I have a little quaker called Puffy she is 7 months old. When I bought her she was 2 months old and had all the flight feathers clipped from one wing.

Puffy thinks she can fly - she can't and this creates a very dangerous situations because she's also easily frightened and very curious...

She used to have a big cage that was about 180cm high (it sat on a stand). She used to want our attention but the only way for her to get off the cage was to fly...so she would fly off the cage. She cut her breast on one of her landings and currently wearing an e-collar while her stitches heal.

I have her in a different cage while she recovers, it's been 4 weeks and she is starting to get curious again. Every time I have her on my shoulder while I'm doing the dishes she tries to get onto the sink. I thought if I showed her around the sink she might get bored of it and then stop trying to play on it - or it might frighten her so she wouldn't want to go near it...So I showed her around...She got sick of it, came back to me and went back on my shoulder... 5 mins later she 'flew' onto the sink - well she didn't make it and landed on the floor.

I am SO scared of her hurting herself again but I have no idea how to discourage this behaviour.

I am really undecided about what to do about her wings. Clipping her other one would just make her drop like a stone and possibly hurt herself even more...Not having her clipped would give her even better access to dangers around the house...it's a catch 22.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Jessica, who made the decision to clip just one wing.....that should not have happened....both wings should be clipped equally...If I were you, I would let someone that knows how to clip wings clip the other one....I would say that is why Puffy is having a hard time with her balance now....And also, how many feathers were clipped on the one wing that was clipped...maybe whomever did that cut too many at one time...but you have to try and balance out her flying...will be following your thread to see what happens....

I agree with Julie. The bad clip is probably part of the problem. If it was me, I'd let all of her feathers grow out until she became more accustomed with flying. Then I'd start with minimal clips of just a couple of the outside flights and see if she can drift and flutter instead of drop. Keep clipping till you find a happy medium of coasting flight without gaining altitude.

In the meantime I suggest keeping her as close to the floor as possible. Don't allow her to roam free anywhere she might be able to launch from thats too high. Diificult I know, but I can't see any other options.

I agree with both UZ and Julie. Given her age, I also agree with UZ about waiting for her next molt (which should be happening within the next 3 months or so) and letting the flight feathers grow in on the one wing. Then, in my opinion, she should be properly clipped. This means both wings and only the first 4 to 8 feathers, depending on how light she is. The more feathers you clip, the harder she'll fall. Some birds, depending on their weight, only need the first 4 feathers clipped on both wings. Given that she's a blue Quaker, I'm guessing she's a light weight and 4 feathers should be a good clip for her.

Like Julie, I have to wonder who only clipped the one wing? This is an old method of clipping that can be very dangerous. It throws the bird off balance and they can't navigate as well as they should when they have both wings. It usually doesn't diminish their flying ability by much either, so is a very useless method of clipping.

I'm have no idea who butchered her wings it could have been the breeder or the bird dealer. I wasn't impressed but I hardly going to turn down the sweetest quaker ever just because she had a bad clip

When I took her to the vet he plucked out some of her clipped feathers to encourage new growth, the first 2 or 3 flight feathers from the tip of the wing, but the new ones are only about 1/3 grown back.

I had wanted to let her wings grow out completely and let her learn to fly and take it from there. If things are too dangerous then she'll get a clip.

One vet I took her to said that the outer feathers are for steering and the inner ones are for lift, so sometimes it's an idea to keep the outer 1 or 2 so they can some control, but remove some of the inner ones so they can't get much lift...A different vet said that people could keep the outer one or two feathers for looks...

When her collar is off and I return her to the big cage I'm not going to use the stand (should reduce the height by about a meter), instead I'll just put her on something to keep the cage a little way off the floor....will probably help with the attitude too...

Today she jumped off me onto the floor, but I was sitting in a chair and she was on my knee so she didn't fall very far. I decided not to rescue her immediately. It occured to me she might be doing it for attention, because I would always run over to her and see if she was ok, pick her up and give her heaps of cuddles and fuss over her...so today I ignored her for about a minute then picked her up and put her into her cage.

The second vet is right. The type of clip where you leave the outer 2 or 3 feathers is called the vanity clip and can be dangerous because those outer feathers have no support. Those feathers, if caught in a cage bar or some other apparatus, can break very easily. Plus, lots of birds can still fly with them So if you do decide to reclip her, make sure to do a proper clip.