as i've mentioned before, Pearl is a dominant Peachie and Bruce a submissive Blue masked.

My question is concerned with wing clipping and whether or not to do it. I know you've got other posts which cover these questions, and i read the Sticky article from Steve Martin on to fly or not to fly', but i still haven't found my answer. Can I clip my birds wings in order to calm them down and enhance training and response to command? Pearl; i need her to be less dominant and actually listen to commands and not bite me when she doesn't want to come down from somewhere or go back in her cage. They have full free flight when we are home and we let them out for half hour periods, or longer on weekends when we have time to be at home. But they fly to high places (like tops of doors) which I know enhances their feelings of dominance, so if we clip them and they have to rely on us to get around a bit more, and can’t get up high, will this alter Pearl’s aggression towards us when we try and stop her from doing something? And with Bruce will it help to tame him? He is very shy/scared and won’t step up, and Pearl bullies him out of the way when we try anyway.

They’ve very much got their own thing going on in our flat, and I am concerned it could really out of hand if we let them carry on like this. I’m finding it really hard to enforce any sort of authority over Pearl, although when she does behave, she responds really well to praise, and I know she can listen to me… but only when she wants to!

She tends to get very aggressive with places like the coat hooks, where she will go inside the coats and if I try to get her out, she bites me very hard, and chews my finger horribly. It seems she is constantly nesty, so likes to go into small dark places a lot. So if I clip her and she can’t fly there naturally, will this ease her aggression?

I hope you see what I’m trying to say! I just really want to know if it’s ok to clip birds who are used to free flight and are about 3 years old. Sorry for long post - I hope someone can help.

Thanks,
Jane

[linda040899]

A proper wing clip is done to limit flight but not eliminate it. They should be able to fly horizontally, but not gain altitude. So, if you don't want them hanging out on your curtains, clipping 5-8 of the primaries will accomplish the mission. I usually clip 5-6 and then clip further as necessary.

Parrots can tend to have minds of their own and I will respect that in most cases. Perhaps I want one of mine to step up but he's busy playing and doesn't want to socialize with me quite yet. Well, that's OK, as I respect the fact that he's otherwise occupied and am willing to come back later. I can understand wanting to keep them safe and out of trouble. A wing clip can do that.

[love4birds]

What about doing some recall training with Pearl? My Leyla gets very nesty and territorial as well, but she'll almost always recall to me if I offer her a favourite treat in return.

I don't think clipping will help at all with the nestiness. I used to clip my birds and Leyla was just as nesty back then. As for Pearl getting territorial of the coat hooks, when my birds choose something inappropriate as "theirs", I either A. block their access to it, or B. consistently shoo them off it with the "off there" command and make it an off-limits place. They learn pretty quickly.

Clipping Bruce will definitely speed up the training process, but I've found it's much easier on the birds (and builds a more confident bird) by allowing full flight and slowly "taming" them that way. Rigby was terrified of people when I brought him home last October, but now he interacts with me constantly... and I haven't actually worked with him at all. He has learned from Leyla and Nin that I am not a big scary monster. Being fully flighted has allowed him the confidence of being able to flee from me very quickly if he gets nervous or I accidentally do something to scare him. He often flies to my head or shoulder and will climb down to my arm and occasionally my hands now. This is such huge progress from how he would hit the back of his cage when I'd approach him 10 months ago!

I am a big fan of positive enforcement and working with birds natural instincts instead of against them. You can clip to help out with training, but personally I'm a big advocate of keeping birds flighted, and I've had great success with training flighted birds too.

[Crow]

Yeh i understand that wing clipping helps with safety etc, but can it help to calm them down and aid training?

[Crow]

hi,

I'm really sorry when i wrote that last post, your reply hadn't shown up, so i didn't see it! So sorry about that!

Thanks for the advice though, i will see what i can do with Pearl. Although i do try to get them away from things like the coat hooks, she just goes back there, even when i shoo her off constantly. And Bruce doesn't seem to understand that we are not scary, even though pearl steps up onto our hands in front of him all the time. Hmm i guess i'll just have to keep trying.

thanks again!