Clipped Too Far

So we had a customer come into the store today wanting to return a bird that they had purchased.

Why did they want to return the bird?
Because, from what I overheard as I approached, was that the bird wasn't eaten and had like...mucous coming out of it's nose. 
So basically...it was stressed out. Acting all lethargic and such. 

And it had good reason to be stressed out.

Because when I peeked into the box to see the bird.

I noticed first, that the wings had been severely over clipped. 

Like usually you just need to clip the first four longer feathers on the wing to keep the bird from flying away. 

There are other methods as well that people use to clip the wings. 
But usually you just need to do the first four longer feathers.

This poor parakeet though?
Had all the feathers clipped along the wing. 
Basically as high as you could go without hitting the quicks in the feathers.

Which I've seen that done before on occasion.
I don't recommend it.
Like birds are birds because of their wings. You kinda want to see the wing shape. 

However.
The wings weren't the major issue for the bird. 

No.
The major issue was the tail.

Because the parakeet had no tail.

Literally!
All the tail feathers had been CUT OFF!!

Like.
You.
DON'T 
DO
THAT.

Tail feathers don't grow back in the same way that wing feathers do.

Like, googling it says that feathers, if they're shed naturally like dropped when a predator is trying to catch them, will grow back in a few weeks.
But otherwise feathers won't start regrowing until like...the next time a bird molts.

So currently it's unknown when or IF the tail feathers on this poor bird will grow back.

And like upon seeing that. 
I was like WHO DID THIS?!

Because I had to teach my coworker the PROPER way to cut bird feathers because you DON'T HAVE TO CUT THE TAIL FEATHERS. GAH!

But upon examining the paperwork. 
I discovered that the bird hadn't actually been purchased at our store.

No,
It had been bought from our sister store.

Our store just happened to be closer to the customer so they wanted to return it here instead of there.

Usually we don't allow that sort of thing to happen.
We encourage people to return animals they bought to the store they bought it from.

Most of the time that's in regards to our rodents, our small pets. 
Because each location of ours only carries one gender. Only males or only females. 
So if a customer bought a rodent from a female carrying store, they can't return it to a male carrying store.

In this case.
The manager approved us to return the bird to our store.

For which I am glad. 
Because that poor bird.
I didn't want it returned to our sister store if that's how the bird was originally treated with the clipping of the wings there.

-Of course the customer or someone in the customer's family could have been the one to clip the wings and tail....
As to my knowledge, the customer didn't mention any concerns about the tail being clipped. 

But yah.
My coworkers and I were up in arms seeing the how poorly this bird had been treated.

Because like...WHY
Why would ANYONE clip all the feathers like that?!

Gah.
No one ever needs to cut the tail feathers. EVER.

In any case. We took in the bird and isolated him.
And hopefully he'll make a full recovery.

As with the amount of stress he's been under it's always possible he might not pull through.

But thankfully, as I checked in on the bird throughout the day.
He did seem to be perking up.
So I'm more hopeful he'll pull through.

But only time will tell. 

Until you next see these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi