Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hi, i recently got two cockatiels one of which was hand-fed/trained and the other not. the previous owner of the cockatiels suggested that clipping the wings of the untamed bird might help to tame it. i was reluctant to do it but he was frightened of the new environment/people and would constantly take off flying, often into the wall, ceiling, windows or other stationary objects. after the clipping, i tried to spend as much time with him as possible to familiarize him with the new environment, etc. a couple of times, something would startle him and he would try to fly away but instead would crash to the ground =(

today i noticed a tail feather in the bottom of the cage that had some dried blood on it. i checked under his tail and he's got an area under his tail that is reddish. it looks to my untrained eye like irritation or an infection. i had not noticed it due to its location and the fact that he was not acting significantly different or because I attributed any change in behavior to the clipping and not to the injury.

the previous owner says he is about 3-4 yo. the area is not bleeding nor has it ever bled (to the best of my knowledge) profusely as the area (cage + surrounding) is free of blood as is the carpet area where he usually walks. i don't know how long he has had the injury. it appears as if he is still eating (i fed him some millet earlier today and he has had regular droppings).

sorry for the long message. i took a couple of pictures but it was difficult as he kept moving around. i am hoping someone can give me some advice as to what to do.

http://wayne.osiriscomm.com/buster/IMG_3937_small.jpg
http://wayne.osiriscomm.com/buster/IMG_3955_small.jpg

ok let me get this straight.
He has an old wound? never bled to your knowladge, but you definately know the wound is old?? In that case if he's still his untaimed cranky old self then he's probably just fine. I would keep an eye on it anyway just to make sure there are no changes whatsoever. A dried up blood feather on the floor can mean anything.

Has he ever been out of his cage before? Do you intend on taking him out & taming him? If you do a clip is definately a good idea at his age, get an avian vet or experienced person to do it. If you don't intend on taming him I don't see why he can't be fully flighted, as long as he's not renowned for being an escape artist.
There are ALOT of pros & cons about clipping, but personally it is upto you. I don't clip my tiels wings & he's tame & is free flighted in the house throughout the day. It has taken alot of training though to bring him down a peg or two. Tiels fully flighted often think they're bigger than you & can be pretty bossy!!

Do you have your tiels in a cage together? Ideally they should be seperated if you want to tame the other. Any birds that stay in a cage together will be very hard to tame. You can put two seperate cages next to one another but not the birds in the same cage.

Is sounds like the exact same thing that happened to one of my tiels. His wings were clipped way too short and instead of being able to glide and land safely, he fell like a rock. Tiels land, tail down. When he hit, he split his backside open right beside his vent. In our case, it was an emergency trip to the vet for stitches or he would have bled to death quickly. Obviously your bird's injury was not that serious but let my story be a warning about over clipping. You might not be so lucky the next time he takes a fall like that. If a bird cannot glide about 15-20 feet, gradually losing altitude and execute a landing under complete control, then the wings are way over clipped. Be very careful with your bird until the flights have regrown enough for him to have that control and be sure he is never clipped that severe ever again.