Zoos and animals. Also, Bobo’s a girl.

No, this post isn’t what you might think. I’m mostly okay with zoos, at least the ones I’ve experienced. When the enclosures are enriched, spacious, and have private shelters for the animals, I think they are no bad thing! They can educate kids and adults alike, and besides, a lot of the animals were donated once owners realised they couldn’t care for their exotic ‘pets.’

No, today’s post – my 135th! – is a collection of my favourite photos that I’ve taken – from the zoo, or just of animals. And also – just because Bobo had a fantastic day – a story and a revelation. The title gives it away: he is a she.

We took Bobo for a walk in Mavi’s cat carrier. It wasn’t as cramped for him as we’d feared, and he… er, she… was quite comfortable. S/he showed off at every opportunity, begged me for attention, and happily sang and chatted to anyone who would listen. Most importantly, Bobo’s day out made quite a difference in his home and cage behaviour. I’ve mentioned the biting and lunging on this blog. I couldn’t go anywhere near him yesterday, and I didn’t press it. Today, though, after his walk, he’s been an absolute darling, begging for scratches, and generally hamming it up. He’s calm and relaxed, and that’s just what we all want.

O. and I happened to notice this afternoon that her eyes are distinctly brown in the sun. Male cockatoo’s eyes appear black even in strong light, apparently. Whether we make the change from referring to him as a he, who knows. We already call Pip and Mishka she’s, and they’re both definitely male. Fortunately, none of them mind. Plus Bobo already says, ‘Good boy, Bo!’

The walk today was a success. It was hilarious to watch people’s reactions. One woman must have thought I just had a cat in the carrier at first glance, but Bobo saw her and shouted, ‘LALALA, HELLOOOOO.’ She did such a double-take! Children absolutely clustered around him to see him (at one point, just on the street, we were surrounded by about six), and even adults were happy to come up to us. One guy had a Grey of his own, another was an Aussie who’d seen lots of ‘toos in the wild. One woman was trying to look through the slots on the sides, and guessed that we had a snake. Bobo definitely preferred the more level energy of the adults. As soon as he’d spot anyone over the age of twenty or so, he’d start chatting away. He also saw two Jack Russells playing in the park and barked at them a few times at them. When we continued away, he let out such a disappointed howl. It sounded like a small child’s shriek. There were police patting someone down nearby, and they looked twice!

Now that I’ve rambled quite a bit, on to the pictures!

In South Carolina.

In Maryland.

I named this one Mr Sniggles, because I’ve always wanted to name a pet with a silly name.

Edinburgh Zoo.

In Dover, England.

On the River Clyde.

In London.

This just makes me go ‘squee’ and laugh at the same time.

Scattered thoughts.

Warning: Health (and health-care) rant! If you don’t care for those, you can just skip to the photos at the bottom.

Lesser-known fact, I have issues with sleep. Chronic exhaustion has been my lifelong companion. Some of my earliest memories are of being literally dragged out of bed by my mum because it was well and truly time to get up and I was craving more sleep. Sometimes I have trouble drifting off (my body naturally falls sleep at around 4:00am, no matter when I’ve woken, or for how many days in a row), but mostly I force myself to sleep at a reasonable time. The trouble then becomes waking up.

Note that I have done the experiment where you go to sleep, don’t set an alarm, and let your body naturally wake itself. Except that I woke 24 hours later. Fail. I’ve also attempted variations therein, where you set alarms for different lengths of sleep. 6, 7, 8 hours, onwards. Nope.

And don’t even try to talk to me without at least 12 hours of sleep.

It never occurred to me that not everyone is this way, so I just never did anything about it. To put it into perspective, I have never, ever in living memory felt refreshed from a night’s sleep. Well… I have actually never woken up and been able to get out of bed without a huge internal battle (and my joint issues don’t help). Ever.

The point of this post is to vent because I hauled my sleepy, painful butt to the doctor’s – whom I just registered with – explained my situation, and had her say, ‘Everyone feels tired sometimes. It’s not cause for worry, and it obviously doesn’t affect you that badly.’

Not to be sarky, but I was in a doctor’s clinic, and I hate those kinds of places. And needles. But mostly doctors’ offices. There is something goin’ on with me. Plus I’d just explained the chronic nature of my tiredness and pain… It stops me from making it to class sometimes, from going out to see people I really want to see, and doing a lot of the things I want to do.

I just want to wake up feeling refreshed. Just once. I want to know what it feels like not to drag myself through the day.

She then asked if I’d seen a psychologist about it; I said that I didn’t think it was psychological, and she just stared and said, ‘Mmhm.’ After my mentioning a couple things, she prescribed an anti-reflux medicine, which – although I said I didn’t think it was related – I’ve decided to try anyway. It can’t hurt.

Finally, I inquired about my knee, which is swollen and quite painful. I just wanted to know if there was anything there that I should be concerned about in terms of getting it to heal okay.

She said immediately, ‘Have you been vaccinated for tetanus after the bite?’

Me: ‘No?’ Needles? Quick! Backtrack – tell her Bobo is an animatronic experiment gone amiss.

‘Hm. Are your immunisations up to date?’

Me: ‘Yes, to get into the country.’ Phew.

‘Well, it’s obviously infected, so I’ll prescribe an antibiotic.’

No puss, no extreme redness, no heat, just the swelling and bruising? I’m not a medical professional, but I do not think it is. Nevertheless, she printed a prescription. And I walked away with no more answers than I had before, feeling brushed off and frustrated. Though I had tried to stand up for myself, it seemed impossible. She had a vocal tic – ‘mhm’ – happening with each couple words I uttered – like something out of a comedy sketch where one character is listening with only half an ear.

I just do not know what is happening, but I feel it is more serious than she was taking it! (Please note that I really, really like the NHS. It’s just this one experience that I’m not happy with.)

What about you, have you had an experience where the doctor just doesn’t seem to be listening?

Anyway, I think I’ll conclude more positively with photos that don’t need words.

First challenge, and a funny video.

I talk about mytoos.com a lot, especially since Bobo’s come home. Let’s just say that I knew from reading that site that it’s no easy path with a ‘too in the house. I feel it’s a message worth repeating again and again.

And, okay, ‘not an easy path’ is a huge understatement. It is an enormous challenge sharing your home with these parrots; I can tell that even a week or so in.

The infamous cockatoo noise? Hmm. It’s unpleasant, like a (very loud) dying, tortured woman crossed with a wounded dog’s staccato yelps. The calls can reach quite a volume. Still, I find Mavi’s shrieks more piercing and therefore irritating. Bobo tends to vocalise in the evenings, as is typical, and will also flock-call if you leave the room. Thankfully, he’s a generally quiet bird.

No, Bobo’s real challenge is his own avian nature.

Ah, yes, hormonally-charged adult male cockatoo at the tail-end of the spring breeding season.

Run and hide, folks, run and hide. Or rather, don’t, or a very angry – hormonal – cockatoo will chase you.

I mentioned that he bit me yesterday on the knee (I wasn’t running, I was walking towards him), and today he lunged and went after O. in the same manner. I was next, although thankfully he missed both of us and was towelled and safely put into his cage. We had been going to limit his time out to periods of about 20 minutes, maximum, but he didn’t make it that far.

The issue becomes now figuring out constructive ways to burn off some energy. Today, we were encouraging him to march around in the hopes that he’d use up a bit that way. Turns out that’s a trigger for attack.

I would encourage flying or flapping his wings, but I’m not entirely sure I want him to know he has them right now! (He doesn’t use them, save for the once, when he used them to bite his way up the blanket I was holding yesterday.) A slight wing-clip during hormonal seasons might be in order, as I see that as the only way to guarantee safety. Or maybe I’m jumping the gun a bit. It’s fairly worrying knowing that his beak can easily bend the bars of his cage (yes, it’s true), or slice through flesh if he catches it the right way. And his unpredictable ‘too nature is what flips a situation from okay to downright dangerous in seconds.

This is not a bird I’d trust with strangers, kids, or timid people – not right now, anyway.

He is such a wonderful creature. I have fallen in love with him, despite his aggressive out-of-cage behaviour. Bobo has a fantastic personality. If he wants a scratch, he comes up to the cage bars and leans his head against them invitingly, all whilst ponderously rubbing his head and neck with his foot. At night, the only thing he wants is to hold your hand.

If you leave the room, he calls goodbye, and when you enter (or pick up the phone) he gleefully shouts hello. He is also an escape artist, which, while not good, is still pretty incredible. He is very, very clever.

That intelligence is the cockatoo’s downfall. Beautiful, adorable birds, but they’re not intended for caged living. Note: They are also significantly less adorable when they’re charging at you in full-on attack mode.

My solution for now are to see about involving Bobo in some kind of performance, I think. It doesn’t have to be him doing anything out of a cage to start with – we’ll see. He performs naturally. I’ll also leave him in his cage for a few days, because although that doesn’t seem entirely fair on him, he can’t be rampaging around the house. I think Bobo is definitely overdue some through-the-bars training.

Just by the by, the video is to put Bobo in a bit of a better light, because although he has ‘bad’ moments, he is such a clown!

Cockatoo bites.

I got Bobo out on my own today, and everything was going okay up until a point. We had been playing some relatively low-energy games and dancing/singing a bit, and I sat down on the couch. Of course Bobo had to join. I started to slowly realise that he was nesting in the fleece blanket beside me. Someone had warned me that this is a particularly territorial time for them, so I wasn’t about to let him.

I guess the real lesson is not to keep the fleece there. I had it beside me for towelling Bobo, as it calms him. I did this without issue, but didn’t have a great grip, so set him gently on the floor. He lunged, and I decided my best bet was to get the fleece and gently usher him away until he calmed and I could towel him again.

That was a great plan, except that a certain lovely white cockatoo didn’t agree. He wanted to nest! So he chomped his way up the blanket towards my fingers (literally two lunges), at which point I bent and got him to let go. Although I started walking towards him and flapping the blanket, he caught my kneecap and ground his beak in. He had something nasty in his beak (more than just skin) because it made a horrible crunching noise.

With a 1.5lb bird dangling by his beak from my leg, I went towards the door in silence and managed to call O. in a flat, unexcited voice. Bobo disengaged again and went for my calves when I turned my back on him, but at that point O. towelled him and quietly deposited him in his cage.

Turned our backs, and when he was calm, we left the room.

I swore that I was going to have tatters for a kneecap, but it was just black and blue, with a couple small punctures. Thankfully! Today is not the day to add my first Bobo scar to the collection. It will come soon enough. >_<

Least satisfying ‘wound’ ever, in terms of relative pain. Also… worst picture.

I kind of hoped it would look more horrific, haha. Having sensory processing disorder, I’m not the best judge of pain – light bumps are excruciating and a tattoo over a wrist tendon doesn’t cause any sensation at all. Bobo’s bite has swelled into a big lump, anyway.

All is well; I’m not upset with him, of course, just wish I knew how to handle it better. Walking towards him seemed to exacerbate things, in this case. Or maybe it’d have been worse if I didn’t? My new goal is to design body armour for ‘too owners! And to think , I was once leery of a bite from a cockatiel.

Heh.

This looks fierce, but he was happily la-la-la’ing as he danced.

 

Mavi is tired after making some fabulous alterations on my pyjamas. Or maybe he’s laughing.

Issue of the Week: Hand-rearing of companion parrots.

This post has been inspired by a rather alarming trend I’ve noticed whilst looking through WordPress for new parrot blogs to follow. It’s not limited to blogging, but is in fact largely an issue of the Internet in general. It’s also the post that will probably incite rage. Apologies in advance.

The trend happens to be some informational blogs posting very brief, generic how-tos on breeding and hand-rearing parrots. I find it alarming. By ‘informational,’ I’m not talking about specialised sites, but those ‘bit of everything’ blogs. You know, they literally cover all kinds of topics: how to better yourself, how to dress well or spend less money, how to begin underwater basket-weaving, how to breed parrots. More relevantly, as far as I can glean, the people behind those blogs have no prior experience with either parrots or breeding.

And, of course, the Internet is itself laden with ‘how-to’ articles. Dare I call them dangerous? After all, so few of them teach that breeding your birds involves huge health risks, adds to a growing population of homeless birds, and has so many absolutely vital things to be taken into consideration – including a highly specialised diet. They often promote an ‘experience the cycle of life’ outlook, combined with ‘it’s nature.’ Unfortunately, this doesn’t take into account the homeless parrot problem, or the responsibility and expense of baby birds, or even the wild nature of parrots themselves that makes them unsuitable for many homes.

Before I go off on a full-blown tangent, the debate of hand-reared versus parent-reared is an time-old one.

At first, I was very firmly on the ‘hand-reared’ side – but I hadn’t done all the research yet. We had just bought Mishka at that point, so first parrot, and a pet shop one at that. She was a neurotic mess. At the time, I made the connection parent-reared = neuroses.

If you’ve been following this blog for any length of time, you’ll know that I’m very much against pet shops selling birds. It took me awhile to realise that the issue wasn’t necessarily our cockatiel’s parent-reared upbringing, but rather her pet shop experience.

Honestly, if it weren’t for her pet shop beginning, Mishka would be the most stable of our flock. She never, ever displays sexual behaviour towards us. She does get a bit hormonal and therefore moody, but her ensuing behaviour is nothing like the other birds’, two of whom can be downright dangerous. She will also remove herself from any situation she doesn’t like, and rarely bites. Now, as I write, Bobo is rubbing his wings on the protruding bit of his java perch (gotta move that around a bit). He would be rubbing, erm, other bits of himself on there, if he could. Mavi has also been extremely nippy this week, and Ptak has thrice performed the dreaded wiggle-neck dance to various household objects. What? That drying rack was sexy.

Ptak, Bobo, and Maverick are hand-reared. Well, okay. I’m going out on a limb on the latter two; judging by their desire to take a human mate, plus ensuing behaviours, that’s my guess. Looking at people as a mate just isn’t a natural behaviour for any parrot.

During hand-rearing, the eggs are removed from some point at the parent’s nest. The actual time span can vary; breeders may even leave the eggs until a certain point after they’ve hatched, though they usually do so soon after being laid, and artificially incubate the eggs instead. Some breeders do this to encourage more laying for a greater profit, and some more nobly to imprint the baby and make it more pliable, with the intention of helping it adjust to a human environment.

But there is research that says that hand-rearing is actually detrimental to the baby’s development. After all, how will it learn how to be a bird, if it is only raised around humans and other human-raised babies?

There is strong evidence that if young are taken away from the mother at a young age, behavioural and adjustment problems will result due to a developmental disorder in the brains. It is not for nothing that the Dutch Health and Welfare Act states that puppies and kittens may not be removed from the mother within their first 7 weeks. The same applies to the ban on taking infant monkeys away from the mother.’

 Read more from the Dutch Parrot Foundation.

It isn’t natural, and it makes sense that removing a baby bird from its nest would have a serious impact. It misses out on birdie behavioural lessons right from the start.

From reading online, many argue that hand-rearing must be done to maintain a sociable and tame pet, yet I find that untrue. It does certainly take more time and effort to earn the trust of a parent-raised baby. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Mishka has become – or maybe is still becoming – a very tame bird. She has her issues, but I generally attribute those to her days in the pet shop, with a too-small cage, seed diet, no enrichment, faces popping in to stare, rough handling, and the abrupt loss (sale) of her companion. She’s also become a confident, curious bird.

According to Greg Glendell,

‘The process of hand-rearing has adverse effects on the behaviour of African grey parrots when they mature (Schmid, Doherr and Steiger 2005)… [T]he hand-rearing, or what we might more accurately call parental deprivation, sets in place a behavioural time-bomb with a 2- to 5-year delay in behavioural problems.  Indeed, according to Schmid, et al. the maladaptive behaviours of hand-reared birds appears to be largely in proportion to the amount of parental deprivation they have experienced.  Where birds are part-parent raised (not removed from the nest until at least 8 weeks old) they suffer fewer behavioural problems as adults than those which have been solely hand-reared from the day of hatching.  In addition to adverse behavioural issues caused by hand-rearing, there can be adverse physical effects including osteodystrophy (Harcourt-Brown, 2003, 2004).’

He mentions also that profit is a motivator for some breeders who choose to hand-rear. These people rush the weaning process in order to make a sale and move on to the next clutch of babies. Birds who are weaned too soon have other documented, lasting issues, including regression.

And there it comes down to the sister issue of hand-rearing: breeding.  Yes, or no – is it acceptable? I personally say no – from everything I’ve witnessed of parrots, they are not meant to be pets.

I love my flock, and I would not change them. They are wild animals destroying living in my home, and I accept that and cater for it. The issue is the average owner who can or will not, or the casual buyer who just thinks parrots are ‘pretty.’ These birds (with the intelligence of a 5-year-old and the emotional capacity of a 3-year-old) get passed from hand to hand, home to home, and that is not fair on them. They remember.

The solution, of course, is to promote adoption and rescue. Even so, that simply won’t happen for everyone – not to mention that not every new owner is capable of taking on the emotional ‘baggage’ of a re-homing case.

Obviously what I’m saying in this post isn’t backed up by scientific observation. It’s from my experiences with four parrots, and is hardly representative of the larger population. The person linked below found the original study (and performed her own), but the link to the original has expired. Check it out. I’m going to keep researching this one.

http://www.cassandrayorgey.com/parrot-playground/general-information/study-on-behavioral-effects-of-hand-rearing-african-grey-parrots/

Please, feel free to share your thoughts! Also, if you have a moment to spare, I’ve updated my ‘links of interest,’ which includes some of the blogs and resources I’ve been enjoying.

P.S. No idea what’s going on with the small text, but will try to resolve that.

It’s a house of laughter.

The video is Bobo doing his strut for the camera yesterday. I was re-watching it today, and it made me laugh a little when I heard his feet go clickety-clack on our wood floor. You just can’t watch it without smiling at least a bit!

Well, my laugh cued the birds’ laughter. Ever since that moment, Bobo and Mavi have been setting each other off into fits of giggles.

Mavi mutters something, Bobo laughs, Mavi giggles, which makes Bobo laugh some more. Ptak chuckles belated from the other room, setting off Mishka’s evil cackle, and then I join in, which sets them all off again. I’m attempting to catch this hilarity on video as we speak. Unfortunately, the phone comes out and they either promptly stop (picture time is serious business, eh?) or make camera shutter noises. Sigh.

In the immortal words of my parrotlet, ‘You SILLY birds!’

Cockatoo cuddles.

Cockatoo cuddles are known for being unlike most parrots’ cuddles. They’re very… well, forceful… and very sweet. There’s something quite adorable about it. But I have a paranoia about keeping it ‘PG,’ so to speak. It’s pretty difficult when this 24″ bird pushes himself onto you with such insistence.

You might guess that we lot Bobo out today for the first time, just after we’d taken him into the back garden to catch some sun!

All went smoothly.

Enjoying the ‘sun.’ (It clouded over pretty much the instant we went outside.)

After we opened Bobo’s doors, we went and sat on separate couches, towels underneath us, and ignored him. This was advice from the Island Parrot Sanctuary, and it worked really well. If Bobo were to become afraid and go into attack mode, we would have been able to flap the towel, walking towards him until he stopped. He does love being towelled, though.

He spent about a minute on top of the cage, then clambered down and made a beeline for my feet.

We didn’t need to worry, because he immediately came and snuggled up to my ankles. After a bit, I went and sat on the other couch, and Bobo ended up in my lap, beak grinding.

Pretty much the most petrifying 20 seconds of my life, haha.

Snuggles.

What. A. Ham.

I just wanted to include this because I think it’s adorable.

We did towel him to put him back – we being O. Bobo wasn’t keen on the idea, and attacked the blanket very briefly. He went home without any mishaps, though.

The only issue I’m having so far with Bobo is actually not while he’s out, but in. This is something he only does to me, not O., as when I walk past the cage, he attacks. If I have food, he’s fine, but sometimes he’ll lunge when I’m passing a few feet away. He cuddled with me whilst he was out (and I was very careful not to let him take it too far), but when he’s in his cage, he’ll actually crouch down and fly at me to attack should I dare touch the cage bars. Thankfully, the cage is secure… I can’t decide if this is territoriality. I talked to someone about male ‘toos, and it’s apparently pretty normal – most especially during breeding season. But then, I’d assume that Bobo would react the same way to O.?

Is O. actually the one he perceives as a mate? Unfortunately, I’m not great at reading Bobo yet, so I’m figuring things out slowly.

Anyway, the time out did him good today, and he really enjoyed it. Excited to let him out again tomorrow! Today was very brief, only 20 minutes, if that. We wanted to keep it positive.

And fear not! The other birds are getting all the attention they could possibly desire, too. Mishka still thinks it’s too much. She’d much rather we left her to her own devices.

Now what didn’t I think of that before…? Oh, wait.

This is the posture Bobo assumed when he realised I was going out.

Beautiful blue parrotlet.

Can you spot the cockatiel?

A strange moment between Mavi and Ptak.

The great escape.

I caught Bobo levering open the top of his cage today and kind of… whackamoled him back in. To be fair, I was far gentler than my choice of so-called ‘verb’ suggests, but I did usher him back down with some sense of urgency! I’ve ended up padlocking it shut, much to Bobo’s dismay.

He has, since then, attempted to unscrew everything possible in his cage. This includes the obvious screws in the cage structure, his food bowls and their corresponding access panels, the padlock itself, the latch on the front door, his perches, and all of his toys. I’ve given him different kinds of food to try, tried to distract him with toys and attention, but nothing is paramount to his current mission of escape. His focus is pretty incredible.

I think our parrotlet has been watching and learning, because Ptak suddenly began to attempt opening his own door. I ended up opening it for him, but by that point he had climbed under his upside food bowl to seek apparent weaknesses in the cage’s structure. (This bowl is a placeholder so he can’t slip out, and it provides a sort of platform for him most of the time.)

Ptak eventually noticed that the door was open and tried to jump up through the transparent bowl. Bump. Again and again, he tried to go through, but was unable to figure out how to go down and around. I took pity on him after observing this for a minute and lifted him out.

He promptly declared, ‘You silly bird.’

Yeah… That just about covers it!

Mishka’s favourites.

A Bobo-on-the-roof.

This is how he earned the nickname ‘Mav-Bat.’

The Mav-Bat hello.

One of my nicknames for Pip is ‘Tummy bird.’

Reflective parrotlet.

 

I’ll hold your hand.

 

I try not to post more than one thing in a day, but I had to share. What a cutie!

 

Hello, Bobo!

I said to myself, ‘No more new birds in the house…’ And I especially said, ‘No white cockatoos!’

But then I met Bobo.

So ::shuffle shuffle:: I guess this is his introductory post on this blog! His age is unknown, but he is definitely an adult. He spent two years locked in a greenhouse, although the time before that is unknown, lived with a nice family who have lots of birds already, and has since come to stay with us.

Bobo sings, chats, dances, and is even pretty quiet so far. Of course, it’s the honeymoon phase yet. Thankfully, our walls and roof are cement. The neighbours have not yet heard any of our birds! (My mind’s still blown about that.)

He’s a bit nervous yet, very timid, but he’s eating well and playing – starting to show off a bit as he gains confidence! You’ll be hearing more about him soon. I know what I’ve got into, and I’m going to use the blog to document our experiences with him. When we come up against challenges, I won’t sweeten or lessen them when I write. And when we have good moments, I won’t diminish those, either.

In the meantime, the rest of the flock are enjoying a renewed honeymoon period as well! Mavi had a lovely time sitting on O.’s shoulder, begging for scratches and treats. All is peaceful here…

For now.