Scaly lorikeet can't fly..

[lovelorikeets91]

Hello, I am just posting this because back in February I bought a beautiful little scaly breasted lorikeet for my mum from one of our local pet shops. She is a gorgeous bird overall and is so friendly and funny but the thing is with her flight feathers... When I bought her she had already had her wings clipped, I am not sure who did it but they did a terrible job and it looks as though this person literally hacked away at her flight feathers because they are all messy and very choppy looking.

That in itself is not the problem, Ruby cannot fly. I have a rainbow who's wings I trimmed myself, and she can safely glide to the ground without difficulty but Ruby doesn't glide, she just falls. And it looks like it hurts when she falls. Also, Ruby is missing all her tail feathers as well because I'm pretty sure she was bullied by other birds in the pet shop but I am really worried she may have PBFD?? She starts to grow new tail feathers but as soon as she falls they snap/break off or they only half break and she plucks the broken feather out when she preens herself.

Will Ruby be able to fly again? I'm thinking her wings were cut before she fully fledged as a baby which worries me, because then she probably doesn't even know how to fly. I really need some advice. I want to help Ruby, it upsets me and my mum seeing her fall instead of glide

[zena]

It annoys me when people do this to birds- sorry but I don't know much about you can do... I could suggest making it easier for her to get around by have things she can climb (I have a princess parrot who can't fly at the moment- she only just started to grow flight and tail feathers again. It wasn't from a bad wing clip though... ) Maybe someone else who has better advice can suggest something better...?

[avinet]

It really annoys me when this happens to a bird -  we used to see it regularly when I had my shop and it was often impossible to immediately do anything to help the bird.  As you have done with your Rainbow, after a clip a bird should fly to the ground, not fall to the ground - vets see a lot of injured birds as a result of bad clipping.

Anyway turning to your Scaly, from the sounds of it she doesn't have PBFD, just feather damage from landing on her tail.  To help her until her next moult - likely to happen in the spring or early summer, there are a couple of possibilities.  Firstly a vet could imp some feather into the cut flight feathers.  This is a procedure that involves taking a feather from another bird - usually moulted feathers that the vet collects, and inserting it and glueing it in place into the shaft of the bird's own feather.  That will entail imping maybe 3 or 4 feathers on each wing which would give the bird sufficient lift to fly to the ground.  This does involve an anaesthetic and is likely not cheap - and relatively few avian vets would be able to do it, however it is very effective.  My male African Grey also had a bad clip when I got him and to avoid injury my vet successfully imped several feathers that helped him avoid injury until his next moult. 

The second possibility is to pull out some of his cut feathers - the new feather that would grow in would mean that she would regain some flight within about a month.  That is a painful experience so again it would need to be done by a vet probably with some painkillers given afterwards. 

The third choice is to be patient and let nature take its course and wait until she moults naturally in a few months time.  In the meantime try to not have her in situations where she might land heavily on the ground - and hopefully see that if she does fall it is onto a soft carpet and not a tiled floor.

When she does moult in a new set of flight feathers she will be able to fly - perhaps not very skillfully at first, but she will learn those skills with time - landing is the hardest part for a bird that has never previously flown.   But be warned that when she doe start to fly she will have no idea about windows and mirrors so be sure that these are covered so that she doesn't fly full speed into glass.

Where about do you live - if you want to get her looked at by a vet we may be able to recommend an avian vet in your area who can suggest some possibilities to help her.

cheers,

Mike