Responsible screening met with irresponsible attitudes

I recently received some correspondence from a good friend of mine who is (in my opinion) one of the most responsible and dedicated breeders of Macaws in Australia. The communication stream presented below starts off OK but quickly disintegrates. Personally I have zero tolerance for people who not only want to buy Macaws as status symbols and stick them in an indoor cage all day with the radio on, clip their wings, only let them out for a couple of hours in the evening and think that’s going to be kosher for the largest and undeniably one of the most environmentally challenging groups of parrot that we keep as a pet. Here’s the transcript…

Buyer Enquiry:

Hi, I am interested in a baby hand-reared Blue & Gold macaw. I have kept a lorikeet for several years and loved the experience. I would sincerely love to be a macaw parent. Can you reply with some pics of the baby’s parents?  I am after a good talker and was told that a male is better generally for this. Does it make a lot of difference with Macaws?

Breeder Reply:

Hi, can you tell me what you are looking for? Pet or breeding? Will you clip wings and keep indoors and what will happen when you are at work all day? These babies are not sexed yet as they are too young so am not sure if I will have a boy. There are only 2 not yet spoken for. Parents are currently in the nest with their baby, which they will bring up through to 8-9 months old so taking a photo of them is not possible. They are large birds and consistently produce beautiful young. Let me know your intentions re housing etc asap if you want to secure one.

Buyer’s Response:

Hi, I plan on clipping wings and keeping indoors all day.  For my last bird I always left a radio on, kept the room well lightened and placed a small fan on one end of the cage if he got hot during the day.  I kept loads of toys and a bath in the bottom of the cage for him, he never got bored or plucked feathers etc. I am looking around now for very large cages, and intend on letting him out of the cage every night when I get home until its bedtime. How much would you need for a deposit on one, and how long before you could shoot through a pic of the parents?

Breeder’s Response:

Hi, Unfortunately I will never sell to anyone who wants to clip wings and keep indoors all day. It is a very poor life for any bird and extremely cruel to one as intelligent as a macaw. They need to fly in the sun and the rain for quality of life. It is like locking a child in a playpen all-day and releasing for an hour in the evening when they want to sleep anyway. It is the reason why I only sell companion birds to WA so I can check they have an aviary and can fly. No bird should be alone and locked in and waiting for you to come home for time out of a little prison, it destroys the whole personality of such a intelligent bird. My apologies once again, I have a responsibility to these birds.

Buyer’s Response:

(Name withheld), You are an incredibly sneaky woman, next time be more open and honest before asking such loaded questions. I will happily be positing this email chain online so everyone sees what your like!

Well bud – I’m pretty certain you didn’t have the audacity to follow up on your little threat there so allow me to post this online for ya so everyone can see what a complete jerk you are. 

Let’s summarise what the breeder’s expectations and conditions of sale were for their Macaws – 1) An outdoor flight aviary and 2) to be left fully flighted and not wing-clipped. Nothing more – nothing less. A breeder of Macaws, Cockatoos – or any darn parrot for that matter has every right to find out what the future holds for the birds they breed and every right of refusal to deny a sale if they are unsatisfied with the response. The dilemma for responsible breeders who actually give a damn about the birds they sell as pets is that if they start the sale interface with `This bird mustn’t be wingclipped and must have access to a flight aviary during the day’ it doesn’t take a genius to work out what any potential buyer is going to promise – even if they have absolutely no intention of following through. This breeder frequently encounters such retribution and threats and that sort of irresponsible, selfish attitude really makes my blood boil. Sorry folks – but the socially accepted attitude towards keeping large parrots in solitary confinement in the corner of the living room for 10-12 hours a day with a radio on is pathetic. What worked for the pet Budgie for the past 100 years in Australia doesn’t make it right for a Macaw – heck, it didn’t make it right for the Budgie either! Keeping parrots responsibly and ethically requires a better understanding of their needs than a `one size fits all’ approach. The sad thing is – I’ll bet my house that this guy just called up a different breeder, bought a Macaw without any screening and that thing is sitting in a cage, in the living room corner, staring at that undersized excuse for a birdbath, poking at the same old food it was offered every day since it arrived and waiting for that front door to open. You know what – I bet I get a call from this guy down the track. That conversation will start something like this… `Hey Jim - I’ve got a problem with me Macaw. Every time I come home it screams out real loud and won’t shut up till I let it out of its cage. We bought it because we wanted a talker but it just yells. Can you fix it?’ Sigh…

Responsible breeders take an interest in the future of the birds they sell as pets. Buyers who want ornaments for their living room should investigate taxidermy - it's quieter and much less mess!

The predictable unpredictability of new introductions…

I’ve lost count now of the number of times I have introduced new birds to a collection (either mine or others I have worked with) over the past 20 years of parrot keeping but I have done it enough times to be completely humble about the predictability of success. One thing I have learned is the total predictability of the unpredictable nature of how parrots will react towards new birds. Parrots, perhaps more so than many other wildlife taxa that we keep in captivity can be seriously difficult to integrate into an existing flock dynamic or even to establish a single pairing of birds with a view to breeding. I would like to share two important principles when introducing new birds – 1) Plan out every step of the release in advance and; 2) Have a back-up plan – contingencies are critical! A recent example of that was our attempt to integrate a male Blue & Gold Macaw (2 years old) into our Macaw aviary while he is residing here for a couple of months while the owners are overseas. The aviary that is home to two other Macaws – a female Green-winged (3 years old) and a female Blue & Gold (2 years old). I was very positive that our temporary resident would do OK – especially considering his confident temperament and being the same age as my resident female. My strategy was to do a major environmental makeover at the same time as the introduction and to delay the morning feed until after this. This would provide ample distraction for releasing the new guy from his pet pack into the enclosure and I hoped would minimise the attention he would attract. Basically I did the following… 

1. Withheld the morning feed whilst the enclosure renovations took place
2. Removed all existing perches in the aviary and replaced with new ones – in all different positions at different heights
3. Changed the locations of the food bowl holders
4. Fully stocked the four different browse holders with fresh branches
5. Added in a few new artificial chew toys
6. Placed out a variety of food bowls with high value foods
7. Released the new bird
8. Observed the interactions from a distance (being present with imprinted birds can actually cause more problems – better to remove yourself from the equation)

While the aviary renovation was happening the `new guy’ was contained within his crate inside the enclosure. This allowed him to observe everything that was going on and for me to observe the reaction towards his presence from the other two Macaws. When the aviary renovation was complete I opened up the travel crate and allowed the male Macaw to come out as he pleased – which he did almost straight away. With all of the new distractions in the aviary my two birds were almost disinterested in the new bird and everything seemed to be going to plan. I placed the food bowls out and sure enough – my guys got down to the business of eating and destroying the fresh browse leaf and left the newcomer alone. At one stage all three were happily eating at the same time. I have to admit that at this point – I thought I was pretty much a genius and had finally perfected an introduction. Time for humble pie… 

Of my two Macaws the one that I predicted would be most likely to be aggressive towards the new bird was my Green-winged Macaw. She is the dominant bird in the enclosure and has a healthy history of zero tolerance towards interlopers into her territory. Conversely, my Blue and Gold Macaw is a sweetheart and rarely if ever displays aggressive tendencies. Any guesses who turned feral on the new guy? My sweet B&G! She was just relentless. Whenever you are attempting such introductions you can always expect initial conflict. I can’t recall a time with all of the introductions I have done when that hasn’t happened. What you are looking for is a `pull out’ or `abort mission’ point where the aggression is observed to persist and isn’t isolated to simply driving off the new bird from a favoured perching position. You also want to observe signs that the new bird has the confidence to stand up to the existing birds and not back down too quickly. Parrots are very good at determining whether they have met their match in the aggression and physicality stakes and will quickly settle if a new bird is confident enough not to back off. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case this time. I intervened a couple of times when things got too heated and as the afternoon drew to a close things did settle down a little. I allowed the three of them to remain together overnight but the disputes resumed first thing the following morning and I made the decision to pull the pin. 

When it comes to parrots – so often they stay true to that old adage – two’s company, three’s a crowd. That brings me to the contingency. Whenever you plan on adding a new bird to a flock, or on putting a pairing together of mature birds, always have a back-up enclosure ready to go in case they need to be separated. In this case, a fall-back aviary was ready, perched and it took nothing more than getting the new guy back into his crate and shifting him. Obviously if the intention was for the male Macaw to stay as part of the collection there are a bunch of other strategies we would work through over time with but seeing as he is here short-term it wasn’t going to be worth the time and energy investment – and the risk of compromising his safety unnecessarily. 

Humble pie eaten. Unsuccessful introduction complete. Back to a lower stress, more harmonious arrangement in separate enclosures ☺

Ahh - if only the peace and tranquility captured here stayed that way!

Parrot Feeding Strategies - Part 1: Free Feed

I was reflecting on my recent workshop day and probably the session that generates the most interest is when I discuss diet management for enrichment and training. One thing I love about this time of year is the abundance of seasonal fruits and vegies on offer for the birds. I thought this might be a good time share a few images and insights into how I feed my flock of birds. Basically I look at managing the daily food intake of my parrots in three different contexts...

1. Free Feed: Where food is freely available in bowls. This feed strategy represents `low behavioural criteria' for access.
2. Enrichment Feed: Where food is presented away from bowls and in contexts such as foraging toys, F&V kebabs, or scatter feed throughout the enclosure. This feed strategy represents `high behavioural criteria' for access.
3. Training Feed: Where food that is isolated from free feed access is offered during hands-on training or handling sessions.

For this post I just wanted to touch on my `Free Feed' approach. A few tips to share...

• I cut all of my fruit and vegetables that are delivered as free feed into pieces no larger than pea size. This is very successful in not only getting the birds to feed for longer durations (rather than the `taste and waste' result when feeding large chunks) but also in being better able to work out exactly how much F&V they are consuming and to work their daily intake down to the point where I am not wasting large amounts of fresh food.
• Chillis are great for parrots! A lot of parrot owners aren't aware that parrots lack the capsaicin receptors in their tongue therefore they feel no heat sensation from eating peppers. Packed with Vitamin A - these are a great addition to the feed out.
• I `shave' the head of broccoli and mix it through the salad as I find it's the only way to get some consumption of broccoli. Most parrots ignore it if you place it in as a chunk with the stem.
• The peas and corn are just from a frozen pack - I thaw them out with warm water for a few seconds and they're good to go.

To make free feed a little more variable always place 4 to 6 different bowl holders in the enclosure to give you options each day to change the position of where they need to go to access their food bowl.

Basically my aim is for my parrots (non-lorikeets) to be consuming about 50% fresh produce, 30% formulated pellets and 20% seeds and nuts as their daily food intake.

The selection for today - Mango, Banana, Kiwi Fruit, Apple, Pear, Pomegranate, Rockmelon, HoneyDew Melon, Watermelon, Lychee, Snow Peas, Brocolli, Chillis, Peas & Corn. My parrots pretty much get this mix each day as part of their Free Feed.

My fruit and vegetable mix is always cut up into `pea' size portions and mixed into a salad for their Free Feed. This helps with monitoring intake, increasing feeding duration and reducing waste.

CWS Companion Parrot Workshop 2011

Long time no post!!! Well - I've been kinda too busy to get some posts up but hopefully over the summer months I'll have time to resume the ramblings here :-) To re-start things I just wanted to give a big thankyou to the participants at the 2011 Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary Companion Parrot Workshop. This is an annual experience that I coordinate each year and last Saturday our 2011 class had an absolutely fantastic day of bird nerd immersion in all things parrot related. This particular class seemed to really take up the opportunity to acquire some enrichment products that we have available on the day courtesy of The Parrot Rescue Centre (www.parrotrescuecentre.com). I took home a few things myself (thanks Zarita ;-) and I think I've finally found the ultimate `lasting' chewable toy for my Macaws. Zarita's partner Jamie Carpenter is the man behind the tools behind the `Natural Toys' that are made by PRC and one particular product - the `Natural Boing Large' has been a hit with Bonita and Maya since I placed it in their aviary on Monday. Nothing overly special about the Macaws getting something to chew up - the difference here is that it's Wednesday and it's still there! My Macaws generally work on the principle of `the more expensive it is - the quicker we can destroy it'. I sometimes kinda feel like I may as well open up my wallet and just give them a few 50's to chew up and get it over and done with (not that I ever really have 50's in my wallet these days). The Natural Boing though has been a winner - both for maintaining their destructive perseverance (a good thing!) and it's longevity thus far. Compared to the $25 bag of various foot toys that they turned into wood chip in less than an hour (seriously) these boings are better bang for the buck. If you are keen to get your parrots some enrichment products for Christmas then definitely go and check out the PRC Shop - they've got everything a parrot wants to see under their tree. Thanks to Zarita and Bella for the set up of the enrichment stand at the workshop!!!

Bonita getting stuck into her PRC Natural Boing Large - a ripper of an enrichment item for large macaws!!!

The Tender Lovin’ Towel Hold

I was going to start this post off with `It never ceases to amaze me…’ but ya know what? When it comes to hearing about really outdated and downright destructive advice given to parrot owners it really doesn’t amaze me - I've heard it all and keep hearing it.  The tragedy is that bad advice is common advice – good advice is still the exception. The following is an excerpt from a recent e-mail I received that demonstrates the point I make fairly regularly here about the perpetuation of bad behaviour management information and improper handling techniques with parrots. The context is a 10-year-old Galah that has completely lost trust in human hands…

`We took him to (location removed – as tempting as it is to name and shame) and the handler there advised that this can be normal behaviour in male birds preferring a female owner. We were also shown how to use a towel to handle him properly and to scratch him on his head while holding him. Unfortunately he won't even let (name removed) scratch him then - he just keeps trying to bite him.’

Ahhh – the good old fashioned `Towel Hold’. That old chestnut. Love the way the parrot owner referred to the person giving the advice (and demonstration!) as the `handler’. Anyone getting visions of a burly kaki clad lion `tamer’/`bird whisperer'. I bet he had a multi-tool in a leather pouch on his belt too. Ahh... maybe that’s just my colourful imagination. Anyways - nothing like a relationship building session that entails wrapping your petrified polly in a towel like a big old carpet python and giving him some tender lovin’ strokes on the head to let him know that it’s all good in the hood eh? And all involved are still surprised at why such a strategy resulted in a parrot that wanted to bite them and still won’t go near them? I’m all for a good cuddle every now and then but I’m pretty sure if that involved being straight-jacketed and patted on the head repeatedly I’d probably develop a wee bit of an aversion to that experience after a while. Wouldn’t matter how many sweet nothings were being whispered in my ear. The above excerpt isn’t unusual. Last month I had another client who had purchased an Alexandrine from a pet store in Logan (Brisbane south) under the assertion that it was eating food fine and only give it some formula if it’s hungry (Huh? It was a 10 week old Alex!) and it would make a fine `friend’ for their existing pet Green-cheeked Conure (Wha?). No prizes for guessing the outcome there.

I want to note that not all bird stores fail in properly educating their staff on non-invasive, trust building approaches to behaviour management and sound husbandry information. Indeed, at my recent seminar day in Sydney, a prominent Brisbane bird retailer had basically their whole bird department team in attendance! Such a commitment to the professional development of retail staff is to be applauded (three cheers to Pet City Mt Gravatt and the staff in attendance – inspirational stuff! I’ll spend my hard earned there thanks). The problem is that proper staff training at bird retailers simply doesn’t happen outside of a few exceptional stores. The retailers can cry all they like about not being able to afford PD for their staff but I’m not sympathetic. It doesn’t cost anything to tell staff that instead of giving crap advice on behaviour and training they should instead refer the client to properly qualified sources. They stand to gain more from that person seeking out and obtaining information that actually `works’ and improves their relationship with their bird than potentially lose that client as a result of them implementing damaging advice and making the situation worse rather than better. With resources such as those produced by Barbara Heidenreich (www.goodbirdinc.com) easily available through multiple sources in Australia there’s a perfect opportunity to sell products that have sound advice rather than attempting to be the source of solutions that are a bad reflection of our past approaches to parrot care. That for my mind is a win-win approach – income generated for the retailer and a sense of responsibility for self-education placed back on the bird owner. 

Got a similar tale to tell? E-mail it to me - keeps me inspired to keep doing what I do.

Regaining trust with parrots - more about relationship building, reinforcement and respect - less about UFC towel holds.

Next ABK – New Series Starting

After 34 issues of ABK magazine featuring the Pet Parrot Pointers column I have covered an immense amount of ground in regards to foundational thinking for change in the way we manage the behaviour of our companion parrots. Reflecting on that scope of information sharing, I decided to put together a series of articles for the next 6 issues that take a specific species or species group focus based on my first-hand experiences in the behaviour clinic. In this series I discuss some of the common problems presented by the focus species and offer some practical advice on why those problems are seen and how to best develop some strategies to help manage them.  The pre-print copy I received this week of the graphic layout for the new series looks fantastic!!! I’m hoping that these are well-received and, over time, build a small library of species-specific information on companion parrot behaviour management. The first focus species is Rainbow Lorikeets. I’ll be looking at Eclectus Parrots for the second, Major Mitchell’s Cockatoos for the third and Aratinga Conures for the fourth. Not sure about the 5th and 6th – that’s a long way off! You can subscribe at http://www.birdkeeper.com.au 

The above image is a snapshot of how each specific species discussion will be summarised in the form of a clinical `case study'. Looks pretty neat! In good news agencies second week of October.

Latest ABK – Correction

If you grabbed the latest issue of Australian Birdkeeper magazine you hopefully had the chance to read my latest Pet Parrot Pointers article. The article compares and contrasts the `Traditional’ model of companion parrot keeping with what I consider to be the `21st Century’ model that we all need to start advocating. It’s the first time (anywhere) that such a clear comparison has been made and I’m hopeful that the underlying philosophical approach to our keeping of parrots as companions within the framework of the 21st Century model will replace the traditional approach set that unfortunately is the most common and persistent mind set applied today. One problem with the final print version in the latest issue of ABK is a significant error in the final summary note on each of the visual models. Each model flows into an `outcome’ – a critical statement. Unfortunately, the same `outcome’ statement was printed for each model – they should be different. For those of you who may have read the article, please consider the following as the `correct’ way it should have been presented…

The `Traditional’ model (built on dominance based approaches and limited application of positive reinforcement based learning) should culminate in the outcome statement `Establishing conditions that lead to dysfunctional behaviour and challenge’. Conversely, The `21st Century’ model culminates in the outcome statement `Establishing conditions that lead to functional behaviour and success’.

If anyone would like a PDF copy of the two models then please e-mail me.