Thread: Ask me about parrots/Tell me about your experience with them

Originally Posted by dutchraptor

Wow abra that was incredibly interesting. Thank you for the detailed answer.
I'll certainly take a look at the book, sounds very interesting.

One day when I have the time to fully devote myself I might get once again get a crow, or maybe even a parrot.

It would be a lot harder to get a crow, though maybe not in Ireland. From what I read on /an/, they are much harder to take care of than parrots. When I had roof access, I would summon my neighborhood crows with peanuts. 2-5 would usually come, until that damned squirrel figured it out.

Originally Posted by JoannaB

I once had a coworker who had parrots, and he commented that it greatly limited his vacation away from home options. Unlike dogs or cats where one can ask someone else to take care of them, he said his parrots would not eat if anyone else tried to feed them. He was in the process of trying to teach his parrots to accept food from his grown up son, in part also because he was worried that likely the parrots would outlive him, and while his will stated the parrots would in such circumstances become his son's, he was worried that the parrots would not accept that.

That is a potential danger of having a one-person bird. Luckily, she was raised in a 4-bedroom apartment, so got plenty of interaction and handling from other humans at a crucial stage in her development. I've been away for two weeks from my bird, but my partner knows how to take care of her, and she's warmed up to him quite a bit in my absence.

You could always give the bird copious amounts of vegetable treats, whole grain treats, and seeds/nuts to get it to eat while the owner is away. Still, social eating is huge in birds. I wonder if bird would eat if they saw videos of other birds eating? My bird likes watching birdy youtube with me...

Also, you can test whether the bird is not eating, or merely not eating in the son's presence, by weighing the bird each morning. Also, did the son try to eat a similar-looking food (or any food, for that matter) in front of the bird? Was there a change in the bird's diet? Was the bird fed seeds or pellets?

I would just try and take my bird with me if I traveled somewhere far for over a few weeks. She's a quaker, so is illegal in a few countries (for really stupid reasons I can explain if anyone asks). I'd have to land somewhere she was legal, and travel by foot or bike to try and get to a place she wasn't. Or something. Maybe put her in a nice handfed-parrot aviary for a few weeks, or find someone good with birds on the web. Who knows?

Originally Posted by Abra

It would be a lot harder to get a crow, though maybe not in Ireland. From what I read on /an/, they are much harder to take care of than parrots. When I had roof access, I would summon my neighborhood crows with peanuts. 2-5 would usually come, until that damned squirrel figured it out.

Nope fortunately here in Ireland baby crows fall out of their nests all the time (or get pushed out). My family have had two in the past both of them orphans. When you get them from a small age they are essentially quite easy to handle but as joanna said about parrots, crows too get very attached to the owner and every time we left on holiday the crow would fly away for good.

Our last crow was especially nice. For the first few months it can take some work teaching them how to do everything but then it gets really easy. Taking care is not so hard, teaching them tricks and what not might be more difficult then a parrot. I guess a baby crow might see you as it's parent or something making them easier to care for