What our customers are saying:

Hi Karrie,  They love the 8' rope!  Me too.  I'll get more photos for you soon".
-Ann Brooks, Phoenix Landing.

The Healthy Human / Parrot Relationship

Lets look at some of the factors to maintaining a healthy human-parrot relationship that will span the decades.  First, realistic expectations - both for parrots and people. Second, honesty about human nature, and third prior preparation.  These three factors, I believe, are the root for almost all the problems that manifest into the "reasons" people give up their birds.  Careful consideration of these three things will help you avoid the common pitfalls many parrot owners face today. 

 Lets begin with the first one: Realistic expectations for parrots and humans.  This one is a difficult one because I am asking you to consider things that illuminate deficits in today's current way of bird keeping. Remember our current way of bird keeping is showing thousands of parrots losing their homes each year!  So read on with an open mind. 

     When a human buys a single baby parrot with the intention of housing it alone in a cage, we are basically accepting responsibility to be that birds "flock" or "companion" for it's entire life.  We are removing the baby from all other parrots and isolating it in a small confined area (relative to it's natural range of motion) with humans as the only opportunity for physical contact and enrichment.  Now keep in mind this is not a solitary creature like a cat, but an extremely intelligent flock animal who spends almost every moment of their entire lives in the company of other parrots, and a large percentage of that time actually touching and directly interacting with another bird.  Click HERE to view a few photos of wild parrots to really gain a visual of just how social they are. 

Are there considerations and challenges to having more than one bird? Absolutely!  And they need to be very carefully considered.  However the value of having multiple bird households should not be lightly dismissed.  It means creating an environment and choosing birds suitable for extended interaction and/or community housing.

     Parrots, like humans, live incredibly social lives.  Think about how humans punish our worst criminals -  solitary confinement.  In other words we put them in a small cage (cell) with no contact with their own species.  That is the absolute worst thing that we can do to somebody-think about that!  Now to be fair, parrots are not people and they do get regular daily attention from a different species and the lucky ones have numerous toys in their cages and other birds in the house.  But hopefully this analogy makes it clearer why being  physically alone in a cage for 8-10 hours or more a day is perhaps not the method that we want to continue to perpetuate as the optimal pet parrot environment.  This arrangement sets people up to fail.  It makes parrot ownership difficult because it is pitting the odds against success.

  Parrots require a massive amount of physical attention and environmental enrichment.  When they don't receive these things you get classifieds adds that read, "my bird is too loud"  "my neighbors are complaining about the noise" and "don't have enough time for him."  The need for companionship, stimulation, and enrichment not being met can result in plucking, screaming, and overly demanding pet birds.  Are there considerations and challenges to having more than one bird? Absolutely!  And they need to be very carefully considered.  However, the value of having multiple bird households should not be lightly dismissed.  Keeping in mind 'multiple bird household' does not mean owning one macaw, one cockatoo, and one grey that live in separate cages.  It means creating an environment and choosing birds suitable for extended physical interaction and/or community housing. 

       Now that we have examined maintaining single pets from a parrot based point of view, lets consider the other end of this spectrum - the human side.  Is it fair (or realistic?) for a human to be expected to meet the massive emotional and social needs of a parrot?  Here is really where we need to be realistic.  Birds are an amazing part of people's lives....but they are only a PART!  They are not the whole thing.  We don't want to spend 24/7 with our birds every moment of every day for the next 70 years.  We think we do when they are adorable little babies in the pet store, but as healthy human beings we want to enjoy human activities.  We want a human spouse, other pets, careers, education, hobbies, children, vacations, and perhaps ~ gasp ~ even have some non bird friends!  It is an unfair expectation for a person to be the one and only for their feathered friend.  This conflict often, eventually, gives people the feelings of "they don't have enough time for their birds" or "their birds don't get enough attention."  Well of course not!  And the list above is outside of the million other things that take us away from our parrots which most of us have to do, like work, grocery shopping, cooking dinner, etc.  No wonder so many people eventually rehome their parrots, despite truly caring about them.  By isolating them alone in cages we are making ourselves everything to our birds.  It's an unrealistic expectation that a human can give everything to a bird every day.       

  It's an unrealistic expectation that a human can give everything to a bird every day.       

     Now lets focus on #2 - realistic human nature.  Humans, as well as animals, seek to reduce stress in their lives.  So if a bird is making us feel consistently stressed, guilty, overwhelmed, or annoyed...it's getting a new home.  Humans also value our human relationships (usually!) over non-human relationships.  In other words, if your bird attacks your husband, your wife develops an allergy or has an intolerance to parrot screaming, or the bird is dangerous or incompatible with your children it will almost always be the bird, not the family, that will be looking for a new home.  After all, how many times do you look in the classifieds section and see the following:

  6 year old female for sale named Sandy.  She talks constantly and loves to dance.  She plays well with her toys and likes dogs and other birds.  Sandy will eat almost everything put in front of her.  She is a real sweetheart, but we just don't have enough time for her and our new cockatoo.  She starts kindergarten this year and wants to be a doctor when she grows up.  Price negotiable to the right home. 

      Additionally if parrots present a major stress or problem during a challenging life situation and they are no longer positive additions or easily accomodated, it is again the parrots that find themselves homeless.  Because they are so long lived, it is extremely likely that if you own a parrot you will go through at least several of the following scenarios with your feathered friend:  marriage, divorce, moving, job changes, financial difficulties, changing family dynamics, serious illness or injury, death in the family, college, traveling, having a baby, having another baby, natural disasters, in-laws moving in, kids moving out, retirement and the list goes on and on.  If you've experienced any of the above you know how difficult, draining, and just plain old different these situations can be.  Can you imagine being worn out from an upcoming move or pending divorce, being at work all day, you just picked up the baby from daycare, it's 6:30 pm, you're hungry and have a migraine coming on...you walk through the door to find your beloved cockatoo stuck to the side of the cage screaming his lungs out because he's been in his cage, alone, all day long and he needs to come out and spend hours with you expending his boundless energy and satisfying his social and emotional needs.  Could you keep a bird in a situation like that?  Not many people can......and they don't.  How many people do you know that have owned their pet bird for 25 years?  How about 45?  I bet you can't think of very many.  How many people do you know that own at least one second-hand bird?  Or have birds who have had three or four or more homes before?  Or have birds that have come from abusive or neglectful situations?  Unfortunately, I bet you can think of alot. 

     Rescues are overflowing with unwanted birds and sanctuaries have waiting lists and are over crowded.  Thousands upon thousands of birds are given to rescues each year in the United States and thousands more are privately sold or given away.  Parrots are losing their homes at an alarming rate.

      So now we have honestly evaluated parrot and human needs and interspecies relationship roles.  We have come to terms with life's inevitable challenges and human nature and carefully considered the gravity of the unwanted parrot problem.  We can now stack the odds in our favor with #3 ~ prior preparation!  Prior preparation includes acquiring knowledge and training skills, larger cages, outdoor aviaries, and parrot companionship.

Learn more about prior preparation with the article Red Line