Birdkeeping Naturally

EB Cravens

October ‘ 01

“How We Show Respect For Our Parrots”

How well I remember the years spent managing Feathered Friends of Santa Fe. I used to learn so much from endless hours maintaining the bird room. It also gave me the chance to closely observe parrot lovers, prospective buyers and just plain tourists when each came in for visitation. It’s funny the way many so-called “bird people” act towards their parrots. They are fascinated with them. They are attracted to them. They want to hold and touch, even pet them. But do they truly respect them? I wonder…

Rachel comes into the shoppe with her two girlfriends. They sterilize their hands and hurry into the bird room, babbling noisily about how beautiful is all the avian plumage. Rachel is the leader, since she owns a pet Jenday Conure and knows all about handling various species in our exotic bird store. She hurries to the back to one of her favorites—a Blue Head Pionus Parrot named Azure—sticks out her finger, nudges the bird’s tummy, and confidently speaks “step up.” Azure obliges gracefully taking with her a sprouted pea from the food dish she had been attending to. Rachel walks down the isle showing off her “catch’ to her friends. Suddenly Rachel spies Hughie, our one-year-old Hyacinthine Macaw. She plops Azure down on a tree branch across the room from her feeding dish (“step down!”) and strides over to Hughie’s cage. I circle surreptitiously around the room to Azure and bring her back to her eating spot. I bite my tongue and try to think of a way to tell this wealthy client that it is most respectful to place a parrot back where one gets it after holding and visiting…

Bobbie comes in to Feathered Friends three or four times a week. She owns a handfed Umbrella Cockatoo weaned by us and will probably buy her second large psittacine within the year. She prances into the flight room calling “Hi Ambrosia”, “Good Morning Lady”, and “Hello Rosebud.”

Then she starts picking them up. “Step up Bandit,” she commands the feisty Black Headed Caique. He does so, but as Bobbie has already directed her attentions elsewhere (and she is not wearing any interesting bracelets!) the caique decides to test her by chewing on her wrist flesh. Ouch, that hurts, so Bandit is abruptly “scraped off” onto the nearest tree perch so that Bobbie can pick up Dutchess, our Red-Sided Eclectus hen. I count the minutes—two to be exact—before Dutchess is put down and a new arrival baby Blue and Gold Macaw becomes the object of Bobbie’s attentions. Wow, I surmise. This may turn out to be a new avicultural record. Nine birds in 22 minutes! But how do I tell a regular customer that it is not the amount of time given, but the quality and one-on-one focus of that time which meets the real needs of our pet parrots.

So much emphasis in companion psittacine training these days seems to be placed upon height dominance and nurturing dominance and the “up” command and other commands and the human keeper as inviolate “flock leader”. All this has its advantage, I suppose, but where do the parrots’ wishes and self-will fit into the plan?

I know for a fact that I tend to prefer a different kind of hookbill pet than many bird owners. I like my parrots to know they are parrots. I like them independent, and self-assured, and sometimes stubborn and willful. And above all, I like to respect what they are doing when they are doing something. No bird likes to be shown off at a county fair or in the local shopping mall just for an owner’s ego, or taken out after dark to a bird society meeting when the bird just does not seem up to it. Few psittacines want to be interrupted when they are napping or eating or even playing with a serious toy. One of my steadfast rules has always been: never stick out your finger and command “up” to a pet who has one foot tucked up and is standing at rest on one leg! In fact, unless absolutely necessary, I do not like to force my birds to step up until they really want to. It is just as easy, and much more respectful, to show off your pet psittacines and to introduce them to friends and visitors WITHOUT picking them up from their perches. If they are begging to get on your arm, so be it. Just pay attention to what the birds want.

One day a man came into the shoppe and wanted to handle Clover the 6-month-old eclectus male. It was early morning and Clover was still locked in his sleeping cage, so I told the visitor to just open the door and see if Clover wanted to come out. The man did so, sticking his hand into the doorway and saying “up,” when Clover did nothing, the customer went closer and touched his chest and again commanded. Clover reached down and gave him a nip on the finger—no blood mind you, just a firm communication that he was not ready to come out of his cage yet.

“He bit me,” the man exclaimed. I replied that t’was not a real “bite’ and that Clover obviously did not want out of his cage just then. “Leave the door open and visit with some of the other parrots for a few minutes and then try again,” I added. Sure enough, five minutes later Clover climbed out the door of his cage and the man went over and repeated up, and they spent the next half hour or so wandering the bird room as good friends.

Respect. Our parrots have minds and needs and timetables, too, you know. They are not hunting dogs or circus seals or rodeo roping horses. As long as we remember this, then we will stand a greater chance of maintaining a long- term problem-free companionship with all our psittacines, pets and breeder birds alike. I like Steve Martin’s attitude. This world-renowned avian trainer espouses the viewpoint that in order to get our parrots to do something, they must WANT to do that something. Now this may seem like a difficult task but we birdkeepers also are an intelligent lot. Surely we can find ways to stay one step ahead of our parrots’ desires; to outsmart them in a positive way, so to speak; to respect them rather than belittle or dominate them.

And if this slightly different outlook leads us to think a bit less about how our parrots make us feel inside, and a bit more about how the birds feel, well, so be it. That’s kind of what love is all about, yes? Aloha nui loa, EB