Is a Bird a Suitable Companion for You?
© Sybil Erden, Director - The Oasis Sanctuary
September - December 2002

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Part One - Are Birds "Pets"?

The fact that you are reading this suggests that you already have a bird or are debating whether to acquire one as a new member of your household.

Parrots are not pets as we have been taught to think of such. This is because they are not domestic animals. Under the right circumstances they can make suitable companions, but it takes a lot more self-education and far more life-style adjustments than taking in a domesticated animal such as a cat or dog. It can be and must be done in order to care for the forty to sixty million exotic birds currently living in captivity in the United States.

Why is making a bird a companion or a member of the human flock, a more difficult and different process than taking in a cat or dog?

Let's get back to absolute basics. Humans are mammals. We are predators, hunters. We are capable of being solitary. So are most of the animals we commonly surround ourselves with, such as cats and dogs. Cats and dogs are domesticated. Domestication is not the same thing as captive breeding. Domestication is a long process, one that takes multiple generations to achieve, by which humans selectively breed characteristics that make the animals more suitable for life with humans or for use by humans.

Example: your Thanksgiving turkey. It has been selectively bred for stupidity. It has one- third less brain capacity than its wild cousins do. This is so it is easier to manipulate and slaughter. It also has been selectively bred for meat. It is much heavier than its wild cousins are. So much, in fact, that while a wild turkey can live to be ten or more years old, a domesticated turkey's joints will collapse from arthritis due to the weight it must carry within several years. These domestic animals are bred to be food on our tables within six months of being born.

Dogs and cats have also been bred selectively. Dogs have been bred as companions, as hunters, as protectors. They are smart, but not a smart as their wild cousins, the wolves or coyotes. They have depended on us for millennia so most are not capable of surviving in the wild any longer. Cats have been made smaller than most of their wild counterparts. They are bred for color and length of fur, and most importantly for sociability.

Parrots are still wild animals. They differ from us, and from mammals as a whole, in every possible way. There were proto-birds back when we were still lizards, almost 200 million years ago. The physiology of birds is 180 degrees from ours: their bacteria balance...what is healthy or not... are totally different. Genetically the female selects gender of offspring rather than the male. Birds see into the ultraviolet and infrared range. Think of it as though we could see what we see and could see under "black light" and wearing night scopes all at the same time. In addition, birds can see up to 170 images per second, at least two to three times what humans are capable of seeing.

And while we are literally grounded, birds live in a three-dimensional world. It is the difference between the flat surface of a painting and a sculpture or, more to the point, the difference between a film of a landscape and its counterpart reality. Birds are created for two things: one is the social interaction of the flock. The second is for flight. Cockatiels, the small bird commonly found in our homes, can fly three or more miles a day in search of sustenance. Larger birds such as macaws often fly ten or twenty miles a day.

In captivity, we force these incredibly complex, athletic creatures to live a solitary, sedentary life in a cage...

Although many, if not most, of the birds living in homes today were captive-bred, they were never bred for behavioral modification. In some cases specific species have been bred for color or plumage. Canaries and pigeons often have such strange plumage they cannot fly normally. Lovebirds, budgies and other smaller birds are routinely bred for color mutations, which would no doubt make them more obvious to predators in the wild. Although there is no scientific proof, it seems apparent to me that we are breeding many of the least desirable traits into many of the domestically born parrots. Until recently the "solution" to an aggressive bird, or a bird that plucks its feathers, was to put the bird in a breeding program. If what we have learned about aggressiveness in dogs is an indicator or model for the breeding/genetic factors in birds; it would seem obvious that we are breeding undesirable tendencies into these birds.

How do the hardwired survival instincts of a bird, coupled with the physiological differences between avians and mammals, impact on our ability to live with birds? The most important part of creating a happy environment for these animals is beginning to understand their psychology...how they view the world.

Parrots - Psittacines and Passerines (birds such as finches and canaries) - are the most commonly kept exotic birds. They are all prey animals. We humans, as well as cats and dogs, are predators. They are flock animals. We are solitary. They depend on the flock for survival. Family or flock surrounds them from the moment they are born until they die. Generally speaking, the only time parrots are alone in the wild is when one of the pair is on eggs and the other is foraging for food. Being alone to a bird means it has been rejected by the flock or mate because it cannot keep up, due to illness, injury or age. To the bird it means that he is going to die. In the wild, when ornithologists see a single parrot flying, the most common comment is "Its mate has died."

Birds have many tens of thousands of years of hard-wired survival instincts that tell them that it is unsafe to be alone. This is why hand-reared birds adopt us as their flock, and why they scream and cry for us so often if left alone, even momentarily. It is psychologically necessary to at least hear their flock mates, even if they are out of sight.

Different species of parrots can do better or worse than others when alone. Some learn to occupy themselves with toys, and can accept radio or TV as a substitute for flock noises. But not all birds can do this. Some will "scream" incessantly. But what we, in an enclosed environment perceive as annoying screams is in fact "calling" or natural vocalizing which birds do as part of their survival instinct. This behavior can become twisted and neurotic behavior if the bird does not feel safe.

Birds in the wild are reared by family and siblings, taught all their survival tools much as we are. Unlike birds such as chickens who hatch eyes open and ready to eat, parrots are born with eyes closed, naked and defenseless, fed by both parents. Their nest is a small, warm place. Dark. They are butt-to-butt with clutch mates, parents and even siblings from previous breeding cycles. As their eyes open and they grow they can peek out of the nest to see the world, but duck back in for the relative safety of the nest.

In captivity things are very different. The common practice these days is to "hand-rear" or hand-feed baby birds. Often eggs are removed from under the hen and artificially incubated. In many other cases the newly hatched neonates are removed within a few days, certainly before their eyes ever open. The theory and assumption is that by having birds dependent on humans in infancy they will remain bonded to humans as they grow. In part this is true. We create an abnormal dependency, one not unlike the "orphan kitten syndrome." This occurs when a kitten is bottle-fed. It is sweet and dependent as a baby, but without the guidance...and discipline...of parents and pride, they become obnoxious, aggressive cats.

So, with parrots we have a scenario where a predator (human) removes a flock animal from its parent (often as an egg,) hand-feeds it in isolation, often in a situation where it cannot touch or even see other birds, where it gets no education about being a bird...but still has all the hard-wired survival instincts in place.

This is a difficult situation...

Part Two - So what kind...      Part Three - Living with a Flock of Parrots