Perch less high so Jenday will not thinks he's Alpha?

A Petco employee said I should not place Liang Zai's perch too high.
From his position higher than us he will think he's boss. (I know that my wife is boss.)

A tree branch I attached to his cage exterior is at my eye height.
The perch extends over a 1/4-inch plywood floor which cantilevers out from his cage floor so that his droppings fall on paper and not our carpet.

We also taught him to perch on one arm of our three-lamp kitchen chandelier. Coincidentally, that arm is eye height. Two sheets of toilet paper catch droppings which would otherwise fall on the flared glass lamp shade.

He likes to fly from his perches and alight on our shoulders and supervise as we do housework, etc.

I am hoping to build a 1-foot high perch which would stand on our baby grand piano top. A strip of three sheets of toilet paper would catch droppings.

I want him to feel free and fly to either of the three places.

Should we be doing things differently?

Thank you,

Robert

Robert Gift said:

A Petco employee said I should not place Liang Zai's perch too high.
From his position higher than us he will think he's boss. (I know that my wife is boss.)

Click to expand...

The first problem here is that pet shop employees knows very little, well actually they know nothing.

There are several threads on this forum about this topic and 99% of all the members believe that parrots do not display this type of behaviour. There are no alpha. When they sit up high they simply feel safe and there is nothing wrong with feeling safe.

It is a complete myth and pet shop employees are crazy enough to believe what goes for an iguana goes for a parrot.

Here is a photo of my girl's set-up as you can see there are several things that hang from the ceiling. She always climbs right to the top after a bath and then sit there until she is completely dry. Other times she just plays there. In this photo she is on the far end right scratching her head.

Hope it helps.

Thank you.

I shalleave the perches as they are.
The cage perch is enough above the cage that his tail feathers clear the cage.

Can't adjust the kitchen chandolier so will leave it as is.
Since he always faces us, the toilet paper on one side works well and is easy and cheap to use.

Height dominence theory has long been disproved. Birds tend to like the highest point because they are on the lookout for a predator. Here again we have a pet store person telling customers something that is not at all true.