IndianRingNeck.com

Took my new baby quaker to the vet yesterday. All is well! Only thing is, since the pet store didn't have him on any perches, he is a very clumsy little thing and stepping up frustrates him (it doesn't help that they cut too many of his feathers and cut them too short)! I've put the perches low in his cage but is there anything else I can do to prevent him swan diving off of every thing he sits on? I'm afraid he is going to kill himself!

It sounds to me like he never had flight. They cut his feathers before he learnt how to fly, this means he never learnt how to land , never even learnt how to use his wings. Cutting the feathers too short will also put them off balance and limit their wings ability to catch a little air properly.

They should have let him fledge fully before they cut his wings, and they never had him on a perch ?

Our IRN jordan had exactly the same problem. The only thing you can do is to watch him and keep things low for him until he begins to learn and then slowly bring things up for him.

With jordan, when we had him on our finger (if they hang on tight) we would slowly but steadily (over the carpet) drop our hand so that he would extend his wings and flap to gain balance, this helped to strengthen his wings and gives him the idea of how to use them to break his fall if he jumped off things.

But nothing ever fixed it properly except growing back his feathers and allowing him to learn flight. If we clipped him now he would only have a few quick episodes until he learnt he didn't have flight anymore and he would begin to do the flap/glide to the ground, but we are keeping him flighted so long as he is tame and controllable .

How old is your baby ? it might be a bit of youngster clumsiness also.

Nope, they did not have any perches . It was him, another quaker and 4 tiels all sitting on walnut bedding alone! Anyways, I have no idea how old he is because he is not banded . I am just going by what the guy at the pet store told me and the fact that he has a new looking stubby tail. But for all I know he could have just molted . I would guess that he is about as old as the one at the store I work at that was hatched near the end of June. He grips VERY tightly and hunches over like a linoleated parakeet... I think he's just too unbalanced to even stand up like he should!

My guess without seeing the bird is he is still very young and not fully weaned yet. What I would do if I were you is get some baby bird formula and offer it to him with a spoon like shown in the pic. A baby bird usually knows how to perch before it is fully weaned.




Donna

He is fully weaned. He is a piglet.