"He doesn't know he's a bird"

[Peeko]

I was having a conversation with my mother about how Peeko has no interest at all in other birds, be it videos or face to face. She said the reason was obvious - "He doesn't know he's a bird. He thinks he's a you!"

That got me wondering. I know this might be a touchy subject, or it is with other species anyway, but is there a generally accepted idea about that concept? Is it possible for parrots to "not know" that they're birds, to think they're people? I don't necessarily believe that that is the "obvious" answer to the question of why he doesn't care that other birds exist, that could easily just be his personality, but now I'm wondering about that just as a general concept. I don't know how I feel about it, so I'm curious as to what other people think.

 

[riaria]

Yes, its possible. It's unfortunately very common that hand reared parrots become imprinted on humans. If they're sexually imprinted on humans, they will view humans as potential mates, which causes all sorts of problems as the bird matures (sadly, some people find it flattering and "cute"). By letting the parents rear their young, at the very least for the first 6-8 weeks, you'll be more likely to get a more mentally stable bird who knows he's a bird, and if won't lead to all that confusion when he grows up. Some people like to argue that hand reared birds can become great pets, and of course they can. But the negatives of hand rearing (from a young age) are not debatable, in my opinion, they're facts.

So, be careful not to encourage him if he starts viewing you as a mate - it only leads to frustration and disappointment on his part

 

[Peeko]

He was hand reared, so I guess that could be applied to him. And he's definitely a great companion, hand reared or not. Much more affectionate and loving than any dog or cat I've had, for sure. Better with people in general, too. He's never met a person he didn't like, but our dogs and cats are very different stories, ahaha!

So, parrots can see that they have wings, feathers, etc and that we don't, but still believe we're the same species? Imprinting can override visual differences for them?

 

[jenphilly]

Is it so mugh thinks he is human and does not forage or shred toys, fly about, flap wings, hang upside down eating with one foot? Or is it that he sees you as his flock?? When we accept responsibility to love and care for a feathered family member, we need to structure our lives around giving them opportunities to be birds. For me, this includes flying, but big debate for another time.

If you are playing with him on bird terms, I think he's more happy you are his flock. If he has no bird habits, then you should get to work on changing that habit. It has taken 6 months of me trying to teach my bare eyed too that she's a cockatoo, slowly but surely she acts more like a too then a pretty shoulder puppy.

And some birds don't want to be part of the feathered group. We have 10 birds and she screams and flies away when even the budgie happens to land on her cage!

 

[Peeko]

Oh no, he definitely acts like a bird. The only reason my mother thinks he thinks he's a human is because he isn't interested in other birds.

 

[jenphilly]

Is he social with other people?

If goes to anyone or everyone, I would say he just loves his flock who happen to be feathrrless humans

 

[MonicaMc]

I think hand raising birds may be "fine" as long as the birds are raised around other birds. Birds hand raised alone are going to have more problems weaning than birds raised in groups. Birds that continue receiving socialization with their own species even after weaning may be less likely to imprint on humans than those that don't get that kind of socialization.

I just finished reading one book and started another. Both mentions that the critical socialization period of puppies is 4 and 12 weeks of age (or before 12 weeks in age) and (first book) the critical period for kittens is the first 7 weeks of life. It's not that they can't be socialized after this point, just that it's most effective during those specific weeks. The critical socialization period for parrots has not been mapped out - probably specifically why is because birds wean and mature at different weeks in age. A budgie could wean at 6 weeks and be mature at 6 months, however a macaw may wean at 2-6 months in age and be mature at 3-7+ years in age.

Not only do animals (in general) need to be socialized with a variety of humans, but they also need to be socialized with other animals at a young age. If they lack this important socialization period, it can lead to aggressive or scared adult animals. (FACT: Colts raised alone without other horses around become rapist stallions as adults.)


Puppy Socialization | Fur and Feather Works, LLC - Dog Training and others!


With parents, we often buy hand raised individuals and take them home shortly after they are weaned. After the birds are weaned, many do not get socialization with other animals or birds, or maybe humans besides those that visit the home. We then end up with hormonal birds that think they are humans and choose favorites in the household. Often times these birds do not get along with other birds of their own or similar species once they are adults and haven't been around other birds.


Charlie, my mitred conure, lived with a man for about 10 years of his life. He's definitely a one person bird in the sense that he takes a while to warm up to new people. He's not a people bird, so he doesn't like strangers, but if someone were to work with him and earn his trust, then he'd willingly go to them without clinging to me. In his foster home he did bond with a lilac crowned amazon but in my home he has not bonded with any other birds. When I got him he was terrified of dogs and would scream his head off if he heard a dog barking. I don't know why.

(in contrast, my first conure was afraid of cats, and for good reason! he was previously attacked by a ferret, so to him all small furry creatures were probably scary. He didn't mind [med/large breed] dogs, however.)

Jayde, my red throated conure, I believe was raised in a family setting and seems to take a preference to older people. She is an attention whore! Loves it when people pay direct attention to her, and it doesn't have to be physical attention! She also seems to prefer women over men, which could be because women really do "baby talk" more so than men, and that's the kind of attention that she eats up. She's sat on my shoulder while begging for attention from someone else, and has even flown to another person to get attention from them. As far as I know, she has never bonded with another bird. She seems ok with dogs, less so with cats.


My conures do not get along. They can tolerate each other, and they do squabble and bicker, but they are not friendly towards each other.


It's often recommended to not house different sized species together because often the larger species could seriously hurt the smaller species... yet, in the wild, various sized species co-habituate without issues. If you look at the "macaw clay licks" for example, you may find macaws eating clay with amazons, pionus, conures and orange cheeked parrots. That's quite a size difference between species! And yet, you rarely ever see a wild parrot with a nasty, bloody injury caused by another parrot. In captivity, well, things don't work out quite as well...



It is rather interesting though that humans prefer hand raised birds over parent raised birds, and yet when it comes to other animals such as dogs, cats, horses, etc we purchase animals that were parent raised. (A bull raised by humans can be a danger to humans as an adult.) All other animals are allowed to be raised by their parents and are socialized with humans. It could be a difference between big boned creatures vs slender bonded creatures - in that slender boned creatures tend to be more flighty and afraid than big boned creatures.



Although I mentioned that hand raising may be "fine", I still think there may be other methods to raise birds that could potentially result in better adults.
Co-parenting Experiences with Companion Sun Conures
Concepts in Behavior: Section II - Early Psittacine Behavior and Development (read part about Socialization and Co-parenting)
Taming Parent-reared Orange-winged Amazon Parrots by Neonatal Handling
Ethical, Moral & Spiritual Considerations of Companion Parrot Care (interesting and thought provoking article in itself - page 4, last two paragraphs talk about the behavior differences in african greys clipped or not clipped at an early age)



Hand raised birds can indeed make great pets, however there may be some unwelcomed behaviors due to it. Most people want dependent birds that hang out with them all the time, when in reality an independent adult is probably a healthier bird, mentally speaking. Parrots are flock creatures, they were not meant to be "alone".

 

[Peeko]

That's all great information, but I was asking about whether its possible for a bird to legitimately believe its a human (not just see people as its flock) despite the obvious visual differences that they would be aware of, not discuss the ethics of hand raising animals.

 

[veimar]

Wow, that's a very interesting topic! I'm pretty new to a bird would and never thought of that. But I have to say, that my green cheek has a HUGE interest in other birds although he is a typical "shoulder puppy" and was hand raised. I started playing parrot videos for him (those made FOR birds) and he was screeching and chirping along and trying to bite the screen sometimes! I'm professional musician so I have a really good sound system - I sometimes cannot even understand if it's Parry or a bird for the video screaming.
He also likes to watch the bird feeder behind the window and sometimes answers the bird chirps. I actually started to introduce him to bird videos right when I got him and I cannot wait for summer when I could take him out to see the actual birds outside.
Maybe you could try to play bird videos for him with a good sound, for example this one:
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOkQQHaCgRE"]Питомники попугаев. Parrot's feature-length DVD film. - YouTube[/ame]
start it form about 4:30. My parrot loves it however he gets a bit aggressive sometimes.
Although there might be some identity problems I don't think he doesn't know he's a bird. Animals and birds and based mostly on instincts and tons of information is engrained in them.

 

[Peeko]

He is absolutely not interested in bird videos at all, I've tried all kinds. The most he'll do is "shhhh" the videos if he thinks its getting too loud, but he does that with everything that gets loud (he picked that up from me "shhhh"ing the dogs if they barked, etc). The only time he has ever acknowledged another bird being there was glancing at a cage of parakeets, but I think it was the movement of them flitting around that he was responding to, not the birds themselves. I had thought he was interested in the doves that are kept in the same room, but as it turns out, he only wanted to get at their toys.

 

[veimar]

Thats really strange, but if he is otherwise healthy and playful - why should you worry about that? How old is he? If he grew up around people only and has been like that for a long time then he probably got new "human" imprints that make him more like people.

 

[Peeko]

I'm not worried, I'm just wondering if the concept of a bird believing they are human, rather than seeing humans as their flock, is possible.

He's a year and 4 months, was raised with other green cheeks and cockatiels as a baby, came home to me and from the very beginning wasn't interested in other birds. He didn't even seem interested in his siblings at all. I've brought him to visit other parrots through cage bars ever since I got him and they might as well have not even been there.

 

[MonicaMc]

That's all great information, but I was asking about whether its possible for a bird to legitimately believe its a human (not just see people as its flock) despite the obvious visual differences that they would be aware of, not discuss the ethics of hand raising animals.

The short answer is yes.

Yes, birds can become over-bonded to humans. Yes, they will try to feed their humans (aka regurgitate for them). Yes, they will try to mate with their humans. Yes, this can lead to hormonal overload. Yes, this can potentially result in aggression due to hormones due to being overly bonded to a human. Yes, this can result in cloaca prolapses (most notable in cockatoo species). Yes, this can result in over-preening, plucking or even self mutilation when the birds become sexually frustrated when their humans tease them about sex and then not going through with the actions of mating with them and raising a family with them.



My first post was about how important it is to socialize our animals (and perhaps changing the way that they are raised) so as to try and prevent some of those issues from occurring.

 

[veimar]

Yes, that's really interesting. You mentioned cockatoos - they are probably most prone to that. Is it any way to avoid "over-bonding"? The issue you just described in you reply is what is preventing me from getting another bigger parrot.

 

[Peeko]

Well obviously I was right in assuming this was potentially a touchy topic. At least I got my answer; my mother isn't crazy. This time.

 

[MonicaMc]

Socialize a bird to a variety of humans and animals. Teach the bird to be independent. Teach the bird to forage. Train a lot of behaviors and tricks. Learn ways to discourage hormonal behavior by not allowing the behavior to occur in the first place. If you see hormonal behavior start up, figure out ways to immediately redirect the birds behavior into something non-hormonal.

The best way to stop unwanted behavior from occurring is to do a lot of training from the beginning, thus preventing unwanted behavior from being able to start in the first place. The longer an unwanted behavior occurs for, the longer it may take to stop that unwanted behavior. I really liked this image I came across on Facebook. It can be so true for so many animals! Not just dogs!

A parent raised bird may be less likely to become over-bonded to humans, however the bird may also be harder to work with as it may have a natural avoidance for humans and being handled.



I recall one cockatoo that was on consignment at a pet store. I couldn't interact with her without her getting hormonal. Me, a complete stranger, was making her hormonal. And she was an over-preener, too. I felt bad for her, but I couldn't afford to take her on. I've also met another cockatoo that someone wants me to adopt him. Except for his lack of feathers (and a couple of toes), he could be described as the "perfect cockatoo". The bird that every person wants. He doesn't bite. He doesn't scream. He doesn't seem to have a problem being handled by strangers. A perfect apartment bird. All he wants to do is lay against your chest and cuddle. To me, to see such a calm and placid bird, a bird that doesn't act like a bird, it made me sad.

 

[Starlit_Night]

At least I got my answer; my mother isn't crazy. This time.

I bet your mother would be thrilled to hear you say that! lol