Penny, my rescue, if you have read her story , I found her in terrible situation. She was being sold as a rehome as a favor to an employee at a mom and pop pet store. She was at the back of the store, no natural light, and very dim light. On a shelf in a tiny " travel size cage" so small she couldn't stand up, feces covered the cage, piled up in the cage, and covered and matted her feathers with poop.. her water dish had filth and algae ...she was next to an aquarium filled with live rats. She was screaming, plucking, and mutilation to her feet......when I bought her cuz I wasn't leaving that poor girl, they gave me her original cage that she had spent 7 plus years in, also dirty and small. Penny had never learned to fly, had been kept clipped all her life, she has wing restrictions which is scaring down of muscle wnd ligaments from never having room to stretch or flip or fly.
It has taken 2 years of work and rehabilitation, and credit to flock therapy to get her to make choices. Because of all the above she had learned helplessness, had all her choices for movement taken away. It was the hardest thing to get her to make choices, to move, to entertact with her environment, plenty of times I thought we had plateau, and thsts as good as it would get.
Now she can fly well enough to move to play stations, hanging perches ect. She climbs and hops, she makes choices for herself, takes baths when she wants and utilize her environment. She still isn't like all my other parrots, but for her it is profound !
Sadly there are many more parrots living tge life she once had. From our lack of knowledge, or misinformation we were told.
Below from Pamela Clark
" Control is a Biological Need
We know that all animals exercise control by making choices. I have argued for years that by increasing the number of choices that our parrots are able to make, we are increasing their quality of life.
Lauren A. Leotti and her co-authors expand upon this idea by saying, “Belief in one’s ability to exert control over the environment and to produce desired results is essential for an individual’s well-being. It has been repeatedly argued that the perception of control is not only desirable, but it is likely a psychological and biological necessity.” They go on to state that “the restriction of choice is aversive.” (Leotti, 2010)
Lack of Control is Aversive
Not only is it aversive, it can result in the condition of learned helplessness. This is a state of behavior in which the animal stops even trying to make choices. How many times have we described a parrot as a “perch potato?” The perch potato is manifesting a version of learned helplessness.
Expanding upon this idea, they write: “In the absence of other stressors, however, the removal of choice, in and of itself, can be very stressful. It has been found that the restriction of behaviors, particularly behaviors that are highly valued by a species, contributes to behavioral and physiological manifestations of stress. It seems that the aversive effects of captivity may depend upon the extent to which behavioral choices have been reduced relative to what could be performed in the natural environment.” (Leotti, 2010)
New Perceptions
In the past few years, I have come to see our parrot-keeping practices in a new light. We have taken flighted spirits, clipped their wings, and put them in cages. Many parrots spend all of their time in their cage, or have at most, one or two hours out each day. We have taken away their liberty, which is essential for exercising choice.
If we kept dogs in a similar manner, rendering them unable to move in a way natural to them and keeping them in kennels for 22 hours every day, it would be considered abuse. However, these practices are still commonplace in the parrot world, rarely being brought into question. We appear unable to judge the inappropriateness of these practices since they have been accepted as normal for so long."
https://blogpamelaclarkonline.com/tag/parrots-and-flight/
