Hormonal behavior in parrots

Hormonal behavior in parrots

Just like humans and other animals, hormones can have a profound impact on the health and behavior of birds. They are often overlooked even by vets as potential causes for problems such as feather plucking and aggressive behavior.

Coincidentally, one of my own vets has written a VERY long article on hormonal behavior in parrots that is a must read for anyone who wants to go to the next level of understanding their birds. Or perhaps you have a particularly intractable problem and are curious whether it might have a hormonal basis.

Here’s a link to the multi-part article. Below, I’ll quote some interesting bits.

Hormonal Behavior in Pet Birds

Caveat

I’ll add my own caveat that her conclusions about seed diets are based on a study in the 1980s that that was from the heyday of the low fat, high carb diet. Since then, we now know far more about both human and bird nutrition.… READ THE REST

Benefits and joys of remote cameras

Benefits and joys of remote cameras

Setting up remote cameras on your birds can be more entertaining than TV. But it can also have important benefits to the well being of your bird that you may not have considered.

Benefits

Your birds will behave very differently when you are in the room as they do when you are gone. You may see important clues to their health by checking in on them remotely from time to time.

Food

Especially with fresh foods, it can be difficult to figure out what your bird is eating when you look at their dishes at the end of the day. Everything can dry up and shrink a bit.

Turns out the little Splendid Parrot is pushing around the cockatiels!

Behavior

What does your bird do all day when you are not around? Do they sit around or are they active and playing with toys? How are they interacting with other birds.… READ THE REST

Arguments against wing clipping

Arguments against wing clipping

There are some topics in the bird community that are very controversial and for which opinions are very divided. Wing clipping is near the top of the list.

It’s not hard to find articles weighing the pros and cons of wing clipping, so I wasn’t wanting to write another one. However, I feel that in these articles, important downsides to wing clipping are not mentioned. To have an honest debate, all the arguments need to be on the table.

Here’s just one example. The article only presents one downside: lack of exercise. The text I quoted makes people feel bad about not clipping wings and typical of articles you’ll find.

If you care about your parrot and want to keep them safe, then clipping their wings is generally a good idea. Whether your parrot stays inside 24 hours a day, 7 days a week or not, the bottom line is that you don’t want your parrot to fly away where they can get into harm’s way.

… READ THE REST
Syringes for medicating birds by mouth

Syringes for medicating birds by mouth

Medicating a bird by mouth with a syringe is not fun on many levels. Even if the bird is tame, there may be some degree of catching and/or toweling as well as holding the bird properly to administer the medication.

And as I’ve found, most of the syringes out there aren’t so great. It’s not surprising given that they are primarily designed to inject medications. I’ve tried many, many syringes and there are so many things that can be frustrating:

  • It can be hard to measure a very small amount of medication for small birds as the markings can be very closely spaced (e.g. 0.01cc)
  • The tip is too long/short/wide/narrow to effectively get the medication in the bird’s mouth
  • The action on the syringe is poor, which can cause problems if you want to dispense a medication slowly
  • The line markings can be hard to read
  • Sometimes they seemed designed to invite air bubbles to form

I’ve found a syringe after many years of searching and trying them out that solves these problems wholly or in part and I find it to be significantly better than others I’ve tried.… READ THE REST

Finding a compatible vet

Finding a compatible vet

It can be difficult finding a vet that has experience with birds. I’m fortunate to have several vets that only see birds or it’s a significant part of their practice. For many people, the only choice is whatever bird vet lives a reasonable distance away, so this post may not be useful if that applies to you.

Many of us have run into doctors that like to run the show and bristle when being questioned. They are the doctor and we are the patient. This same mentality finds its way into vets as well. Both doctors and vets tend to be conservative and traditional. They can be skeptical of less mainstream methods for care and treatment.

If you find yourself agreeing with some of the posts on this blog, you are likely to be in conflict with your local vets. The conventional wisdom on many bird topics is vastly different in some areas, especially nutrition.… READ THE REST

Learn about your bird in the wild

Learn about your bird in the wild

There are many resources on keeping birds in captivity. Most people search online but there are also books and magazines. However, these resources typically don’t mention much about how various bird species live in the wild.

The reason this is important is that unlike dogs and cats, birds are significantly less domesticated and some argue they are not domesticated at all.

An important distinction to make is that learning to behave nicely around humans is very different than being genetically programmed to like humans! Usually, domesticated animals mesh well with human lifestyles because the animals have been selected to like people. A domesticated dog puppy with limited experience near people will still approach humans for affection and play because thousands of generations of dogs before it were allowed to breed only if they were friendly toward humans.

Wild, Invasive, Domesticated, or Tame: How to Describe a Bird—Constance Woodman—AFA Watchbird

The more that animals are bred to integrate with how we live our lives, the less they are like their wild ancestors.… READ THE REST

“The Genius of Birds” by Jennifer Ackerman

“The Genius of Birds” by Jennifer Ackerman

This is not a parrot-specific book, but this is my top recommendation to people that love birds. Obviously, parrots play an important role due to their widely accepted intelligence but wait till you read about all the other birds in this book.

Like many animals, it was generally thought for centuries that birds were not particularly bright. Over the past few decades, things have turned completely around. Depending on the type of intelligence you are looking at, birds are at the top of many categories.

And it’s not just Keas and New Caledonian Crows, the typical poster birds for avian intelligence. Even the tiny chickadee has some mind-blowing skills up its sleeves. Note: they do not have sleeves.

Birds share tool making capabilities that even other primates don’t. Digest that one for a moment!

I don’t want to spoil this book by relating more specifics. I would say that this book is accessible to anyone but does have a more scientific bent.… READ THE REST

Bleach alternatives

Bleach alternatives

For disinfecting cages and toys and other things birds use, bleach is likely the most popular choice. Bleach has a reputation for being an excellent disinfectant, and it’s very effective against both bacteria and viruses.

However, there are significant downsides to using bleach as well as equally effective alternatives.

Birds and inhaled toxins

You’ve heard of expression “canary in the coal mine”? Maybe you didn’t know it’s a real thing!

Well into the 20th century, coal miners brought canaries into coal mines as an early-warning signal for toxic gases, primarily carbon monoxide. The birds, being more sensitive, would become sick before the miners, who would then have a chance to escape or put on protective respirators.

Sentinel species—Wikipedia

There is at least one modern study that suggests the same thing.

Birds are ubiquitously distributed in essentially all of the environments inhabited by humans; thus, if we understood the effects of a broad range of inhaled environmental contaminants (gas and particulate) on a wide variety of avian species, they could serve as highly effective and sensitive monitors of air quality.

… READ THE REST
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
Animal research applied to parrot psychology

Animal research applied to parrot psychology

Previously, I wrote about animal research applied to parrot diets. This insight greatly opens up the much more prevalent research on animals, including humans. We can then supplement the much sparser research on animals, especially those kept as pets.

But how about mental disorders? There is a branch of psychology that tackles this question called trans-personal psychology. It’s not as crazy as it sounds! The article below has 40 bibliographic references so it’s not exactly a fringe line of thinking.

Trans-species psychology is the field of psychology that states that humans and nonhuman animals share commonalities in cognition (thinking) and emotions (feelings).

Trans-personal psychology—Wikipedia

There strong evidence that animals suffer from mental disorders, especially in captivity. Here is a long quote on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

PTSD, a pervasive psychological disorder, common to human prisoners of war, genocide survivors, and victims of domestic violence. It is characterized by difficulties with severe mood dysregulation, impaired interpersonal functioning, loss of sense of safety and security, and disruption in the sense of self.

… READ THE REST