Our gig today was parrots! We learned things! If you make it to the end of this post, you may learn something, too.*
This pretty boy
Pretty boy! Pretty boy! is
Skylar. He accepted pistachios from Annie, then bit her. It was a stormy relationship.
Macaws live 80 - 100 years. Adoption of a young bird is not a commitment to take lightly. Skylar is an Amazon and may live 60 - 75 years.
Birds see in the visible (to us) spectrum, and also see UV.
Birds fed a seed diet are like people who eat nothing but McDonald's food. Best Friends sees them come in with liver disease, like the guy who did SuperSize Me. Seeds are very high in fat. These birds in the wild spend 58% of their time flying to look for food. A parrot in captivity flies 0% of his time.
Birds should not be fed ripe fruit. They eat little of it in the wild, and always unripe, because they don't metabolize sugar well.
Parrots are prey animals, and we are predators. They know this, because all our eyes are in the front of us. Sidle up to a bird to seem less like a predator.
Annie does not metabolize bird dander well, so she was mostly outside.
This is Layla, who wiggled and snurffled her way past me. She was a Vick dog, and is now living a fine, licky life.
Sasha is a macaw. Kevin isn't, but they get along well. Sasha will likely outlive Kevin, his kids, and his grandkids.
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| Here's the plan, see. I'll eat the nut, see. Then we'll...you dirty rat! |
If you full-body stroke a bird, you are promising to mate with him. Keep it above the neck, fella.
Paco (rear) is blind, but Rico is his seeing-eye-bird. They're never far apart, and they use a unique call to find each other.
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| Alo, an African Grey |
A cockatoo will have seven to eleven homes in his life, because they live so long and because they are louder than your Great-Aunt Gladys without her ear trumpet.
If there's a takeaway, I guess it's to know what you're geting into when you adopt a bird.
- Their vet bills are breathtaking.
- They will outlive you. If you don't like your bird, you can't just wait him out.
- Birds are extremely dander-y. Annie had to leave the house after five minutes, so powerful was her allergic reaction.
- Birds are flock animals, and the reality of life in a cage stresses them. Counterintuitively, their lifespan in captivity is shorter than in the wild, even though they are prey animals.
All these birds are adoptable from Best Friends. You do need to make a visit to let your new bird friend pick you out.
*Offer not valid in contiguous 48 states, Alaska, Hawaii, US protectorates, United Arab Emirates, Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, or Greenland.
