parrots. it can be hard to know if you are doing them a favor or not.

[mopinko]

so, i have this crazy lory, sophie-



beautiful, hilarious, and deadly. and a complete mystery sometimes. she can be very cuddly (too cuddly, if you know what i mean) and playful, then get spooked and try to take you finger off. during her out time, she routinely tries to kill things. coffee cups, especially favorite coffee cups, are frequent enemies, dashed to the floor. if i try to intervene, i will likely be bitten. hard. it seems straight forward that this is hatred or fear.
but parrots are not binary like that.
parrot keeping is not binary like that, either.
boredom is your worst enemy. she is a high strung animal. she has a small pluck spot, so i know i have to keep her busy. so, i gave her sister a pill bottle to play with. sophie invaded her cage to get at it, so i gave her one. she pounced on it, and pulled the paper off. seemed like good stimulation.
she had killed a glass of milk, spilling a few drops instead of her routine 8 ounces. i was putting her back in her cage and decided to toss the glass, with a few drops to chase, in with her. i paid the price, but she did spend quite a bit of time chasing the thing around the bottom of the cage.
today she killed an empty beer bottle, so i gave her that. she has spent the better part of the day throwing it around, peeling the paper, standing on top of it.
love, hate, who knows. but it isn't boredom, and it might be desensitization, so, i will be looking for more victims.
parrots.

[valerief]

1. She's gorgeous! nt

[mopinko]

2. i always say-

everyone who hasn't been bitten yet thinks she is really cool.
i do think she is cool. but i would not really recommend them as pets. this is my second, and both were rehomes.

[meti57b]

5. Does that apply to all parrots? ... or are only some kinds of parrots not recommended as pets?

I'm just curious. I'm not planning to get one, she might want to have one of my cats for lunch.

[mopinko]

6. i honestly do not recommend parrots to people not ready to

exchange a little pain for an amazing companion. lories are also messy in the extreme, as they eat a liquid diet and what goes in, comes out.
i wouldn't recommend a too or a macaw to anyone. they are just not cut out to live in your apartment. they are like keeping pet tigers, imho.
amazons, mostly, can also be big biters. my grey bites sometimes.
it's their way of saying- hey fucker, cut it out.

a vet i know says- hey, we are talking about an animal with a can opener in its face.

[valerief]

7. A friend of mine has a cockateil she adores. It's small, affectionate, talky, and can't hurt her! nt

[mopinko]

10. budgies are great, too.

lots of them are pretty good talkers. and you don't have to set up an endowment so your grandkids can inherit them.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Well I get it.

For my kids the great enemy is the clothes washer...

As to being bitten, I should have known better than try to handle cookie yesterday, ruffled feathers and all.

Tuky (RIP) was quite possibly the gentlest creature you'd ever find. In 23 years he bit exactly three times and all were my fault. (One after a quake). The other two, lost count. Though they are not that bad.

And tea bottles are their favorite toys too.

[mopinko]

4. oh, i usually deserve the bites.

many a doh! moment after the bleeding stops.
i do love her, tho. she is an amazing thing.

[mopinko]

11. cockatoos.

most parrots are not that fond of strangers, especially since most strangers don't really know how to talk to birds.

[Curmudgeoness]

9. I had a blue and gold macaw for about 10 years.

She was an incredible bird, and after the initial training time, she did not bite me at all----but they have really nasty bites! When there were kids over to visit who were wanting to play with her, I would hand her a lava rock, and she would take it and turn it to powder---and that scared the kids from wanting to get near her, which is a good thing because she could have broken a finger.

I would not have another bird, especially not a large bird, but it isn't because they are not super intelligent or loving---they are. But they are messy, expensive to buy and to keep, and destructive. I cannot tell you how much woodwork was destroyed. And her cage was huge---a monkey cage 4' x 4' x 5' high, and that took up a lot of space.

But thanks for reminding me of how much I loved her.

[mopinko]

12. yeah, it's the destruction of macaws that makes me not recommend them.

those beaks are made to hollow out tree trunks. they gotta chew. it is hard to satisfy that.
neither of mine are particularly destructive. lories don't really chew naturally, so they are easy that way. and my grey is just a calm girl.
so many people are sorry they bought parrots.

[Curmudgeoness]

13. I mentioned the macaw just to inform people

that they are hard pets to have. I think that there are few people who can adequately keep them. But she was my sunshine...she was a loving and playful bird. But I would never recommend one.

[Irishonly]

14. She is beautiful

Sophie is so colorful. Don't have a clue about parrots but I wanted to tell you how striking she is.

[mopinko]

15. even for a lory she is.

they are mostly quite brightly colored, as they feed on the nectar of tropical flowers. but she is especially so.
she is a black capped lory. there are roughly 120 species.