Foreword
To start, lets explain what clipping is and why it is such a common practice. Clipping is cutting off a section of a bird's primary feather, limiting your bird's ability to fly or get a large range of height while flying. Clipping is often performed by professionals such your vets or Avian Specialists. Sometimes, clipping is performed by inexperienced owners or stores, and it can permanently handicap your loved one.
When performed professionally there is two things to consider, the amount of the feather you cut off and how many. Both will impact your bird's ability to fly. But many professional veterinarians offer clipping for your birds, so we often think it could not hurt our birds, but that is false. Below we will go into just a few reasons why clipping is terrible for you and your bird!
Obesity
In American we often struggle with weight, body image and self-care. But what about our animals? Our birds are directly affected by our unrestricted food and lifestyle, in the wild birds can spend up to six hours a day foraging for food! This means our feathered children are constantly on the move looking and scourging for their next meal. In captivity they do not have this luxury, but what does this have to do with clipping?
When you clip your birds wings your bird loses its ability to properly exercise, meaning they live a more sedentary lifestyle. Without the ability to fly and exercise, our birds are able to gain weight at a significant rate if food is left unrestricted. Clipping is a way of handicapping your bird, the most common misconception is that clipping tames or makes your bird more controllable, the short answer is that is information is false and very unhealthy. While this may cause these thigs, in the long term it is unsustainable and will ultimately impact the life span of your lovely friend.
What happens is we often think we are starving our birds if they do not have their bowls filled 24/7. This is not true and more often than not we are feeding our birds enough food to last them days. This unlimited food (especially foods high in fat and pellets) paired with a sedentary lifestyle caused by clipping, is the perfect recipe for obesity and health issues. Pet obesity is often viewed as cute, but the truth is that obesity will greatly increase the chance for death and minor or severe health issues.
Mistrust and Training
A common reason for clipping is the bird starts to have some behavioral issues, these can be solved by time, love and training. But instead of spending time or consulting a professional to address these behavioral issues we jump to clipping. We often do not consider the long-term issues they will have health wise.
Your bird is dependent on you for everything they need in life, from Love all the way to Fresh water and food. By taking away their flight they become completely dependent on you for everything, from getting from place to place or even escaping misfortune. We damage their self-confidence and intendance. Which will lead more into our next point in our article, emotional issues. While you may see a temporary change in behavior it is not for the reasons you may believe, it is often due to a mistrust your bird may not feel for you, a deteriorating Mental health and even laziness.
Emotional helth and Self- Mutilation
Clipping, as mentioned above, can cause a host of issues. A huge side effect that is often a repercussion we do not think of when we make this decision. Just like humans, our birds may become depressed by these extreme life changes and the fact they are now completely handicapped. This can lead to depression, anxiety, and self-mutilation, commonly the self-mutilation is feather-plucking, flesh destruction, and nail biting. Some people try to correct this by a cone, wither a plastic cone or a soft cone (recommended over any hard plastic cone), but this cannot be a permeant solution to the issue.
Self- mutilation is often a hard habit to break, just like it is in us humans. If you can prevent this habit, which can become an addiction just like biting your nails, why not do that. While self-mutilations can occur due to multiple reason, such as fatty liver Disease. Please always reach out to your Avian Specialty Veterinarian.
In Conclusion
Clipping is an unfortunate practice that is commonly used, but we do not often do our own independent research. If we looked closer at the repercussions, we would often shy away from doing such things for the benefit of our best feathered friends.
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