For people who want the 'truth' about large Toos because they want one:

[jaimmorr]

I have to say, I did go into it years ago with the mytoos website in mind. I had to totally throw all that mentality out the window when she had a total meltdown after I had to give her shots. I spent several years earning back her trust and that caused me to take a giant step back. I no longer anthropomorphize wondering what it must be like to be locked up all day or to fly free in the jungle. Instead what makes her happy is most important. If she's happy, then I'm doing it right. She is happy here. I long ago gave up species stereotypes and the opinions of experts and I just work with the bird that is in front of me. I let their personality evolve and I work with the behaviors they show me and what they seem to need. Its a constant check and balance. I see happy behaviors, I continue with the normal routine. I start to see some self repetitive or over grooming behaviors and I mix things up a little bit. Often times all that is needed is a new toy.

Wow. Thank you for posting this. I won't say much more than this, but... I think this is one of the wisest and most valuable pieces of information I've read about parrots in a very long time. This is what I'm starting to see more and more of. "I long ago gave up species stereotypes and the opinions of experts and I just work with the bird that is in front of me." Very well said. Although I don't have my own bird yet, through all my experiences with birds, I completely agree.

My friend has a 10 year old male U2 and he is an ANGEL. I mean an ANGEL. He has an enclosure, not a cage, but it's inside. He's not clipped, but he doesn't get very much attention, sadly. He probably gets an hour out of his cage a week, maybe. And yet, he doesn't pluck, he doesn't scream at all, he doesn't bite, etc. If you go to get him out of the cage, he'll step up nicely, say "Hi." and play with you. Then he'll go back into his enclosure without another peep and play. They have had him since he was 3 and he used to get TONS of attention. TONS of it. But now he doesn't. And he's never plucked a feather. He's never screamed incessantly. That's just the way he is. Which is why I think working with and looking at the BIRD, not the species, is so important.

 

[Molcan2]

Okay, first off I never made mention of mytoos.com, not once. Not sure how that even got into the mix. Secondly I don't 'raise' my birds. Every bird I've ever had was a re-home. I don't see any point in getting a baby when there are thousands in rescues. My U2 that I used to have was very aggressive with everyone but me, he was more of a problem. I clearly stated in the beginning of my thread that I wasn't talking about behavioral problems. Thats not what this was about. My M2 is absolutely perfect - I don't have any problems with her, I got her when she was 16yrs old and I'm her third home. She has never bitten, never offered to, goes to ANY stranger. She is so good that children handle her, and quite often (don't judge, if you met her you would allow the same shes that good of a bird). She very rarely screams. She NEVER chews on anything that she is not supposed to. When its time to clip her nails she sits on my lap and I literately just pick up the nail that I want to clip and she lets me cut them and file them while she just sits there. If I want to open her beak and rub her tongue, she lets me. She will let me do anything that I want her to. She has an amazing vocab and talks up a storm. Shes potty trained. If your a person that wears dangaly earrings, dont fret because she will not touch a piece of jewelery while you are wearing it. She shares her food with us as well, if shes eating she likes to give us some (shes not happy unless you let her put it in your mouth). The only thing that is still a work in progress is her getting upset if shes left in a room by herself too long during her people time. Behavior problems are not something that we have with her. Behavior problems were not something that I was even bringing up when making the comparison.

I keep her in a little of an unconventional way. She is loose all day, every day. She is kept on our back screened in porch from 8a-5p, every day (I have pics of her set up in my fids album). From 5p-8p she spends time with us. The only time she is ever caged is at night when she is sleeping, that cage is kept inside. She has a TON of toys. Foraging, destructive, etc. BUT to keep her happy I have to do more than just throw some food in some foraging toys (which she has a ton of). The work I'm talking about is not physical. Its the mental work. Its the constant day to day trying to stay one step ahead of her, to keep her busy.

The comparison that I was making was that, with our Ekkie - he is content with just his foraging toys. With our M2, the foraging toys are like a bandiad just to bide a little extra time but not sufficient enough to really make her happy. Its not a physical routine (physically their needs are basic and equal), its the mental day to day. I cant really explain it, I'm not sure why. Its just that what it takes to mentally take care of her is so much more than what our Ekkie requires. Both with my M2 and my U2, I could see and feel that no matter what I did there is always something missing for them. With my Ekkie, not so much. I can say that he is completely happy. Honestly if you look at the thousands of large Toos that are unhappy in captivity and compare them to the handful of what are thought to be happy- theres no argument.

I never said that everyone who owns a large Too isn't doing a good job. IMPO no matter how much we do, I don't think it would ever be enough. At the end of the day, I don't think that I've done enough for her. Thats what I meant about the mental thing, mentally there is always the feeling that you need to do more for a large Too, that feeling is never ending. Other than free flying and finishing the aviary theres not a whole lot more I can do for her. Mentally with the Ekkie, I feel that I am meeting ALL his needs with little effort. At the end of the day with him I feel that I can do more if I want to but that its really not need. Mentally he is wicked easier to please. I never have the feeling with him that I haven't done enough.

And as far as the wanting to turn the bird to the wild being so 'awful' - five minutes of freedom outweighs being kept in pristine condition because of being caged your whole life, theres a difference in being alive and being aloud to live. I couldn't imagine caging Rome during the day, her intellect wouldn't allow it. I feel that the area I have her in now during the day is a 'large cage' even though it has no bars. I feel guilt at the end of the day as a human having my M2 in captivity, she wasn't given a choice. I don't have the same feeling with the Ekkie. With him I get the feeling that he doesn't care to have a choice (other than choosing us as his next home). He seems so much more indifferent than she is. He wakes up and is like 'okay this is what you have planned for me today - sounds great'. She on the other hand wakes up and wants to discuss it with you and make revisions. Thats the difference I'm trying to convey between the two.

 

[melissasparrots]

With my sulfur crest, she wakes up every day, we discuss the agenda and come up with a mutually beneficial compromise. We are both happy. Cockatoos are not a pet for stupid people and they do require some out of the box thinking. I will agree with you that the other species really like the foraging toys and extra enrichment and the cockatoos NEED those things. However, for a person that just has a single pet bird that they love a lot, is it really that much of a hardship? I just don't think so. I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree on the part about 5 minutes of freedom being worth a short life and painful death. I'd rather have 60 years of a mostly happy life than 5 minutes of ecstasy. I think a decent amount of your guilt is coming from the human end of things. Cockatoos will always take more. It’s the nature of a cockatoo. It’s one of the things we love about them and just because they want more doesn’t mean they are miserable with what they have.

Something new is always more exciting than something old. I would almost be tempted to say that an outdoor aviary should be required equipment for large male cockatoos and quite a few females could benefit from it. Otherwise, going places, meeting new people, seeing new stuff goes a long way for keeping a cockatoo happy. They continue to think about those things once you get them home. Same for trick training. Just because they sit and look bored after trick training doesn’t mean they are bored. I think the mental stimulation they get from that experience, they continue to think over afterward. So what if they aren’t busy running for their lives from predators or foraging everyday in hopes of getting enough food not to be hungry. To mimic those conditions in captivity would be considered cruel. Captive parrots have a different life and different stressors than wild ones. Different does not make the wild better IMO. Personally I think I'd rather be living in the modern era with my house and job and good medical care than hunting and gathering with my tribe several thousand years ago where starvation, death from disease and childbirth were common and happend young. Its a different life, different problems. Not necessarily better or worse. The nature of all intelligent life is to worry and create stress for itself. Its the stress relievers that make it a good life or not such a good life. The grass is not always greener on the otherside, no matter how much we wish it would be so.

 

[GiosMom]

Molcan2 I totally understood what you were trying to say and completely agree with you....although your providing your bird with the best home, food and care you can there is still that void you can't fill. The love and respect you feel for your Too's is why you feel that way. Very selfless of you and what makes you special and a great parront. As a newbie to this forum I aspire to people like you who are caught between the world of loving and caring for your Too, but yet respecting and identifying their uniqueness for the remarkable species they truly are.

 

[Wings]

I agree with everything BUT you forgot about the ducorps 'too. I personally love that 'too because it Looks ALOT like an umbrella but certainly not as demanding (still demanding though).

 

[Betrisher]

I wasn't ever going to tell this story because I was too ashamed! I think it's relevant here because it demonstrates the difference between living in nature and living in captivity.

When I was a young teenager, my Dad was given a 'hand raised' Sulphur Crested Cockatoo. We called him Ignatius (the cocky, not Dad). Iggy was just a young bird when he arrived, but he was never, ever tamed. Dad spent hours with him each day, handfeeding him and getting bitten so that his fingers looked like a buzz-saw had been at them. Nothing ever worked. Every time anyone passed by Iggy's cage, he'd flap and scream and try to squish himself into the corner.

Eventually, Iggy began plucking the feathers on his back. Then, the breast feathers went. Soon, all that was left were his wing coverts and flight feathers! That was when he began eating his foot. He'd pick and pick and pick at the flesh of his foot until it bled. Over time, first one toe went, then another, then another. One morning, we got up to find that Iggy no longer had a right foot. The left foot with the blue ring on it was bleeding!

It was the first time I'd *ever* seen my Dad cry! Swearing like a trooper (which he never did in front of Mum or me) he took the cage outside and let the bird go. Iggy flew in a straight line toward the University (closest clump of bushland) and we thought that was the end of it. I yelled at Dad that the poor creature would die of cold and starvation because he wouldn't know how to support himself outside a cage.

Well. Fast forward six months and Dad was playing bowls over at the Uni. He stood yakking to the greenkeeper as a large flock of SC cockies fed on the neighbouring football field. 'Y'know what, Frank?' said the greenkeeper. 'Darnedest thing. There's a one-legged cocky out there with a bloody blue ring on its good foot! Someone's lost a pet, I'd reckon...' Dad said nothing but came home joyfully to tell us that Iggy was not only alive, but fully feathered, fat and HAPPY!

You should come to Australia to see the utter joy that a wheeling flock of cockies demonstrates. They're aerial acrobats and they just fly and fly for the joy of it! Not only that, but they're gregarious and live in huge flocks consisting of hundreds of birds. Cockies aren't a solitary animal: they need a flock, a real one. They preen each other and screech to each other across miles. They watch out for danger and communicate together in all sorts of ways. If you sit quietly near a feeding flock, all you can hear is the ongoing muttering conversation that is their life. Cockies eat, sleep and fly. The local flocks here are in motion all the time: they fly from Wallsend to Jesmond to New Lambton to Kotara and then back again. They're nomads. Like gypsies.

Contrast that life to being confined in a cage, however generously-sized and you can imagine what the contrast is. I'm not saying parronts are evil (gee, I'm one!) - just that we need to remember what it is we're denying our pets so that we can enjoy them. I'm not as experienced in the scientific ownership of birds as most of you here, but I have watched cockies my whole life and I sincerely believe they're not as good a candidate for captivity as many other parrots. Just sayin'...

 

[U2gal]

Betrisher, that was a very honest post. Thank you for sharing it.

Cockatoos should not be kept as pets.

Those that are, should be companions not viewed as fish in a tank. As pets. They deserve to be family if kept.

 

[JerseyWendy]

I want to say that when I initially started researching parrots (20 some years ago), a cockatoo was a species I was interested in. As the time drew nearer for me to finally look at parrot ownership as a reality, both my boys and husband tried to convince me to get a Too. They just looked at Cockatoos as big, white, fluffy snugglebugs.

I am SO glad I followed my gut and did not get one.

I find them to be gorgeous, majestic and highly intelligent creatures who need a very special home if they are to be kept happy as a pet.

Since being a member on this forum, and reading of so many, and often sad stories, I take my hat off to anyone who shares a home with cockatoos.

 

[Betrisher]

It must be a coincidence, but as we were driving out of our street this morning, there was a flock of cockies perched in the cypress trees lining the next block. The roadway was ankle deep in the debris from their foraging. LOLOLOL! I know the residents of that street get pretty bent out of shape about the mess the birds make, but gee - you should hear them squawking away like so many fishwives as they search for fruits and grubs. It makes you smile!

 

[bree]

Excellent! Well put! I was fostering an umbrella and his owner wouldn't take him back so I had to keep him and let me tell ya I had to drop my whole life! I loved him but he was a hadful! Always screaming running around being obnoxious and a pest tearing up the house ruining everything I have. No matter what I did he was never completely happy, I couldn't have a normal life. 18 and sitting at home playing with a bird when I should be out having fun...im not a person for a large too, I knew that but his owner needed someone to watch him for a month or 2 so I did. Well that month or 2 turned into 9 months and i tried to give him back but his owner wouldnt take him and said if i get rid of him she will take me to court. Cockatoos arnt for everyone. People think kids are hard work try that 2 yr old kid for 60+years! I love cockatoos but I know im not right for them so I wont let them suffer. You can give and give and it will never be good enough:'( I wish they could all be free they don't make good pets because many people can't handle the care and time they require! I had to get rid of the U2 and deal with the owner because I couldn't do it. It takes a special person to properly care for a large too!

 

[Mare Miller]

IMO, no bird should be held captive but cockatoos are top on my list! Molcan2, I feel your pain but we still have the job of taking care and doing the best we can with these miserable creatures! I've actually come to love my monsters. I'm not sure if they've changed or I have. Maybe I'm getting senile!

 

[Mare Miller]

My U2 was never comfortable in the house but is now, only because he gets his outdoor time. He comes in when he wants. It breaks my heart to know that we have so many birds that can not adapt and have to finish out their lives with only what we can provide.. Bummer, but true. (pssst..don't breed!)