9 week old pilgrim goose trying to fly — help!

[lilolilman]

Hi guys, our female pilgrim goose is trying to fly and we are very nervous about her taking up flight and over the fence. We will clip her wings when she gets older, but everything I’m reading says NOT to clip wings too soon and that now is too soon… right?

In the interim, what can I do? We bought a kennel that has a roof, but we would really love to let her free range. We penned off a small area in the yard and she hasn’t tried to fly out of there, it’s mainly when we let her walk in the open back yard from the kennel to the pen. I saw a harness on Amazon that looks like it would prevent flight — but that doesn’t seem like the best option. Any advice would be much appreciated!!

 

[NatJ]

We will clip her wings when she gets older, but everything I’m reading says NOT to clip wings too soon and that now is too soon… right?

Do your sources say WHY to wait?

Baby geese and ducks and chickens molt and regrow their feathers several times in the first few weeks and months. If you clip the wing feathers, you will have to redo it after every molt. Once they are grown up, they only molt once a year, so you only have to reclip once a year.

I don't know much about geese, so I can't say if there is any other reason to wait. But if it's just a matter of when they get their adult feathers, you could clip the wing feathers at any age, and check regularly to clip the new feathers as needed.

 

[lilolilman]

Do your sources say WHY to wait?

Baby geese and ducks and chickens molt and regrow their feathers several times in the first few weeks and months. If you clip the wing feathers, you will have to redo it after every molt. Once they are grown up, they only molt once a year, so you only have to reclip once a year.

I don't know much about geese, so I can't say if there is any other reason to wait. But if it's just a matter of when they get their adult feathers, you could clip the wing feathers at any age, and check regularly to clip the new feathers as needed.

Thank you for your insight here. The sites say that there is blood running to the feathers and if you do it too early that it could seriously hurt them. Idk if that’s different between geese and other birds. That’s the primary concern, but I was hoping someone could provide some info as to whether we could safely clip their wings at a younger age?

 

[yesterDAYNE]

I'm not sure if it's too different between geese and other birds. Usually if you clip the feathers too short to the quill you will draw blood, but you should be able to just trim the primaries off short and it should be fine. My geese can "fly" but I've never had to clip their wings because they don't really get enough height to jump over anything or get serious air. You can only just clip 1 wing too and it should be fine, because it will throw them off balance and they won't be able to fly with just 1 wing clipped if you'd prefer to not do both. I cut the primaries on my turkeys yearly and I've never had them bleed!

Edit; If you're still nervous about them having more blood in the quills when younger you could always try and just trim maybe halfway down the primaries towards the tips and see if that is able to disrupt the ability to fly at all?

 

[NatJ]

The sites say that there is blood running to the feathers and if you do it too early that it could seriously hurt them.

Oh, in that case you just have to check each feather before you cut it.

Try looking at the feathers-- you can sometimes see the blood in the shaft of the feather, and then you'll know not to cut that one. Any feather that is noticeably shorter than the rest is probably still growing, so don't cut it either.

I would probably just trim the wing now, but do one feather at a time instead of cutting a whole row at once. If the first one doesn't bleed, look at the next feather and then decide whether it's safe to trim it too. If you cut into one that bleeds, at least it's only one, and you probably learn something about how to recognize them in future.

In the photos you showed, I think I see a lot of mature wing feathers, so I'm guessing it won't be a big deal to fine enough that you can safely cut.

 

[Magriet]

I took my goose to the vet to have it done and he says it is actually a big operation. He gave her a local anesthetic and a long-term pain injection that he said would last 20 hours and after that she will be fine. She is now.

 

[NatJ]

I took my goose to the vet to have it done and he says it is actually a big operation. He gave her a local anesthetic and a long-term pain injection that he said would last 20 hours and after that she will be fine. She is now.

What operation was that?

The wing clipping we have been talking about means to cut off part of each feather, which does not require anesthetic or pain medication. The feathers get replaced each time the bird molts, so the clipping has to be repeated each time that happens.

There is a different operation where a vet cuts off the end of the actual wing. Where I live, that is called pinioning. Anesthetic and pain medicine would be quite appropriate for that, since the vet would have to cut through the skin, bone, and muscle of the wing. Pinioning is permanent, because the end of the wing never grows back.

Both wing clipping and pinioning can keep a bird from flying. If your goose had a big operation, needing anesthetic and a pain injection, then I think she must have been pinioned (end of wing cut off), not just had the feathers cut shorter. (I can see why either procedure might be called "wing clipping," which would easily get confusing.)

 

[Magriet]

Yes that must be it then.