Hi,

 

Just a quick question. Smokey has clipped wings. He has just gone through his first moult and on one wing, his last wing feather has grown back in. This is the only one at this stage to have grown in. Worried that it would get caught on things and do some nasty damage, I just clipped that one feather in line with where the rest are clipped. Was this the right thing to do, or are there better ways to manage this for next time?

You did the right thing If you want him to stay clipped, just trim the flights as they come though

 

Just remember to be VERY careful of blood feathers. While the feather is still growing, there is a blood vessel that travels up the shaft. If you happen to cut one, you will need to pull out the entire feather and stop the bleeding immediately.

 

Once the feather stops growing, the vessel will contract and blood will no longer be present in the feather.

Edited July 28, 200816 yr by **Liv**
added more

Thanks Liv! It is good to know that keeping his wings clipped will be a relatively easy task. He was a bit grumpy with me, but no bleeding feathers etc and he's quite content now flirting with his swing.

 

I have encountered the problem that arises when one of these feathers breaks (poor old Casper had a night fright once and flapped his way into the bars of his cage ) and I got great advice from this forum on how to manage that problem! Will it be easy enough to see the vessel in a newly growing flight feather and therefore guage where to clip it, or is it best to wait til it looks like it is pretty much fully in before clipping it?

I would wait until the feather has fully grown. A blood feather is tender when touched by us.

Cool, ta!

Another way is to use a torch or your LED light for candleing , hold the light UNDER the wing, this will then show you were the blood stops and you then have a Guide line for where you can trim....

 

I too re clipp once they are growing back