bright_eyes
New member
- Jul 28, 2017
- 10
- 0
- Parrots
- Yellow-sided conure named Mazzy
Hi,
I just bought my yellow-sided a couple weeks ago. She's 4.5 months old.
My problem is that I go to work from 9-5 Monday to Friday. Actually I'm going to be going back to school in a couple months where my schedule will be more erratic...I won't be in class 8 hours at a time or anything close, but studying is more full-time than a full-time job, so I don't know if I'll be able to give significantly more time. I can have my bird out in my room with me, but I don't think I'll be able to socialize with her much more.
I live with my mom and my mom likes birds a lot, so she talks to her throughout the day and feeds her snacks. But my mom refuses to let the bird out of the cage throughout the live-long day because she just doesn't want to take responsibility for that. She barely even interacts up-close with the bird because she's afraid she'll bite her. It's a fear she has and she seems unwilling to work on it.
These are the lively hours of my bird's day and when I come home I get to spend around 3 hours with her before she has to go to bed. With such little time around me, she's being slow to warm up to me in the first place, so she derives only some pleasure from being with me. I try to let her fly around the room as long as I'm there, and I bought her some toys she seems to like... but I know that birds are strongly social as well as intelligent and she must need more mental stimulation than having a yummy toy.
She seems increasingly bored to me, her feather-preening is starting to look more neurotic to me. Yesterday, I have NO CLUE what happened, but I put her in the cage for half an hour so I could go eat dinner, and when I came back, one of her shorter tail feathers had broken and was hanging from her bent. I've seen this happen to loose feathers before and didn't examine it much. When I did get a look later, it turned out to be a BLOOD FEATHER and there was a nasty spot of blood in that whole area. I was very scared. Fortunately, the feather fell off on its own and her blood clotted up immediately and she seemed to be looking surprised at me for being so concerned, like she didn't notice she was bleeding raw near her butt. She seems fine today, the spot is clear, but I was thinking about what would cause that feather to come off like that? Could it have been a flying injury? I don't know... I am pretty sure I didn't notice that feather hanging before I left her in the cage. Then it might have been her own doing? But what would cause her to preen so desperately that she picks at herself to the point of bleeding?! Is she that upset?! I still don't know if that was it.
I've been thinking of buying a friend for her, but I have a couple concerns:
I know that birds are sensitive and run into health problems unpredictably sometimes and that is VERY expensive. I can take on the responsibility for her but what if both birds got sick? I don't think I can afford that.
The other thing is that if I get one I want to get another girl so that they don't mate. I don't want babies and I don't want them to bond to each other so much that they neglect me.
Even if I do get another girl though, what if they don't get along at all? Is that possible? And of most concern: what if one of them dies sooner than the other, then I've heard that it's possible for birds to get so stressed that they themselves may die soon after. I heard this mostly in the context of mated birds, but what about friends?
The reason I bought my bird is because I'm heavily lonely, and that is probably selfish of me, but I honestly thought when I bought her that I'd be able to keep her happy too. I want to avoid giving her away to someone else, but if she gets markedly more upset with my schedule then I'll have to consider it of course. You see, going to work and to school bears down on me a lot, I don't know why I'm so sensitive to it. I actually feel deeply lonely and sad most of the time, 7 days a week, all year every year. And going to a job or to school just makes it worse. And I do love animals...I crave their love and company, I've wanted them in my life since I was a little kid and that's never changed. I used to have a cat but my mom made me give her away because of the destruction she caused. It felt really awful to have to do that. That was almost 6 years ago and now the loneliness has accumulated and I really don't want to have to go any longer without a pet in my life. I really am open to any care-taking suggestions, except I just can't leave school.
I just bought my yellow-sided a couple weeks ago. She's 4.5 months old.
My problem is that I go to work from 9-5 Monday to Friday. Actually I'm going to be going back to school in a couple months where my schedule will be more erratic...I won't be in class 8 hours at a time or anything close, but studying is more full-time than a full-time job, so I don't know if I'll be able to give significantly more time. I can have my bird out in my room with me, but I don't think I'll be able to socialize with her much more.
I live with my mom and my mom likes birds a lot, so she talks to her throughout the day and feeds her snacks. But my mom refuses to let the bird out of the cage throughout the live-long day because she just doesn't want to take responsibility for that. She barely even interacts up-close with the bird because she's afraid she'll bite her. It's a fear she has and she seems unwilling to work on it.
These are the lively hours of my bird's day and when I come home I get to spend around 3 hours with her before she has to go to bed. With such little time around me, she's being slow to warm up to me in the first place, so she derives only some pleasure from being with me. I try to let her fly around the room as long as I'm there, and I bought her some toys she seems to like... but I know that birds are strongly social as well as intelligent and she must need more mental stimulation than having a yummy toy.
She seems increasingly bored to me, her feather-preening is starting to look more neurotic to me. Yesterday, I have NO CLUE what happened, but I put her in the cage for half an hour so I could go eat dinner, and when I came back, one of her shorter tail feathers had broken and was hanging from her bent. I've seen this happen to loose feathers before and didn't examine it much. When I did get a look later, it turned out to be a BLOOD FEATHER and there was a nasty spot of blood in that whole area. I was very scared. Fortunately, the feather fell off on its own and her blood clotted up immediately and she seemed to be looking surprised at me for being so concerned, like she didn't notice she was bleeding raw near her butt. She seems fine today, the spot is clear, but I was thinking about what would cause that feather to come off like that? Could it have been a flying injury? I don't know... I am pretty sure I didn't notice that feather hanging before I left her in the cage. Then it might have been her own doing? But what would cause her to preen so desperately that she picks at herself to the point of bleeding?! Is she that upset?! I still don't know if that was it.
I've been thinking of buying a friend for her, but I have a couple concerns:
I know that birds are sensitive and run into health problems unpredictably sometimes and that is VERY expensive. I can take on the responsibility for her but what if both birds got sick? I don't think I can afford that.
The other thing is that if I get one I want to get another girl so that they don't mate. I don't want babies and I don't want them to bond to each other so much that they neglect me.
Even if I do get another girl though, what if they don't get along at all? Is that possible? And of most concern: what if one of them dies sooner than the other, then I've heard that it's possible for birds to get so stressed that they themselves may die soon after. I heard this mostly in the context of mated birds, but what about friends?
The reason I bought my bird is because I'm heavily lonely, and that is probably selfish of me, but I honestly thought when I bought her that I'd be able to keep her happy too. I want to avoid giving her away to someone else, but if she gets markedly more upset with my schedule then I'll have to consider it of course. You see, going to work and to school bears down on me a lot, I don't know why I'm so sensitive to it. I actually feel deeply lonely and sad most of the time, 7 days a week, all year every year. And going to a job or to school just makes it worse. And I do love animals...I crave their love and company, I've wanted them in my life since I was a little kid and that's never changed. I used to have a cat but my mom made me give her away because of the destruction she caused. It felt really awful to have to do that. That was almost 6 years ago and now the loneliness has accumulated and I really don't want to have to go any longer without a pet in my life. I really am open to any care-taking suggestions, except I just can't leave school.
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