Stronger bond if hand-raised as babies?

[Merlie]

I've got a huge mish-mosh here, from a bird I finished handfeeding myself, to birds that were older when I got them.

Love is love, a bond is a bond. It matters not to me if it's instant .. there's a feeling I get .. hard to explain, in the instances where I've taken in older birds. A vibe, a connection, that tells me this bird and I will be friends.

I don't equate whether the bird was a baby or older when I got them to how they respond to me .. each bird is unique .. an individual.

To be quite honest, I've learned way more from my older rehomes. It's easy when the bird is young, handfed, a baby .. you've got a "clean slate" so to speak.

The older birds, who's history may not be so great .. they're the ones who push me to learn, to experiment, to be patient, and to truly appreciate the love a bird has to give when they trust you. Even if that trust takes a year, 2 years .. whatever .. it's earned .. it's learned .. and .. speaking for myself, no greater satisfaction has come than seeing one of my older rehomes who was scared of me, life, everything .. blossom into a happy, healthy, loving bird.

I have different relationships with different birds, just as I'm sure people with human children have different relationships with each child .. because each child is a unique individual.

JMHO

 

[Kolkri]

It depends on the bird. I think.
I raised Topaz from day one. Yes we are bonded and she is a great bird and I love the joy of handfedding babies.

However Joey was about 18 and we believe he was wild caught, when I got him. It took us about six months to learn to really trust each other. He and I are very bonded. He offers to feed me from time to time and well warn me to get away with love nips if strangers get to close. So I say we are very bonded. Maybe a little to much. lol

But I also once had an african grey. For 8 years I had that bird. I got her when she was 6 months old. We never bonded. She met someone here in my home that she bonded with right away. She lives with him now. Been over a year now since she has been gone and they are still bonded and she is much happier now.

 

[akijoy]

It depends on the bird. I think.
I raised Topaz from day one. Yes we are bonded and she is a great bird and I love the joy of handfedding babies.

However Joey was about 18 and we believe he was wild caught, when I got him. It took us about six months to learn to really trust each other. He and I are very bonded. He offers to feed me from time to time and well warn me to get away with love nips if strangers get to close. So I say we are very bonded. Maybe a little to much. lol

But I also once had an african grey. For 8 years I had that bird. I got her when she was 6 months old. We never bonded. She met someone here in my home that she bonded with right away. She lives with him now. Been over a year now since she has been gone and they are still bonded and she is much happier now.

Very interesting! Thanks for sharing your experience.

 

[Monica]

Most of my birds aren't tamed, but then I don't need every single bird of mine to be demanding attention, and if they are happy as is, then I see no point in changing things. That said, I do feed them. I don't feed comfort feedings, since I feel as if this may lead to behavioral issues (if the bird thinks of you as a parent, great! If they think of you as a mate, *NOT* good... after all, if you send a bird mixed signals then you can frusterate them... and its not good to encourage them to be hormonal then not be able to 'get off' or 'calm down' so to speak)

Many people have bought parent raised budgies from petstores and taught them many tricks as well as teaching them to talk. That said, I don't know what it's like to teach a larger parrot to accept humans.

Casey was my first handraised bird, a cinnamon pearl pied cockatiel. She's bonded to me in that she enjoys scritches and spending time with me, however she still knows she's a bird and is fine on her own if I don't have as much time to spend with her as I may like. I've had her since she was 5 months old, and she was handraised from the day she was born.

Charlie, a mitred conure, was born to two wild caught birds. He was born in 1994 and handraised. I've had him since he was about 12 years old. Personally, I think he's *too* bonded to me, to the point that he constantly screams when he can't see me. Sure, he can entertain himself, he knows how to, but if he knows I'm home but I'm not in the same room as he is, he screams... so he's currently living in the bird room away from me and I'm trying to teach him that being quiet is good. Somewhat working... he's not screaming as often. However, I'd like to get him a buddy, because that way he'll have someone to keep him entertained when I'm not home but he can still hang out with me.

The rest of the birds aren't tame, or nearly as tame as the two mentioned above, but that's 4 other cockatiels, a budgie and a bourke. Except for the bourke, I've been feeding all of them from my hands. Even if they are skittish/afraid of me, they've learned to trust me enough to eat from my hands, with the budgie and one cockatiel trusting enough to sit directly on my hands while eating, and the male tiel, well he's not quite there yet but just about. He's the most skittish of them all, has eaten while sitting on my hand twice, but not quite comfortable with this activity yet.

I find it amazing that most of these birds aren't tame or friendly in any way yet I've gotten them comfortable enough to eat from my hands, even if that's all the physical interaction that they'll put up with, they aren't being forced into this behavior because if they don't eat from my hands then so be it. As soon as the others are finished or I *have* to go and empty my hands, they get dishes. In fact, as I'm feeding them from my hands, the dishes are already full and ready to be taken back to the feeding platform and sometimes the birds will choose to eat from the dishes instead of my hands.

Someday I'd actually like to see about buying/adopting a parent raised conure and see if I could tame the bird. At least in how I see it, I'd rather have a bird that knows he/she is a bird but still enjoys human interaction rather than a parrot who believes he's a human and doesn't know how to be a bird.... if that makes any sense.