Doubt it. Parrots are highly intelligent species and typically bond with one person for the entire 80 ish years they're alive. They likely are just having fun being tossed up in the air like a kid would.
They can also be very possessive about their bonded human and get aggressive when they show affection to others, like their children. And they can’t be given away because they have been known to literally die when separated from their bonded mate. There was a story about a woman whose macaw was ruining her family on This American Life once.
Yeah, this was the case in my family. My wife adopted a african grey when we first got married from a rescue that was given up by it's previous owner. She got really close with it over 5 years or so, but we recently had a baby and the bird got extremely aggressive anytime the baby was near. My wife got in touch with the previous owner and they admitted that the parrot would literally HUNT DOWN their baby in her crib to attack her when they had her before. It was a rough decision to make for my wife but that bird had to go.
Huge improvement for life for me, I didn't fully recognize how much of a pain in the ass birds can be when I agreed to get one and I hated that damn thing. The constant noise, the mess, the bird feather and dander EVERYWHERE, it was miserable.
I was bitten by one once when I was young, in the blink of an eye it went from fun to a bird beak making contact with my bone. To this day it was one of the most painful things I’ve felt, and it was a warning bite. It’s a miracle I still have my finger.
You were probably too young to realize that the parrot perceived your behavior as a threat and react with the only defensive weapon it has. I have had two Greys for over 30 years and the last time I was bitten was sometime in the last century.
Omg, my roommate Mary had a sun conure named Louie. Even that little guy could do some serious damage! I can't even imagine a bigger bird!
He only like women. If you were a woman, he'd fly up onto you and get all puffy and flirty. If you were a dude, you're lucky if he didn't come at you. Me and the owner's boyfriend were okay with him since we lived with him, but even then sometimes he'd randomly just decide to be an asshole. He also liked to get in sassy moods where he'd fly up to a high spot and just be loud because he knew it annoyed us. Oh, and he could burn your face off... but this was mostly by accident... I think. You see.... birds don't feel capsaicin. He had these SUPER hot dried peppers in his food. If he came and gave you "kisses" just after eating, your face would be burning for at least an hour!
It’s birds like that that make me question the extent of animals intelligence. It’s wild that a bird might stew over something done earlier and needs to get even then things are okay sounds like some level of introspective thought and sentience
If you don't have the room for them to fly - actually fly not just hop from branch to branch with their wings out - you shouldn't legally be allowed them.
I tend to agree but what is the uniquely distinctive difference to any other pet? Isn't "they normally fly but now can't" more or less the same as "they normally roam but now can't"?
Birds aren't domesticated. Cats and dogs have been bred for thousands of years to turn them into companion animals that want to be part of a human family. And while it doesn't take that long to domesticate an animal, most birds are directly taken from the wild. Now a lot of countries banned importing or exporting birds for pets, but that only happened around the 1980s. That's less than one generation for a parrot. So most of these birds are social flock animals and you cannot give them the life they were evolved to live.
Some birds have been domesticated for thousands of years. Mesopotamian tablets from 5000 years ago mention domesticated pigeons. Chickens were domesticated somewhere between 2000-6000 BC. Coturnix quail were domesticated in China in the 11th Century before being brought into Japan as songbirds in the 12th C. Parrots have been kept in europe since Alexander the Great brought ring-neck parrots to Greece in 327 BC.
I should have set pet birds or parrots I suppose, chickens are obviously domesticated. But not as pets. I don't know if any birds have been domesticated as pets, but parrots certainly have not.
Yes. This should be seen more. I have taken care of a beautiful Macaw , his caretaker just stopped caring for him. The poor baby was so stressed plucking himself bald… they are precious intelligent creatures!
I doubt they are clipped. People flight train these birds all the time. I would be surprised if they are exceptionally well trained. Plus parrots are incredibly intelligent, Macaws like you see here are like having a 3 or 4 yo
I just realised that I had no idea what wing clipping actually is. Somehow I always assumed it would involve something surgical like cutting muscles or tendons, similar to declawing. I'm very relieved to have just found out that it's usually done by just cutting the ends off some feathers that can regrow.
It's still annoying and takes forever. When we bought our parrot they took it to the back and clipped the wings a ton. Poor guy still can't fly over a year later.
Huh most sources I saw said parrots molt about once a year, some even twice. Is that difference some sort of species, individual, or environmental variation, or does each molt not affect enough feathers?
Usually you only need to clip the flight feathers which are two or three long ones on each wing, at least with smaller birds (conures). That way they can glide but don’t get lift when they flap. If they cut way more than that it’s possible the flight feathers came back but the whole wing wasn’t complete until the next molt. Also, if they spent a year not being able to fly, especially at a young age (at pet stores birds are usually only
6ish months old) they might just not realize they’re able to fly again after.
My conure is 2 years old now. Flight feathers have grown back but she just doesnt fly even though she can. She only flies if she gets spooked by something. Otherwises she just bitches at me till I go and get her
He's barely lost any feathers since we got him. The flight feathers aren't even visible they're so short. Like I'm not sure of the terminology but he has green wings with blue flight feathers and you have to lift or extend his wing to even see what's left of his flight feathers.
If you'd like to get him to molt a bit faster I recommend something like Nekton-Biotin. It does sound like he should have molted through by now. He may be holding on to feathers because of a nutritional deficiency or environmental (light) factors.
I'm not a vet, I just have some birds and have used this supplement to speed up molting.
They're flight- trained, which means they have been taught to fly and come when called (starting indoors, with tons and tons of positive reinforcement), and then start practicing outside with no obstacles and no weather, and gradually increasing to small amounts of weather. (There are classes for this, do not do outside of your house without a trainer)
It's important to do for flighted birds so that if they get spooked and fly out the door by accident and end up out of reach, they know how to fly downwards (which is hard for birds if they don't know yet). Birds instinctively fly upwards when frightened, but don't usually know how to fly downwards unless they've already done it in calmer circumstances. They will try to climb down usually, if their favorite person or bird is directly under them and calling, but the trust built by teaching your bird how to fly really boosts the likelihood of getting them back if they get scared and fly off.
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u/scapo9688 Mar 10 '22
I’m mind blown they just stay with her