jdeviese
Meeting neighbors
So, I've had Maria, my rescued YNA for just over a week now, and I've seen some good improvements with her. She's getting used to seeing my hands (though just on the outside of her cage), she will occasionally take treats directly from me, and she's finally eating a healthy pellet diet. There has been one strange behavior that I've been unable to figure out, though, and most of my web-searching has come up empty until this morning, when I came across THIS article. It seemed to describe Maria's behavior very well.
Basically, what I thought was her panting or gasping for air has finally registered that she's trying to scream/squawk/yell (whatever you want to call it). In all my research I kept reading about how loud parrots were, about all the screaming and squawking, and Maria is quiet as a mouse! Initially I thought I was lucky to have a quiet bird, but I now believe that I am the owner of an unfortunate bird who may have been DEVOICED! I feel terrible for Maria--if, in fact, that's what happened to her. Her previous owner, my cousin, was rather eccentric, and I could see him doing that on a whim at some point. He seemed to love her, but at the same time treated her very much as an accessory...her cage is obscenely small for her by any standards (my school's cockatiel has a cage 4 times the size of Maria's!) He got her when she was 2 (she's now 41!), so perhaps it's even possible that the procedure was done to her before he bought her. In any event, my cousin is now deceased, so I can't ask him.
Obviously the devoicing procedure is terrible, and I would certainly consider it to be unethical under all but the most extreme of circumstances--though what those might be, I don't know!
Anyway, I'm curious as to whether anyone else has encounterd birds who have been devoiced, or who have had the procedure done on their birds. Not asking to start a fight or cause a commotion...I'm just very concerned about Maria and if this is another hurdle that she and I are going to have to overcome in her rehabilitation, I want to make sure I'm prepared, because I know almost nothing about her, except for her age, when she was bought by my cousin, and the conditions she's lived in since he became seriously ill 4 months ago.
Thanks for any info, and for all the encouragement AA has given me so far on this adventure.
Basically, what I thought was her panting or gasping for air has finally registered that she's trying to scream/squawk/yell (whatever you want to call it). In all my research I kept reading about how loud parrots were, about all the screaming and squawking, and Maria is quiet as a mouse! Initially I thought I was lucky to have a quiet bird, but I now believe that I am the owner of an unfortunate bird who may have been DEVOICED! I feel terrible for Maria--if, in fact, that's what happened to her. Her previous owner, my cousin, was rather eccentric, and I could see him doing that on a whim at some point. He seemed to love her, but at the same time treated her very much as an accessory...her cage is obscenely small for her by any standards (my school's cockatiel has a cage 4 times the size of Maria's!) He got her when she was 2 (she's now 41!), so perhaps it's even possible that the procedure was done to her before he bought her. In any event, my cousin is now deceased, so I can't ask him.
Obviously the devoicing procedure is terrible, and I would certainly consider it to be unethical under all but the most extreme of circumstances--though what those might be, I don't know!
Anyway, I'm curious as to whether anyone else has encounterd birds who have been devoiced, or who have had the procedure done on their birds. Not asking to start a fight or cause a commotion...I'm just very concerned about Maria and if this is another hurdle that she and I are going to have to overcome in her rehabilitation, I want to make sure I'm prepared, because I know almost nothing about her, except for her age, when she was bought by my cousin, and the conditions she's lived in since he became seriously ill 4 months ago.
Thanks for any info, and for all the encouragement AA has given me so far on this adventure.
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