Good afternoon!

[dwright27]

New member here! I posted in Pionus Pointe before making an introduction, sorry about that!

I'm Dawn, 28 from Ontario. I'm currently birdless, and have been for quite some time now. It's still going to be another long while before I can get another bird, so I'll have to live vicariously through all you wonderful folks until then lol.

Birds I'm considering for the future:

Pionus
Parrotlet
Red-Bellied
Brown-headed
African Grey (no real preference between Timneh and Congo)
Eclectus
Indian Ringneck

So I've got a lot of reading and conversing to do! I'm glad to have found this site because so many other bird forums are pretty inactive. This one seems to be pretty active though.

 

[Buckbeak]

Welcome to the Avenue! You can definitely live through us, we don't mind.

 

[lupe]

Hi! welcome~~...you have a nice bird list..cant wait to see which one chooses you

 

[Katy]

We are indeed active.....and a little bit C.R.A.Z.Y.

 

[sweet francis]

Welcome to AA!
So smart to learn all you can about your favorites before you choose a new companion

 

[Shade]

Hi and welcome!
Whereabout in Ontario are you?

 

[expressmailtome]

Welcome and enjoy the site! Matt

 

[Marlene]

and

 

[Laurul Feather Cat]

Welcome to the Avenue. You said you are currently birdless. What kind of bird did you have in the past? All of us here on the forum live vicariously though one another's birds. We get to know species that we do not keep personally and fall in love with individual bird personalities. Some of our most famous are Queen Samantha, Princess Mitch, Lord Maxwell Studmuffin, Red, Shade's pois and, of course, Saroj's flock.

One warning. This site apparently is a huge source of a disease called Multiple Bird Syndrome. MBS is incurable and I warn you if you stay around long enough, you will contract it!

 

[dwright27]

LOL! You guys are so funny. And nice, too! Shade, I'm in Whitby. Are you also in Ontario? If so, do you breed and do you have a website I can bookmark for future reference lol.

Lois, I've had budgies, canaries and a cockatiel. My first budgie lived to be 16. The first canary I think was.. 4? 5? Can't remember.. I was pretty young. The next canary lived about the same length of time, and the second budgie lived to be 5 The cockatiel we re-homed for various reasons, unfortunately. I won't get into it but last I heard he was much happier with some other 'tiel friends.

Anyway I've been birdless for over 4 years now. I kept telling myself, "birds shouldn't be pets." Maybe they still shouldn't, I don't really know. But I feel like there is so much I can learn from them.. and the thought of having an animal I can actually communicate with verbally, a different species altogether, it just blows my mind. Not to mention all the wonderful people I've already made contact with, due to this shared interest. I dunno, maybe it's selfish, but my interest is definitely piqued again.

 

[Katster]

Welcome

 

[dwright27]

Thank you! =)

 

[Shade]

LOL! You guys are so funny. And nice, too! Shade, I'm in Whitby. Are you also in Ontario? If so, do you breed and do you have a website I can bookmark for future reference lol.

Lois, I've had budgies, canaries and a cockatiel. My first budgie lived to be 16. The first canary I think was.. 4? 5? Can't remember.. I was pretty young. The next canary lived about the same length of time, and the second budgie lived to be 5 The cockatiel we re-homed for various reasons, unfortunately. I won't get into it but last I heard he was much happier with some other 'tiel friends.

Anyway I've been birdless for over 4 years now. I kept telling myself, "birds shouldn't be pets." Maybe they still shouldn't, I don't really know. But I feel like there is so much I can learn from them.. and the thought of having an animal I can actually communicate with verbally, a different species altogether, it just blows my mind. Not to mention all the wonderful people I've already made contact with, due to this shared interest. I dunno, maybe it's selfish, but my interest is definitely piqued again.

Also in Ontario, but within the National Capital Region.
I don't breed, but I do know of a breeder who has Pionuses and Brownheads near Guelph.
Have you also considered looking at rescues?

 

[Anne & Gang]

welcome!!!!!

 

[dwright27]

Also in Ontario, but within the National Capital Region.
I don't breed, but I do know of a breeder who has Pionuses and Brownheads near Guelph.
Have you also considered looking at rescues?

Is that Soltia? I've heard great things about them. =)
And yes, when the time comes for me to get a bird I will definitely consider a rescue. The rescue that used to operate in the area seems to have disappeared, but I know there is Parrot Sanctuary in the GTA so I will try them. I'm slightly wary of adopting a bird with a lot of issues simply due to my lack of experience. I would want to be sure I could provide the right home for a bird that might be really shy, plucks, etc. Actually the cockatiel I had was a re-home.

 

[dwright27]

Anne, your avatar is adorable lol. And thank you!

 

[Laurul Feather Cat]

Well, Dawn, just like almost all conscientious bird owners, I see you have the cognitive dissonance that comes with 'imprisioning' a basically wild and undomesticated creature like a parrot. I have had the same debate with myself, over and over again. But recently, I realized it is too late to regret having captive birds as pets, for both us humans and for the birds. The species we keep and breed in captivity have been too long away from the natural wild life of parrots and even if we took them to the proper forest or habitat for their species, if we let them 'free', they would all be dead within weeks or months. The birds we currently keep as pets are NOT the same species as wild parrots any more. In my opinion, the best we can do to decrease the 'suffering' of parrots in captivity is to work on domesticating them as quickly as possible on a social and genetic basis as well as educating people who are interested in keep a parrot as a pet just how much work and responsibility they are to maintain in a humane manner.

One basic we have to face is that at present our parrots are not domesticated animals and are living in a human habitat. It is our responsibility, therefore, to mitigate the stress on the birds trying to live in a strange habitat with fully in tact wild instincts. Please note I said INSTINCTS. Their natural instincts are in tact, but because the survival of parrot chicks relies on teaching by their parents in the wild of what to eat or not eat and where to perch or not perch, our pets cannot be released in the wild and expect to survive to breed. A parrot owner's moral responsibility is, therefore, to satisfy their birds' instinctual behavior as much as possible to keep the stress of captive life as low as possible; this goes a long way to having a happy, well adjusted companion parrot: not just a pet kept in a cage, but one that interacts with humans they think of as part of their family flock. If your bird's behavior indicates they want a mate, then you get them a mate, and so on... Working with their instinctual needs instead of against them in my opinion makes a much nicer and loving companion.

Goodness! Here I go again on my soapbox. Sorry. But I refuse to feel guilty for keeping my parrots as pets any more. I do my very best to make every individual bird I have as happy as I can given the limits of my resources. I think more parrot companions need to think seriously about this and realize the pet parrot is here to stay unless we are going to euthanize all our pets and outlaw the keeping of them as companions. It is time to stop crying and beating our breast about past actions and take responsibility for keeping these animals in as wonderful a manner as we can while encouraging breeders to get on with selective breeding to ultimately end in a domesticated parrot. This not only solves the captive keeping of pets, but also rules out the taking of wild parrots for pets.

 

[dwright27]

Thank you for your input, Lois. I totally get what you're saying. I would never presume to try to introduce captive-bred parrots into the wild. And I'm very glad that there has been so much crack-down on the illegal capture and trade of wild-caught birds.

I guess what it comes down to is learning and doing our very best to keep our animals healthy, enriched, and happy. And even within a species, that can mean different things to individual birds, I suppose. My plan is to flight-train, though I don't know the first thing about doing that (yet!). I know that clipping vs. not clipping is still a hotly debated topic and I won't get into it right now, but it's something I would like to be able to do for my future fids.

Question though: You mentioned that if the bird seems to want a mate, to get it a mate. What if you're not prepared to have breeding birds? What if the two birds wind up hating each other? I know that for me personally, breeding would be out of the question at least for a long while. I think it would be irresponsible of me to breed the first parrot I had lol.

Also, as far as the domestication process goes, do you think that eventually we'll have captive bred, hand-reared parrots who figure out how to begin raising their young? I've heard that hand-reared birds make terrible parents because they just have no clue as to what to do. You'd think it would be instinctual but maybe not?

Feel free to get on your soapbox any time you want! I appreciate honesty and information/opinions from all angles. Thanks again.