IcyWolf
New member
- Jul 5, 2011
- 1,542
- 3
- Parrots
- ~Alexandrine Parakeet~2 Red Lored Amazons~Blue Fronted Amazon~Black capped conure~4 Green Cheeks~4 Parrotlets~2 lineolated parakeets~9 American budgies~9 English budgies~ And lots of babies :)
So, I was just thinking about something, we all know that many of our companion parrots show a very obvious preference towards either males or females when it comes to their favorite humans. My question is, how exactly do they tell the difference between us when it comes to gender? Is it looks, voice, or maybe some hormonal cue that they get from us? We are Zigs third home and both of her prior caretakers were females and she has definitely shown a preference when it comes to me and my boyfriend. For the most part, I can take her out of her cage, while he has yet to get her to step up while she is in or on her cage, although she is nice to him if she goes from my hand to his. I have met and had birds that absolutely hated men though, and would do anything they could to bite them whenever possible. It got me thinking, exactly how do they know which of us are male and which of us are female? I know it probably sounds like kind of a stupid question but I think with some experimentation we could possibly figure out how to "fix" the "I hate women" or "I hate men" problem. It got me to wondering if a man with long hair and a more "feminine voice" would be accepted by a "male hating" bird, or if there is a deeper, possibly hormonal difference that they can somehow sense? Does anyone know of any research that has already been done on this subject, I would be quite interested to read it if so.