When to teach clipped young conure how to fly indoors

[RobertH]

Hi,

I just joined this forum to get some help as we raise and train our 11-week Jenday Conure "Turtle".

Turtle is doing great so far. He (if it is a he, we don't really know that yet) is hand-fed and we got him less than 2 weeks ago when he was about 10 weeks old. He is totally comfortable around people, all people, takes treats from anyone's hand, steps up for a treat, and often eats the treat while staying on the hand. He never bites, only chews to explore. He happily plays all day in his large cage (big enough for an African Grey), which has various toys that he seems to enjoy. He eats well, drinks well, sleeps well. Altogether, Turtle is the perfect bird so far.

The only thing I am concerned about is that his wings are clipped. I am not quite sure when they were clipped, but I think it must have been about one month ago, maybe a bit less. When I came across Michael's article on why clipping is wrong (which intuitively is how I felt anyway), and then read that not being able to learn how to fly at a young age is particularly bad, I began to wonder what the best course of action is from hereon.

Do we wait until the flight feathers have regrown? Or do we try to let Turtle fly the best he can right now? He has actually tried to fly a few times from the top of his cage. His record so far is about 5 airborne seconds over a distance of 12 feet or so. Not too bad. Outdoors, I suspect, he could probably manage to gain a lot more altitude. So, he's not flightless, just handicapped. I don't know what kind of a clipping he received, but it looks to me like not all of the long flight feathers were clipped. There appear to be two left on each wing, but I might be wrong.

I am worried that if we Iet him fly indoors in tour living/dining room, a large rectangular area with a total length of about 35 feet long, he may crash to the floor or bump into wooden furniture, etc. But maybe, that worry is misplaced. Maybe, it's worse for him not to fly at all for at least another month or so. I just don't know.

So, please, let me know what you think is the best way to proceed. I realize that the answer may depend on just how risky the flight training area is for him. If so, I'll try to describe our living/dining room in more detail.

Thanks a lot for your help.

Robert

PS. I have ordered Michael's book and can't wait to read it. This is the third book on parrots I am buying, and the other two weren't too helpful at a practical level. We plan to do clicker and target training with Turtle exactly as recommended by Michael.

[Wolf]

It sounds like they did at least a reasonable clip on your bird as if done properly it does not remove the capacity to fly some and to glide to the floor safely. The fact is that if you will just allow him to do so he will keep trying to fly. Is he going to crash into things? probably some especially at first while he is learning to control his flight. I think that other than windows or mirrors the biggest concern would be sharp corners and edges on furniture although open toilets or containers with water are pretty high on my list of dangers to birds that are capable of flight at any level. As long as the bird is not startled into its flight the crashes that he has should not be sever enough to matter unless he hits something sharp. It is always a good idea to check on him if he crashes to make certain that he is alright. I also think that it would be better for him to fly off of something that is lower than the top of his cage at first. Since he is already trying to fly, I don't think that you will need to do any more than let him out for him to practice his flight skills. All of my birds are flighted and come to me when I call them, but then they come to me even if I don't call for them.
I don't think that I would get too into training for at least the first month but I would spend most of this time with hanging out with him and bonding. I would make certain that he is eating good diet with a good variety of fruits and vegetables. I would try to discover what his favorite food is and save it for treats and not as a regular part of his diet. I would start letting him out to fly about and explore his environment and to hang out with and on you. Learn how to read his body language and whether he prefers to bathe himself or if he prefers to be spritzed down for his bath of how he prefers. Basically the first month is best used in learning about each other and how to live together. Then it is time to start to target train your bird and on from there.

[RobertH]

Thank you very much for your fast reply. What you say is reassuring, as it is pretty much what we have been doing and feel most comfortable doing. Keeping the bird locked up and trying to prevent flight for safety reasons would be difficult, both practically and psychologically.

I also appreciate you pointing out that training should wait for a while. I actually read exactly the same advice from someone else on another thread earlier today, and it does make sense. Turtle is just a young toddler right now and bonding is the number one thing right now. Thankfully, we have no issues in this regard, the bird seems to really enjoy our presence and his interactions with us.

We'll also take another look at the diet issue. From reading some of your other threads, I understand that pellets should not make up as much of a parrot's diet as I was told by the breeder and read in at least one book - 60-80%. The good news is that Turtle happily eats just about everything we offer him, especially apples. He also likes Dandelion leaves (organic and store-bought). So, it shouldn't be difficult to make that a larger part of his diet, if need be.

Thanks again,

Robert

[Wolf]

When it comes to diet there is a lot of misinformation available right along with the right information and sometimes in the very same articles. The reason for this, I think, is because keeping birds as companion animals is a relatively new industry of about 20 years old. During this time our knowledge on avian nutrition has grown and there have had to be some changes in not only what we were feeding but in our thinking about how to feed these foods to our birds and this has caused some strange concepts to become established in this area of avian husbandry. One example is seeds. We learned, unfortunately the hard way that a seed only diet was bad for our birds because it caused them to have liver, kidney and heart disease and was killing our birds. About this time some people noted that the birds were picking through the seeds and eating them according to what seeds they liked the most, which proved to be the ones with the highest amounts of fats and proteins. These people said there must be a better way of doing this that will stop them from picking out the seeds that they want and not eating the others and pelleted food for your bird was developed. These pellets were a totally different product than are available today as there are more additives available in many of the pelleted foods some which are better than others and some which are really bad for your bird so if you use pellets you need to read the label to know what is and is not in the pellets and then with the names of some of the ingredients you almost need to be a chemist to understand what some of these items are and what purpose they serve. Through the efforts of the feed companies to market their product and through the judicious use of kickbacks to vets to push there product we have been misled into the assumption that seeds are bad for our birds despite the fact that pelleted foods are largely just extremely dry ground up seeds bound together with binders and heat.
The truth is that seeds are bad for your bird in the same manner that a high quality pelleted food is bad for your bird and that is if the bird is fed too much of either of them. Free feeding of pellets will lead to liver, kidney and heart disease in the same way that the free feeding of seeds did. Seeds, especial;;y when they are whole grains are a valuable part of your birds diet, but the amount needs to be controlled so that they do not cause the bird to have health issues. Nature does this by not making all seeds available all year long so the bird has to eat the ones that are better for it when they are in season. We can do it by controlling the size of the portions that we feed to them. The majority of their diet should consist of fresh fruits and vegetables and even a few nuts, but limit these as they are also high in fat and protein.
So read and research and don't take any one company's or any one persons advice to be always right, think about what you learn and make up your own mind as to what you should do. For me, it was to cook food for my birds, to provide them with fresh raw produce and fruit and to feed a limited quantity of seeds.

[Pajarita]

Welcome to the forum, Turtle and parent! My Jenday eats gloop and fresh produce for breakfast and a seed mix that is 50% cockatiel (with some sunflowers seeds in it) and 50% small psittacine mix (no sunflowers) for dinner. I am going to take a picture of him one of these days to show you the huge difference a fresh food diet makes in a Jenday's plumage (his chest and face mask are a vivid dark red -beautiful!).

Now, as to his flying with clipped wings.. yes, he will have a bit of trouble because although it seems that he has a good clip (partial), the feathers cut (the first and longest) are the ones that rotate (like the ailerons in a plane wing) for landing, banking, etc, and, as they are not really there, his maneuvering capability is severely impaired. But you should definitely let him fly. He needs the mental stimulation, the exercise and the sheer joy of it! Just be careful as Wolf said about corners, open water, etc and, if I were you, I would put an old quilt (or any other type of cushioning material - a piece of a shag rug, batting, etc) under his cage so, if he falls to the ground when he jumps down from the top of his cage, he won't hurt his keel bone (when they are clipped they would crash land and, sometimes, they fall hard and chest first).

[RobertH]

Thanks to both of you for the additional information on diet. As a family trying to make fresh, organic produce and fruits a major part of our own diet, I understand exactly where you are coming from. Part of the challenge, as Michael points out in his article on the topic, is to get the ratios right (the same problem arises for human diets, too, btw). There are hundreds of different parrots species and we don't even know exactly what each species eats in the wild and in what proportions. So, for now, we are going to try to transition Turtle from Zupreem Fruitblend pellets, the pellets which the breeder used and recommended, but which everyone here seems to agree are junk, with Roudybush Daily Maintenance pellets, the ones Michael uses for his own birds. At the same time, we will continue to supplement with fresh apples and other fruit, as well as with organic greens.

As far as the clipped wings are concerned, I called the breeder today and found out that he left the 2-3 longest primary feathers intact (although he did so mostly for better looks, he conceded). I take it from your comment, Pajarita, that that's a good thing in terms of lift and control. It explains how Turtle was able to hover 5 feet above the ground for a couple of seconds before swooping down for a less than elegant, but not too bad crash landing on the floor. I think he mostly needs practice. Once he comes out of his cage on his own - right now we still have to entice him with a treat, though once he's on top of the cage he really likes it there and doesn't want to go back inside until he's tired playing - I hope he'll simply start wanting to explore the rest of his environment and push off the cage like he did a couple of days ago.

One more question: The breeder says that because of his young age, the new primary feathers should regrow within just a couple of months or so. Does this sound about right to you?

Thanks,

Robert

[Wolf]

I know that many birds like apples, but I would go easy on them because just like iceburg lettuce and bananas, apples for birds are pretty much just water and empty calories. This is in part due to the birds high metabolism requiring it to consume more vitamins and minerals and proteins and fats and carbohydrates than would be required with a slower metabolism. I think that there greatest value is for overweight birds and for those times that the bird must be transported long distances as they will rehydrate the bird when there is no water to drink for short periods of time.
Many small to medium sized parrots go through a juvenile molt at or about 6 months of age, so yes it is possible that he will replace these feathers at that time.

[Pajarita]

Yes, indeed, that is the best clip because the longest remiges are still there.

As to diet... well, I've done a lot of research on parrots diets (20 years worth since my first rescue was diagnosed with high uric acid) and have reached the conclusion that pellets are not and will never be the best dietary option for them. I don't agree with the 'balancing nutritional value ratio' argument because, although it is true that we don't know exactly what they are for each species, manufacturers don't know them either and simply sell pellets by bird size (and we all know that greys don't eat the same things as zons although they are the same size). Furthermore, even if the manufacturers knew for a fact exactly what each species dietary needs were, nature did not create parrots to eat a perfectly balanced meal astronaut-style with the same identical values every single day of the year. Quite the contrary, she made them seasonal feeders so the ratios vary from season to season and from day to day (have you ever seen parrots feed in the wild? they find one source, say a corn field or a fig tree, and they all eat and eat and eat until they are all full and, the next day, they go back to the same field or tree and eat and eat and eat again of the same exact thing until they can't find anymore food). The truth of the matter is that we don't have a single long term study that tells us that pellets are good for parrots. Not a single one. Roudybush did take part on a long term project but the studies themselves were short term and the birds in the different groups, including the control one, were killed after 11 or less months to see what their internal organs looked like.

Please do more research and don't take anybody's word (including mine) for anything. Study the subject from scientific sources (ornithologists, biologists, etc), learn what they eat in the wild and check the nutritional values on each item and you will see that they could not possibly benefit from eating a dry, compressed, cardboard-tasting, hard pellet with the texture of sawdust (try one and you'll see) on which you don't even know the exact nutritional values (look at the label, there is not a single exact value or even a range, everything is minimum of or maximum of so, in reality, you do NOT know what you are feeding, is it 11% or 25% protein? is it 12% or 3% humidity? because either value falls within what they claim on the label). Parrots natural food has a humidity of 85 to 95% percent (Roudybush daily maintenance has a max of 12%), super high fiber (versus a max of only 3.5%) and it's made out of ground corn, wheat, peanuts and soybean meal with man-made vitamins and minerals added (which we now know are not utilized by the body with the same efficiency than natural, food derived ones) and, by necessity, no phytonutrients to speak of (very few 'survive' processing) and with vitamins, like A, which should not be consumed in its final form but always in the precursor one. Now, I don't know about anybody else but I can do much better than that without even trying very hard and with all stuff bought in the supermarket!

But, if you are going to go the pellet route (you know you would still have to provide cooked whole grains and veggies as well as raw produce on a daily basis and that pellets should never be free-fed but only for dinner, right?), please do not use the fruity pellets (they are the crème of the crap) and check out Tops. It is, by far, the best pellet out there today: human grade organic ingredients (Roudybush has feed grade, non organic ingredients), no soy, no man made vitamins and minerals -only food derived, etc.