How bad is it to cut a budgies secondary flight feathers ? Upon purchase I had the shop clip my birds wings but they only did one. I had been told this was bad and that I should even it out. I have clipped my other birds wings before, p1
So I had experience with the actual clipping part, my friend had showed me how to do it when I got my first bird. But the pet shop also cut some of the secondary flight feathers. This was about a year ago when I’d only kept birds for a few months p2
And I had been told that making sure to cut the same number of feathers on both sides was really important so I also cut secondary feathers. Now having more experience I really don’t think what I did was right. The bird had moulted since p3
But hasn’t lost all of the feathers that had been cut. Should I be worried ? Will they grow back in? Sorry for so many messages to get to the question
Cutting the secondary flight feathers is not something that should be done. That’s way to many feathers being cut off which can cause the bird to drop like a stone and seriously hurt itself. The first ten feathers from the tip of the wing (farthest away from the bird’s body) are the primary flight feathers which are the only ones that *can* ever be cut.
Sorry you ended up with me answering this question I am very anti-clip and will not give you proper instructions on how to do it as it is against my morals. If you *need* to have it done then take your bird to a veterinarian or perhaps one of the other bloggers might help you with that.
Birds feathers moult out and grow back in order of what feathers are the most damaged and the oldest. This way the bird’s feathers stay in peak condition all year round, a bird should be losing a few feathers almost the entire year while having one or two major moults which replenish the more major feathers.
It is good to keep both sides equal but if you plan on letting your bird grow back his feathers you need to leave them be. All the feathers will moult out and grow back in perfectly fine. Bird’s wing feathers moult and grow in symmetrically as to prevent spinning out of control. This means that one day your bird will moult out a clipped feather on the right wing and a couple days to a week later the same feather on the left wing will moult and grow back.
The feathers will grow back perfectly fine although your bird will need time to adjust to having a new amount of feathers. You will need to limit the amount of flight your bird does while the new feathers are growing in otherwise they risk breaking and your bird may also have difficulty controlling himself in flight.
