# Clipped Wings/Moulting Question



## xXSweetBreezeXx (Mar 28, 2015)

My new little boy Timbre is about 4 months old now. I've had him for about two weeks give or take. I have been spending lots of time just chatting with him, reading to him, whatever to get him used to me as he is still quite shy and is taking a bit to come out of his shell so to speak. When I am in the room and it has been made budgie safe, I have opened his cage door to give him the opportunity to get some exercise and explore a little but he has never taken advantage of the opportunity other than to sit on top of the door and get a better view. 
The pet store I got him from said they clipped their young budgie's wings for safety purposes, but it was up the the new owners whether they continued to do so or not, so I knew his wings had been clipped. 
What I failed to realize until too late is that they were clipped extremely short. It was my understanding that a clipped budgie's wings were to prevent them from getting extreme flight but they should still be able to glide comfortably and SAFELY down instead of flapping, flailing, and falling. 
Yesterday Timbre finally got up the courage to try to fly when his door was open. He ended up taking a good fall pretty well straight down. He was pretty upset by the situation, and because he couldn't take off hardly 4 inches from the ground I ended up having to catch him with a towel to put him back in his cage.
I feel like I really failed him for not noticing how short the wings were clipped and am really concerned about having set him back now in his taming for having such a traumatizing experience. 
I called the vet immediately after, and he said to keep a very close eye on him and if he seemed out of sorts to bring him in, and thankfully he continued eating and drinking and would chirp when I put on youtube budgie videos for him, so the vet and I agreed that he probably wouldn't need to come in to be traumatized further, but to moniter him closely.
Being the age he is it looks like he's starting to moult more of the bars on his head. Will that lead into a full moult? Will he be able to grow his flight feathers back after they had been clipped so short?
Sorry for writing a novel, just a worried new bird-mom over here!
Cheers, 
Melissa and Timbre


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## aluz (Jul 24, 2011)

Hi Melissa,

I'm sorry your little Timbre's had his wings clipped too short making him unable to fly safely. It's good to know he bounced back from his flight accident.
Before letting him have free reign of the room, it's important that Timbre learns to trust you and this is achieved by consistent training. 
Keep on spending time with him, making him used to your voice by talking to him in a calm, comforting, positive and encouraging way. 
Once you see Timbre getting more receptive to you and moving closer to you while in the cage, then you can proceed by carefully placing your hand in the cage, offering him a little tasty treat and encouraging him to perch on your finger/hand. 
It's always best to teach the step up to the finger command before letting a pet bird out of the cage. It can also be helpful to set up a play area near the cage (and place a perch on the outside part of the cage's bars and near the door) in order to be easier for the budgie to slowly acclimate to being outside the cage and not freak out by flying uncontrollably across the room.

In your Timbre's case, when letting him out (preferably after having mastered the step up command) and since he is at a disadvantage due to his badly clipped wings, you can limit the area he is in to avoid him from getting hurt when trying to fly.

The baby moults budgies have at 3 - 4 months of age are generally lighter and we will notice it more on the forehead and face area (baby barring on the forehead area will disappear and a couple of throat spot feathers may also be replaced during this moult, cheek patches will be replaced and can even grow in size with the moult and regrowth of new feathers) and also on the shedding of some small body feathers (on the chest and tummy area).

Usually budgies will only replace the long flight feathers on their second moult when they are 6 - 7 months old and by that time when the clipped feathers are moulted out and Timbre grows in new ones, you will know the condition they are in. Hopefully they won't regrow damaged and your Timbre will be able to put his fully grown flight feathers to good use.

General feather condition can be improved with a good diet and during a moult it's important to supplement our budgies' diets with egg food. You can get ready-made egg food at any specialized pet store or you can make your own by hard boiling an egg and mashing it all up, you can also sprinkle some flax seeds (also important to offer during moult) into the egg food as well as some finely chopped up veggies.

Best of luck with everything!


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## StarlingWings (Mar 15, 2013)

There's absolutely nothing of use I can add to Aluz's advice, so I can only express my relief that Timbre's doing ok after the incident and I wish you luck for the oncoming months for taming


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