To clip or not to clip?

Like a famous writer named Shakespeare once wrote: "To clip or not to clip, that is the question!" (or was it maybe "to be or not to be?"), anyway that really is the question! Should a parrot have its wings clipped or not? And if so, when is the appropriate time to clip for the first time and how should it be done? Personally I am not a huge fan of clipping the wings of parrots. "What a hypocrite!" you may think "I can clearly see on that photo of your bird that her wings have been clipped!" And if you did notice that you are very correct. I was, however, not the one to clip Sarabi's wings - it was done by the breeder. I will not clip Sarabi's wings after new feathers have grown out. She is still very capable of flying, despite having a couple of feathers missing, and when I take her outside it is always in either her transport-bag or in a harness. I would not trust having a parrot outside totally "free", even if it has had its wings clipped, since a gust of wind can carry even a wing-clipped bird incredibly far and into danger. In other words: clipping a birds wings with the argument that you can then have it outside without having to worry about the bird flying away is not a valid reason.

Young birds need time to fully learn how to fly and exercise their aerial abilities. If the parrot has its wings clipped before it has mastered the art of flight it is said that it can damage the parrots self-asteem and that it may take several months, possibly even years, for it to fully learn what it should have learnt as young. It is also a question of exercise. A bird is made to fly and needs exercise to stay healthy.

As I mentioned before Sarabi can still fly, and she's very good at it! This is because there are different ways to clip a parrots wings (it sounds so drastic, only a few feathers are clipped, not the entire wing) and these different methods result in different changes to the parrots ability to fly. Depending on which feathers, and how many, are clipped the parrot can either just loose some flight range to not being able to lift in flight from the ground. If the parrot is a bit older and already has mastered the art of flying and you want to have its wings clipped I advise you to take your parrot to a professional (preferably an avian veterinarian; specialized in birds) the first time instead of attempting it yourself. The vet can show you how it should be done.

The debate about whether or not it should be acceptable, or even legally allowed, to have a birds wings clipped is a very heated one here in Sweden. Many bird enthusiasts are strongly against wing-clipping and are trying to have it illegalized. In other countries, like the US, the topic is less heated and wing-clipping, I personally feel, is more generally accepted there. The question, I believe, is how far we can strive for creating an almost natural environment for our birds before going back to nature itself? We want to tame and domesticate animals yet at the same time we want them to be free - it's a difficult balance to keep. In the end we simply just want our birds to be happy and healthy!