Wing Trims in Pet Birds

Wing trims in pet birds

At Harvest Pointe Animal Hospital, our primary goal is to ensure the health and happiness of our animal patients. When considering the long-term wellness of our pet bird patients, there are some unique challenges faced. There are many components of maintaining a bird’s physical health, but there maybe no challenge more frank than the remarkable cognitive abilities of these animals and the difficulty in keeping them happy and content.

One common husbandry practice that has been put under the microscope recently has been wing trims. While commonly done throughout the history of keeping pet birds, there is increasing evidence that this may be a less-than-ideal practice. Originally this was seen as a routine grooming procedure where the primary flight feathers of the bird were trimmed back to varying degrees to stop the pet bird from flying away from its owner or its home.

More recently there is a school of thought with some evidence behind it that the practice may be predisposing our pet birds to several physical and psychological health concerns. Issues such as increased cardiovascular disease and decreased musculoskeletal health (the direct result of less exercise) are apparent and logical. The more subtle changes to pick up on are the increased propensity for feather plucking and other feather destructive behaviours, as well as the increased likelihood of other problem behaviours such as biting. The working hypothesis is that by taking away a bird’s ability to fly away from situations or stimuli that is finds undesirable we have effectively taken away their ability for choice and taught them a form of learned helplessness. This can lead to an entire host of changes in the brain, that are not unlike mental health challenges faced by some humans.

Based on this way of thinking and the most up to date evidence in front of us, the staff at Harvest Pointe Animal Hospital don’t generally recommend performing routine wing trims. There are extenuating circumstances where this may be still performed but in general for the vast majority of patients it is likely doing more harm than good and is not recommended.

In situations where we do end up performing wing trims, we are recommending less aggressive cutting of the feathers to avoid a complete loss of flight, or alternative cutting patterns to maintain some form of normal landing posture (Skinny repeal trim). This is to try and avoid self injury from hard falls by maintaining normal biomechanics.

It is also important to always remember and thus worth mentioning that birds with wing trims, even very aggressive forms of trims can still fly if they are outside. The presence of air drafts and wind gusts can lift birds away, even ones with wing trims. This fact does make the wing trim a less functional practice. Always remember that any bird going outside should have a harness or be in a secure enclosure to prevent inadvertent loss of the bird. A routine wing trim is not protection against loss outside.

Dr. Daren Mandrusiak

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