itzazu2u

I'm trying! I really really am! It's sjust sometimes my world is like this...:silly: ...upside down. Then again, if I try to look at it like this...:side: ...things might begin to look normal!:laugh: Whooooo all that spinning made me feel like this...:blink: :sick: :blink:

Dan, go back, re-read my post. I do believe you and I are saying pretty much the exact same thing only mine is with a sarcastic bent, yours is literal. However, if safety is not a matter of convience, how else would you escape a buring building if there is no fire escape? If you are bound to a handicap, how else are you to exsist with out means of accesiblity which is both safe and convienent? MHO in this comparison is that safety and convience go side by side.

daviddogma wrote: Okay...I admit it...I clipped the wings of my visualy impaired U2 because I am too lazy to have to dig a hole for her after she dies of a broken neck because she flew into a wall she didn't see. Yeah, it's a major PIA for me to watch any animal suffer with any injury, so clipping helps there as well. I won't have to deal with her suffering. Unfortunately, I have the same dilema if I were to live in a house with out any walls as there are trees she could ram into if she were to take off in a blind flight. Not to mention predators she wouldn't see to escape from. See, she is just as visually impaired in a house as she is outside where there are no walls. I reckon I need to move to some tent city. I also have to admit to the fact that it is a matter of convience to me to NOT clip my CAG. Some cruel person already ripped his ablity of flight away from him when they tried to just cut off his entire wing. Sadly, I was never given the chance to determine for myself if he might be better off flighted or not as I leave this choice open for all of my birds. Now, when I pick up my footless Sun Conure, I most likely will allow him full flight as it will be his personal mode of transport. Then again, considering he had his feet cut off and can not perch, he may be better off clipped since he has problems landing. I'll just have to see what might work best. Not that I really care, but what would you recommend? There you have it. Matters of convience on both takes. Granted, most folks are only willing to take whole and healthy birds but there are some of us who actaully seek out the less than perfects because they ARE perfect. It is for this very reason why I choose to base my decision to clip or not up to the individual bird's ability OR disability.

I understand your concerns of a strictly sunflower seed diet. I am no fan of sunflower seed at all. A diet high in these seed can eventually deplete the vitamin A, leading to major health issues. Other vitamins will be depleted as well, primarily B and D. I attribute such a diet as being the number one cause of blindness in my U2 as well as horrible feather quality in my CAG, both of whom ate nothing else at the time they came home. Needless to say, I eliminated these seeds quickly and completely from the diet of all my birds and currently use them only for treats and reward only...and sparsely! How I converted my sunflower seed junkies to a healthier diet was easy. I just didn't give them any. Yes, for some I am sure this sounds hard core. However, how can I continue to feed something which has already caused so much harm to my birds already? Another example of this approach... This past summer I rescued an IRN. I was told by the family the birds favorite foods were advocado, chocolate, and rum and coke! Was I hard core when I removed the Oreo cookie from his grasp as he munched happily away? No, not at all. In fact, IMHO gradual weaning away from something less than healthy only adds to the harm already done. Okay, so I am a cut and dried kind of person. In exchange, I have gained healthier birds quicker than if I had taken the "kinder and gentler" approach. BTW, none of my birds who came here with a history of horrible diets have died or become ill and all dietary changes have been with the recommendations and supervision of an avian vet. If you can not bring yourself to simply eliminating sunflower seed completely from your bird's diet, as I have, I certainly understand. What works for some does not always work for all. Birds are hungry first thing in the morning and are more likely to try new foods at this time. I would recommend you introduce a new diet at this time. If you must feed the diet you are trying to get away from, do so only during the miday snack and evening meal time. Eventually you can begin to eliminate the SS seed during other daily meals as well. Always monitor your birds food intake and weight. If anything, with a healthier diet, you should only see an over all improvement in your bird. Good luck!

Oh yeah, let's do just that, jump topics and talk about docking tails and ears. That involves blood and pain. That's so much NOT the same thing as clipping wings.

I have a fully flighted CAG, Bandy. He is a rescue, fully flighted and has never been clipped since I brought him home. He shall forever remain fully flighted but will NEVER FLY! Sadly, at the hands of one of his past temporary homes, he was brutally butchered, leaving one wing that will never grow feathers properly. He has never plucked, and until recently, never actually even tried to flap his wings in any manner, even during a fall. Bandy has been an angry bird and with great patience and care, I have worked with him in order to build his trust. Great strides have been made and he is now trying to build MY trust in him. He has my son...I am happy. In the past year, I have watched this majestic bird slowly come out of his shell and open up. His lack of flight *may* have caused a small measure of his depression but mostly his lack of love recieved in the past, has been his biggest prison. That and abuse. He has finally begun to see kindness outside of the sanctuary of his cage. He has begun to blossom. Granted, I know little of his past, however, I do know the lady who had him prior to me also kept him fully flighted, but cage bound in a small cage. She was afraid of him, and understandably so, given what she was able to tell me of his history. However, I can not feel he would be any different had he never been clipped at all. I firmly believe his anger and issues stem from the shear abuse he endured in his temporary homes in the past. Bandy is a strong willed bird, flighted or not. Trust me. I suppose you would also say I am horribly cruel for maintaining a full clip on my sweet U2. After all, she was a breeder before I brought her home. She is a love, a total joy. She came into my home as a bird who was fully flighted! Yes, how horrible of me. First thing I did was grab the scissors and start clipping those white wings. Why the heck not? She had done a right fine job of chewing all of her flights and most, if not all of her secondarys. Why shoot, she hardly had much in the manner of down and coverlets even. What good were those flights going to do her with out the rest of her feathers? Well, you see, Rose was blind as a bat when I brought her home. I guess I was mean enough to clip her so she wouldn't spook and go flying off and breaking her neck when she might fly into a wall. Heavenly days, I didn't want to deal with cleaning up blood stains if she flew into some window, got cut up and maybe bleed to death! That would be such a headache for me. It would be easier for me to be cruel and mean to her so she would live safely. And would you go figure... She stopped tearing up her feathers AFTER I clipped her! With the help of a decent diet, she's even regained some limited vision too. Now, she still runs into things when she walks around on the floor, but she does have some high contrast vision. I am mean enough to keep her off of sunflower seeds along with maintianing her full clip. Maybe, just maybe, one day she might regain vision well enough to be able to see a wall and not crash into it. Until then, I am quite happy she can't fly because I was cruel. Then there is sweet Bee. Now, seeing as how I raised him, he was able to fledge. He learned to go up, come down, soar all around. He came to me when called...that bird loves his momma. But the day he took off, he was fully clipped. He was also scared whitless. He had never had so much room to fly it before! There was no ceiling, walls, no kind of boundary and he didn't know how to handle it at all! Oh, and there were big mean birds with gurmbly tummys out to get him too! Yep, you bet I clipped his wings when I got him back in the house. I am thankfull I am cruel enough to want to keep him safe from something like that ever happening again. I really don't have the best fitting window screens either. Now, LO. I can shave that bird bald, but believe me, if a p let wants to fly, honey, he's going to FLY and do quite well at it. I just don't clip him any more. I gave that up a long time ago. Same thing applies to the keets and lovies. You just can't keep the smaller birds from flying when they want to. If Redneck Ray, that towel loving tiel of mine, decides to take flight in to the stew pot one day, I might just do one of two things. I might add a touch of salt, a dash of pepper, toss in a clove of garlic and call him supper. OR, I might take the scissors to him. All I know is I can't keep a big towel with me all the time and I don't like getting bit either. Yup, he's a redneck bird, through and through. Then there's Cotton, my daughters tiel. Oh yeah, he is plenty old enough to fly but he just wants to hang on to the finger. I think he must be a huge eagle in a tiels body. He keeps trying to carry us away. I have told him and told him over and over, "Cotton, if you would just let go of the finger, you might become airborne!" He just won't listen...sigh. Sufice it to say, he isn't clipped...yet. I am not saying clipping a bird is right or wrong. I feel, as I tried to demonstrate above, this choice should be based on the individual bird and the environment it lives in. This is what I have done. I do not take any of my birds, flighted or not, outside, beyond my screened porch. I have seen more than one of my birds take to the skies. It is a horrible thing to exprience. Thankfully, I have been able to safely recover those birds and bring them back home. I hope you never, EVER watch, helplessly while your bird takes flight into the big blue. I hope you never exprience the sickening feel of watching 5 hawks flying above the very tree tops you last saw your bird fly into. I have. Btw, yes, the bird I speak of was WELL CLIPPED! Nor was he a strong flier. Thank GOD I was able to find him safe and sound. Most of all, Bee didn't become a meal for a hawk. But to say how cruel it is to clip, and berate those of us who do clip for our various reasons, I do feel it harsh and judgemental on your part. It represents a closed mind. I am not saying, one way or the other that it is 100% right OR wrong to clip or not to clip. I have 14 birds. As I stated, some are clipped, some are fully flighted. My reasoning for this is based both on each individual bird, and the safety of each bird.

I do not recall saying the word "never". I do know I put emphasis on the term supervision as being key. As for allowing dogs to run loose, I am appalled to see the dogs roaming the streats at all hours. I am one who whole heartedly agree this practice is unsafe for both dogs and people. I do allow my three older cats out during the day. They know to remain close to the house. Being the animals they are, I could no more force them to remain in the house forever than I could keep a bird cage bound forever. So far as taking these "risks" as you call it, life is a risk. The minute we are born, we begin dying. When I gave birth to each of my children, I worried myself to pieces. I didn't want to allow them out of my sight. I didn't want them to go to school, play in the yard, ride a bicycle, learn to drive. I wanted to shelter them from any and all that could harm them. But to put them in some padded room, safe from all possible harm... How could they benefit? They would not grow and be able to function in a normal world. I had to allow them to fall and skin a knee. I had to allow them to explore. I had to sit back and watch them learn things the hard way. No, it didn't feel good, but they learned limits and boundarys. They began to understand consiquences of various actions. They began to understand how to LIVE! What misery would they have if forced to maintain life in a bubble when life is short enough as it is? Besides, I am not in control of destiny, if you will. Not one of us are. Our fate lies in the hands of something we can not control, call it what you will, God, a Higher Power. Our task in this plain is to live and it is a wonderful thing, even with all the risks involved. The greatest lessons one learns in life is learned the hard way. I apologize as I did not intend to get all preachy, as one of the beauties of being a human is we all have a right to our own opinions.

I am SO GLAD you finally have him back in the house where he belongs! It's a hard lesson learned to say the least. This past spring I watched helplessly as my Quaker flew off and like you, scoured the neighborhood for hours. I also recovered him but I had walked past him several times as he had landed in a tree, shoulder level, and blended in so well, I didn't see him and he was afraid to peep. However, this was probably his saving grace. For the two hours I searched for him, I also kept a watchful eye on the hawks flying level with the tree tops.

Talon, it seems there is constantly someone new coming through the doors of my home all the time. It happens in the world of rescue and rehab. Now, when someone comes along, I get a look that pretty much says, "Ho hum, what's that you have now Mom?":P Bravery has little to do with it but supervision does. And not unlike Kiwibarb12, I would never DARE allow this if I were not able to keep a close eye on things at all times. All of my guys understand a stern, NO!, instantly freezing like a statue. That being said, I do have one cat, Underfoot, that knows he is not allowed to harras any of the indoor critters. This is not to say he does not get the occassional outdoor bird but trust me, he does his best to not get busted doing this either. Recently he got caught with a Cardinal. When he saw me, he spit that poor bird out instantly. After throughly checking this bird out and finding no blood or breaks, I realized he was in shock. I have an old cage that he was placed in and he later bit me when he was finally released back into the wild! Some thanks I got for saving his little red feathered life!:laugh:

I can not begin to tell you how big of a fan I am of Red Palm Oil! That stuff is WONDERFUL. I spread a thin layer on whole wheat toast for my guys and they love it, gobble it down. When I scramble their eggs, a dab of RPO goes in to the egg as well. Another thing that is good for the feathers is tuna fish, canned in water. I can't even eat a tuna fish sandwich in the same room as the birds. Also, be sure to feed the darker leafy greens for the calcium. Around this house the favored green is Kale. I can't say anything about using Aloe, but I have heard of others using it as well. Personally, I would avoid Aloe juice that isn't organic. I don't care for all the preservatives and such in foods.

I have four cats, one being a young and curious kitten, one dog of feral breeding and aggressive in nature, one lizard, two kids, thirteen birds. I do allow the birds on the floor, along with other out of cage time with no problems. It is also a common practice in my home for "mom time" in my room, on my bed. During this time, there will be two kids, a few cats, and a bird or few, on the bed and a dog on the floor looking for a spedk of bed to lay claim to, all content and happy. The key is SUPERVISION!

Just fyi, some folks think of chinchilla dust as chinchilla bath. It's the same thing.

Danmcq, I make certain to use DE that is clearly marked as Chinchlla Dust and only sold in pet stores. I know this is a low dust grind and is not adulterated with any chemicals. I do not trust the DE available in the lawn and garden section of Lowe's or Home Depot and I certainly would NOT use the DE used in pool filters. I just don't trust it if it is not clearly labeled for Chinchillas. I checked the label on the container I currently have and it has no warnings to wear masks or other protective clothing. I don't know about the "grind" of the other kinds you mentioned, but I know the dust I use does not float or puff up like you would think. I use an old canister that some carpet freshener came in, one that has the shaker holes. Also, I only treat for bugs if I need to, about once a year, in the spring and that is it. I don't have to treat any more often than this. In fact, in the past ten years, I have only used up one container of DE, less than three pounds. Compared with pool filtration, I believe my exposure is barely minimal by comparison. Also, I began using this as my treatment of choice when my son was only just beginning to crawl. He turned 15 just yesterday. I searched for days before I found out about DE because I did not want to use chemicals where a small baby was crawling around. Even then, I spoke to his pediatrician about it. She also researched the use of DE and deemed it safest provided it was labeled for Chinchillas.

All of these ideas are simply wonderful however, I must add my two cents to the issue. The one thing I do is add a fresh bay leaf to the seed, flour, cornmeal, pellets, every time and without fail. The bugs don't like the sent of the leaves and will not get into anything stored with the leaves in them. The bay leaf is not going to change the flavors or anything and it is perfectly safe to use. You can find bay leaves in the spice section of any grocery store. BTW, you can use the same leaves repeatedly for several months. For creepy crawlers, including fleas, I use diatomatious earth, commonly known as Chinchilla Dust. About once a year, I will sprinkle the dust on the floors and sweep it in to any carpeting really well. It doesn't take must, just a light sprinkling is all that is needed. I leave this as is for about two or three days then vacuum it all up. I then vacuum every other day for about a week. The bugs will not die instantly, but they will die. This is especially true for any fleas. The good thing is this trick will last, on average, for about a year. How does this work, you ask? The dirt eats away at the waxy coating bugs have covering the exoskeleton, which the need in order to live. No, you will not have dust particles floating all over your house either as the dirt is heavy and does not become suspended in the air. Just remember to turn off any ceiling fans when you are first putting the dirt down. I have not had a major bug problem in years, thank goodness. Having all the critters in my home, plus two kids, this is nothing short of a miracle. It also lets me know what I am doing must be working. The greatest thing is all of my tricks are natural, easy, cheap, and, most improtantly, SAFE for everyone!

You would be surprised how much height a bird can reach sometimes, even with a full clip, shy of the first one or two primaries. This is why I ask that you please speak to your bird's AV. Also, speaking from experience, it is amazing how well a bird can fly with a total clip. Of course, much of this is purely dependent upon the individual bird. However, I thank my lucky stars I was able to recover my clipped quaker after his jaunt in the big wild yonder. Seeing your "clipped" bird flying over the tops of trees is a sickening sight, I assure you! My IRN is completely flighted with two primaries not clipped. My p let is fully clipped but you would never no this the way he flies. My U2 drops like a brick with only three flights clipped. She would be an ideal bird to have a strim style of clip. I can't say anything regarding the flight capablities of my CAG. He is fully flighted, but makes no effort to flap his wing. He has a mangled wing, a result of cruelty in his past. All this being considered, I do maintain clipped wings, in some fashion and dependent on the individual.