Barry won't fly

[Mandie]

Hi Guys,

I have a kinda weird problem .. our IRN is like Blue from Rio lol

We've had Barry for about 6 months now (he's 8 months old) and when we got him his wings had been clipped. He hasn't moulted yet so they're still like that at the moment. At the pet shop he was kept in a really really tiny cage so we had some problems initially of his tail feathers not growing properly, took him to the vet and had all the tail feathers pulled out and they've regrown beautifully.

He's out of his cage every moment that someone is home, which is all day most days. He has a good diet, great personality, just starting to talk. He looks like he wants to fly, he'll stand on the very edge of the top of his cage and lean right out and flap his wings .. but just never actually let go of his feet.

We've tried encouragement, putting his favourite food about a foot away from his cage to see if he'll fly over to it but no luck. I don't think it's a physical problem because he loves to sit on my son's finger and they spin slowly with his arm outstretched. Barry puts his little wings out and his tail fans out and he flaps furiously but never actually goes anywhere. He always leaves dents on my son's finger because he's been holding on so tight!

The budgie we used to have always had his wings clipped but he still managed to fly around the house ok so I'm not sure it's that.

Is there anything we should be trying to do to teach him to fly or do you think it'll just happen in his own time? Is it because he's lutino and he's part chicken?

Thanks for reading
Mandie

[ellieelectrons]

Hi Mandie

Possibly it could be because his wings were clipped at too young an age and he doesn't know he can fly. I think you'll just have to wait until his wings grow back in order to know if there is a real problem here. In the meantime use the non-flighted time as a way to continue getting closer to your bird.

All birds will flap their wings and not take off when they want to exercise them. Has your bird ever fallen and has he used his wings then? I'm not suggesting you knock him off his perch or anything but I was wondering if you've seen it happen by accident. What does your avian vet think?

Ellie.

[Mandie]

Hey Ellie,

Thanks for your reply I think you have a really good point about getting closer to him, he's quite a bit more headstrong than our budgies were, even now he decides whether he wants to talk to you or not where the budgies would fly over to you as soon as you called them.

He has used his wings when he's had a fright and fallen off wherever he was sitting at the time. I've seen him sort of glide a few times, I just don't think he realises if he flaps then he'd go up lol

The vet we go to here isn't an avian vet exactly (we're too far away from them) but she does have a keen interest in birds and loves Barry alot (to the point they wanted to adopt him for the vet mascot lol) she gave him a good checkover when we were there but at the time we thought it might have still been the tail problem. I think it's all in his head now

I guess I just need to learn to be more patient lol

Thanks,
Mandie

[ellieelectrons]

This is the first year that I've let my birds wings grow back and they've both figured out how to fly despite being clipped regularly for a number of years. I'm having fun training them to fly to me and then fly back to their perch at the moment! They're so beautiful when they fly!

I think it's a good sign if your bird can glide down when he falls.

These birds can be a whole lot harder to work with when they can fly - which is why mine have remained clipped for a couple of years... so if you work on getting your bird to like you now, that's a good thing.

Ellie.