Wing trimming or flight feather clipping is an issue that for many of us is easily decided. But there are people who feel that it is unnecessary or even cruel. Though I could write an entire article why it is not cruel, let me summarize by saying that it is no crueler than keeping a dog on a leash or putting up a fence to keep a horse from running out onto the highway. The aim of this article is to explain that it is indeed necessary to trim the wings of most birds.

For those of you who are unsure of what is involved in wing trimming here is a quick explanation. The bird's primary flight feathers (the largest feathers in their wings) are trimmed to about half their original length. From the tip of the wing to about the bend of the wing (about the middle) this takes away your birds ability to gain lift when flapping his wings. He can glide or flutter to the ground if he falls but he cannot take off or soar around the room. The feathers trimmed are dead with no nerves (like our hair or fingernails) and will grow back the next time the bird molts. It is not painful nor is it dangerous for the bird.

Though many birds are upset by being held to have their wings trimmed, if it is done properly it will cause only a moment of stress. It is actually easy to teach young birds that wing trimming is a natural part of life. (My wife's Senegal, Krynn, will hold out her wings one at a time to be trimmed.) Simply playing with your bird's wings (and feet, for nail trimming) while you hold a closed blunt scissors in your hands can make wing trims completely stress free. (My macaw, Lou, hates having his wings trimmed. His owner was very lax when it came to this part of his development. We just wrap him in a towel and do it as quick as we safely can.)

Why trim the wings? There are a number of reasons to keep a bird's wings trimmed, reasons involving dominance, training, cage size and safety. As this is an article on safety I will leave the other reasons for another time and explain that one reason, safety, in detail.

Look around your home and imagine what it would be like if a toddler with a step ladder, a pair of pliers, and a tendency to put things in his mouth was given free reign in the home. Are there electrical cords where he could get to them? Is the paint on the molding toxic? Is there lead in the venetian blinds? Are your houseplants poisonous? Will the cat bite if it's tail gets pinched? Are the windows all closed? Did you leave the stove on or the water running? The list of questions goes on and on.

Your bird is that toddler. He has all of those tools. In fact he has more. He has two wide-angle lenses that are able to see almost the entire room and focus in on the tiniest little speck at the same time. He has a lock-pick set. He has Bilbo Baggin's fondness for riddles and puzzles (and shiny things) And in reality a Jet Pack not a stepladder.

Though I feel that the above-mentioned "Toddler With Tools" analogy is a good one it does over simplify the dangers. One of the differences between your bird and that toddler is size. A cockatiel weighs less than 5 ounces. A tiny piece of Decon, too small to hurt a mouse, may be enough to kill him. He could drown in a dog's bowl of water. A ceiling fan blade is a plane propeller. And a tipped over 2-pound book is a 100 pound bookshelf. Even Lou, my Green winged Macaw, who is huge for a parrot only weighs 3 pounds and could drown in a half-full bathtub.

We have all seen what happens when a wild bird sees the neighborhood reflected in a picture window and decides to fly to that inviting looking tree. A bird with it's wings trimmed might try going through a window or a mirror once or twice but will rarely injure himself and will quickly learn to avoid these encounters. A full flighted bird could build up enough speed across a small room to seriously injure or kill himself before that lesson is learned. (I watched Gryphon, my puppy, run full speed into a closed sliding glass door. He had walked up to the same door many times before and knew that it was there but in his excitement he didn't see the screen and forgot that glass was hard. Luckily full speed at four months old wasn't all that fast and what could have been a serious situation is now only an anecdote.)

There is also the danger of your bird flying out through that forgotten open window or being startled as the dog barks at a visitor and flying out through the open door. No matter how much your bird loves you or how well trained he is only luck will keep him from being startled at the immense size of 'outside' and simply flying away. Once he calms down, lands, and realizes he would like to go home he will have no idea where home is. Only the very lucky person is ever reunited with a bird that has flown away from their home.

Some of you may have seen the bird show at the Minnesota Zoo or another outdoor show where raptors and some parrots are trained to fly free over the audience. The important things to remember is that these birds go through months of training before they are ever allowed to fly untethered outside and especially with parrots only a very few birds are calm and trainable enough to be allowed to do this. (At many outdoor shows macaws are trained to fly from a high release tower or window down to the stage. If you look closely at these bird's wings you will see that some of their flight feathers have indeed been trimmed. Though the bird is certainly capable of controlling its flight down to the stage the mildly trimmed flight feathers on a large bird make it unlikely to have the strength to fly away.) And I am sure these birds are not allowed outside their cage to fly around in the office or home of their trainers.

At the beginning of this article I went a little soft and said 'most' birds instead of 'all' birds. There are of course special cases where the dangers may be outweighed by other considerations. I can well imagine that there are crippled birds out there that can not walk or climb and flying may be their only way to get exercise and enjoy themselves. Of course unless the house is fully bird proofed (remember that nasty little toddler) this special indulgence may lead to another injury or death.

Also many people keep finches and other small birds that are generally not interactive pets. These birds should be kept in large flight cages and should be left unclipped. Because they cannot come out of the cage to climb and play they must have the room and the ability to get exercise inside their cage. Many people make up for having too small of cage by letting these birds fly around a bird safe room of the house. You will never convince me that you can make an entire home safe for these birds. (The toddler might not have as strong a set of pliers but he still has his other tools.) I have heard too many horror stories of birds being sat on, stepped on etc. I do believe that it is possible to make a single room relatively safe for these small birds. (But there are so many things that you could miss or accidents that could occur that I feel it makes more sense to not own these types of birds unless you can provide a large enough cage where the risk isn't necessary.)

Now having read all of that some of you are saying to yourselves, "Chico, has been full flighted for years. He hardly even ever flies and he has never hurt himself." To that I say, 'You have been lucky.' We get literally hundreds of calls a year from people who have lost or found birds, who need emergency advice for an injured bird or who want to begin considering a new bird because their 'Chico' wasn't so lucky.

There are many reasons that I have heard people give as to why their bird doesn't need its wings clipped. I have heard very few of them that were legitimate enough to even consider. There are so many happy, healthy, well adjusted pet birds who have had their wings clipped their entire lives and just as many who flew for years before they were clipped and have adjusted perfectly that it seems an easy decision.

If you are the type of person that would let your dog run loose in a busy neighborhood because he likes the taste of the neighbor's leaking antifreeze and he enjoys chasing cars. Or you think it's cruel to make a galloping horse turn at a fence line instead of running free to the field on the other side of the highway. Or you believe that the toddlers development will be damaged if you take away any of his tools. Then these arguments will not convince you. If however you see the silliness of any of these arguments then you will know that it only makes sense to leash the dog, fence the horse, take the stepladder away from the toddler and by all means have your birds wings trimmed.