How to clip a bird's wings.
We take many of our birds outdoors.
Clipping their wings protects them from flying away and becoming prey to other animals.
These are usually the pet quality birds, that enjoy human companionship.
Many of our birds do not get clipped.
It's your choice.
First and most important be gentle, we would like to cut a straight line on the wing that is no shorter than the short feathers, that go back towards the body. We would like to cut a straight line on the upper part of the wing, so that it looks nice and neat and you can tell when new flight feathers are growing out.
As you can see, Sunny boy doesn't like to get his wings clipped. So you may need to use a towel. You can see where the old line was? Where the shortest feathers are? We are just going to trim off those new ones that grew out, if you cut too much off, they'll fall to the ground too heavily and they could possibly hurt their breastbones. We don't want to cut too much.
You also want to avoid cutting it too short, because you don't want a cause, of course, their feather to bleed. Then you gently turn them around and do the other side the same as the first side, keeping in mind all the time to be gentle. Then you can hold the bird with the tail towards you or tail away from you, as you can see here with Ohana, we are just going to brush up her wing and make that line straight again. And we don't clip all of our birds' wings. Just the ones that are hand fed or hand trained, and like human companionship, and quite frequently goes somewhere with us and travel.
A lot of times you only want to clip the last flight feathers, as you see here, that's so that the bird has the ability to just glide down gracefully, instead of just like I said before, dropping like a sprig and hurting their breastbone.
As you can see here with Harley, she is fully feathered since last year, handling her like this makes the clips job a lot easier, as spring comes around the corner, we will be taking her into the bed, and he will clip the last flight feathers like last year. We hope this video has helped you, if you would like to make a donation, visit Flying Colors Bird Sanctuary link, and check back regularly for updates on bird care.
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