Category: food for thought

What’s it like to have a pet bird?

What’s it like to have a pet bird?

I used to breed cockatiels starting in the early 1980s, selling over a hundred birds a year. I used to advertise them in some town papers with my phone number.

When people called, I would find out whether this would be their first bird. If so, I would give them my standard speech to make sure they knew what they were getting into. Maybe 25% of the time, they would decide to think about it more before buying a bird and in some cases they would decide a bird was not for them.

Get the variety pack!

Here’s what I would tell them:

  • Birds are really messy! There’s really no getting around it. Feather dust, feathers when moulting, seed strewn everywhere, chewing on everything they can find, and they seem to find a way to poop in impossible locations.
  • With very rare exceptions, birds don’t like to be pet like dogs, cats, or rabbits.
… READ THE REST
What about euthanasia?

What about euthanasia?

There are sharply divided opinions about euthanasia and I’ve grouped them into 3 categories that I’ve encountered.

  1. Euthanizing an animal is fine if they are sick, annoying, or you just want to try out a different pet
  2. Euthanasia is a final option if all medical options are exhausted and the bird is on the edge of death (this is typical in humans)
  3. Euthanasia should be applied to animals that are suffering and there are no available options to alleviate it other than a lifetime of painkillers

There is also the added issue of financial burden. Categories 2 and 3 are evaluated differently if medical options are unaffordable.

With a blog called Free Range Parrots, I predictably believe in the third option. Part of being free is being free from unending suffering. How do you tell if your bird is suffering?

  • It’s not playing or singing or chirping much
  • It’s fairly inactive
  • It acts much better after giving a painkiller, indicating they are in considerable pain
  • Sometimes you can just intuit it by looking at the bird

Euthanising a bird is an extremely difficult thing and obviously should be given a lot of consideration.… READ THE REST

Human research into fat and disease

Human research into fat and disease

I’m going to recommend a book on dietary fat. It shouldn’t be controversial, given it has very solid backing in research, but it is. It makes people and some industries uncomfortable but it’s becoming more accepted over time.

The Big Fat Surprise

It was hard to find a book review that didn’t require a subscription, but here’s one from a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

This book should be read by every nutritional science professional as a guide to risks of hubris…and to the consequences of basing public policy on belief as opposed to evidence of positive, beneficial effects….All scientists should read it as an example of how limited science can become federal policy….Teicholz compiled a historical treatise on how scientific belief (vs. evidence), nongovernment organizations, food manufacturers, government agencies, and moneyed interests promised more than they could deliver and, in the process, quite possibly contributed to the current world-wide obesity epidemic.

Book Review—American Journal of Clinical Nutrition

This blog is about birds and the book is about humans, but I strongly believe it’s applicable to birds.… READ THE REST

Human research applied to parrot diets

Human research applied to parrot diets

While there is a good amount of research on wild birds, there is precious little on captive birds. We do have a lot in common with birds, however:

  • Overall human health, especially in western countries, and captive bird health is poor
  • We share most of the same important internal organs and they perform the same functions
  • Many very common diseases in humans are also common in birds
  • Especially in the United States, we are both advised to eat a low fat, high carbohydrate diet (USDA, AHA, and others)
  • When our birds are ill with diseases in common with humans, we are typically given the same proposed remedies

The food for thought here is whether, given the similarities, we can apply this human research on diet to captive birds.

Here is a short list of diseases we share that are at least partially influenced by diet:

  • Cancer
  • Diabetes
  • Fatty liver disease
  • Gout
  • Heart disease
  • Heart attacks
  • Kidney failure
  • Obesity (metabolic disorder)

I’m dipping my toe into a difficult topic here: bird diets.… READ THE REST

Hygiene hypothesis and birds

Hygiene hypothesis and birds

This is a food for thought post. What’s now called the Hygiene Hypothesis was first proposed in 1872 and was studied in depth in a well known study from 1989:

“Over the past century declining family size, improvements in household amenities, and higher standards of personal cleanliness have reduced the opportunity for cross infection in young families,” the paper continued. “This may have resulted in more widespread clinical expression of atopic disease, emerging in wealthier people, as seems to have occurred for hay fever.”

Hay Fever, Hygiene, and Household Size—British Medical Journal—1989—David P Strachan

Although the theory fell out of favor for awhile, it’s returning and is well described in a new book which is excerpted in the New York Times this month.

What does the immune system do when it’s not properly trained?

It can overreact. It becomes aggrieved by things like dust mites or pollen. It develops what we called allergies, chronic immune system attacks — inflammation — in a way that is counterproductive, irritating, even dangerous.

… READ THE REST