The Toast does not support the idea of having horrible, dirty birds living inside your home as pets, but we do not blame Katie for that and found her narrative enlightening.
In the spring of 2009 I got a text message that contained a picture of a bright green bird and the question “Interested???” beneath it.
Although aware of the weirdo stigma attached to parrots and their owners I’ve always been compelled by them and their alien intelligence. I had long since sworn to myself I would never own one for all the right reasons: I worked too much and wouldn’t have the time, the pet trade is an unethical horror-show, it’s cruel to own such an intelligent and long-lived creature, etc. None of this ever stopped me from lingering around their cages at the zoo or going to bird shows to gawk, but I was comfortable with my parrot-free existence until fate dropped one in my lap.
Sometime in the mid ’00s, Lee County Animal Services got involved with an elderly lady who lived in a run-down house on a valuable piece of property in the woods near the banks of the Caloosahatchee River here in the southwestern wedge of Florida. I only know what the officers noted upon arrival: the filthy house, sickly cats, free-running chickens and an expensive green bird in a big cage. The woman was not, shall we say, cooperative with the intrusion and for the next few years the agency– along with its municipal partner in crime, code enforcement–waged war on her, culminating in April of 2009 when conditions in the home had deteriorated to the point of justifying the seizure of the bird, along with her ailing Chihuahuas and multiple cats. Pictures taken as evidence are hard to believe, chickens and ducks roam free throughout the house, cats are in bird cages, a moldering dead rat disintegrates into the blanket on the chair she spent her days in, the fridge is packed full of rotten food, the shower filled with boxes, the toilet unusable, piles of animal feces on the floor.
Coincidentally enough, during this same period of time I met and eventually married a man who had an adult daughter that worked at Lee County Animal Services. She’d been an officer at the time of the agency’s original involvement and was working the adoption kennel when the raid finally occurred. It was she that texted me, knowing that I not only had a fondness for birds but was also a giant sucker. And so it was that Bruce came to live with us.
Bruce is an Amazon, a medium sized stocky green bird. He has a splash of yellow feathers on his head and he has brilliant blue streaks in his wing feathers interspersed with some red. Beyond the obvious, however, nobody knows much more about him. There are multiple varieties of Amazon and equally as many guesses as to which one of those he belongs to. His age is unknown, the band on his foot is untraceable (although it does indicate that he was bred domestically and not caught in the wild.) Even his gender is a guess; absent a DNA test, there’s no way to confirm that he is a male, unless he lays an egg.
He spent the first few weeks sitting glumly in his cage, quietly grinding sesame seeds to dust with his beak. If, as Emily Dickinson wrote, hope is the thing with feathers, Bruce did not get the memo. The loyalty and gratitude one encounters in a rescued dog or cat was nowhere to be found. He watched us cautiously and intently for weeks while I dutifully moved him into as big a cage as the screened in porch would accommodate and upgraded his feed to a mixture of pellets and good seed mix. Like all good adoptive mommies I scoured online for information, and much like human mommies I encountered some very shrill advice. One blog I encountered suggested that the only cruelty-free way to live with a bird was to dedicate the entire house so that he may fly free throughout it. Working was frowned upon, a diet of organic fruits and veggies a must.
Not being in a position to quit my job and not sure that allowing him to fly free in a house containing two dogs and multiple ceiling fans was such a good idea, I did try and provide him fruit which sat rotting in his cage until I threw it away. He began to warm up to me, allowing me to scratch his head and putting his foot through the bars of the cage like he wanted to hold hands. One night he moved over to the side of the cage and said, very clearly, “I love you.” I was beside myself.
The more settled in he got, the more he talked. Thanks to the unusual environment he’d spent the last few years in, he had picked up some very distinctive phrases. He repeatedly admonished a Carmen, in a thick elderly twang, to get her ass off the damn couch. He called for a Gracie repeatedly, inflection on the last syllable. He hollered at Carmen the most, asking “where you at?” and “I know you’re out there.” He counted, “1, 2, 3, ow!!” In rainstorms he would bathe himself in his water dish while singing “Rock a Bye Baby,” or his version of it anyway. “Rock, rock….babayyyyyyyyyy….” long pause while he splashed. “When the wind blowwwwwwssss…..” more splashing. “Rock. Rock.” Sometimes he would just yell “God DAMN, God DAMN” over and over again. He frequently threatened to tear Carmen’s ass in two.
We grew rather fond of the creature my husband came to lovingly refer to as “the crazy green bastard.” And he warmed up to me enough to allow me to hold him for long periods of time, give him tummy rubs and let him walk around while we had cocktails or watched TV. He was not openly hostile to my husband or anyone else but I was clearly his person of choice.
For roughly two years, Bruce and I lived a parrot honeymoon. He’d call “Where you at?” when he heard my car pull up. He’d greet me in the mornings with “Hi Bruce, I love you.” Or sometimes, the mortifying “Do you know mommy loves you?” in my exact voice. The calls for Carmen diminished; the drunken sailor version of “Rock a Bye Baby” became scarce, replaced instead with the various whistles my husband taught him. We took him to Georgia to visit my parents and we took him camping in our RV. Our friends and family delighted at the charismatic feathered fellow who lived in the cage on our porch.
In retrospect, of course, I should have known what was coming. All of the literature I encountered had sections on what happens to Amazons when they hit sexual maturity, named things like “the screaming hormonal monster” or “dealing with the nightmare that is a sexually mature Amazon” or “Surviving your bird’s transformation from Jekyll to Hyde.” As an English major you’d think I’d see foreshadowing when it’s right in front of me but, love-drunk with my silly bird and clinging to my hopeful belief that since nobody knew how old he was he was probably old enough to have already gone through bird puberty, I simply laughed these off.
In the fall of 2011 things were tense. My two dogs had died unexpectedly within six months of each other, and I was taking it badly. I was about to give notice at a job that I was deeply unhappy at, but needed to stay in through the end of the year. At said job I’d been recently re-assigned to a thankless position dealing with high volumes of difficult clients, and was working longer hours than usual. When I was home, I tended to sink into bitchy blue funks. Through my distraction, though, I’d noticed that Bruce’s demeanor was changing. Since the early days we’d kept Bruce’s cage open and his wings clipped so he could roam around his cage and stand-alone perch freely during the day. We have a large screened-in porch which functions as our second living room, and so he had the feel of being outside while still safe from predators and a part of the human flock. Around this tense time, the arrangement had to be revisited, as Bruce took to lunging viciously at my already-suffering husband, wings pinned back, pupils in slits, feathers raised. This was not a playful swipe, this was meant to hurt and he came awfully close to connecting beak to flesh quite a few times before latching onto the poor man’s arm while his back was turned as he innocently watered a houseplant striking distance from the cage. It didn’t draw blood but it left a deep and nasty bruise, and Bruce’s days of free-roaming the outside of his cage came to an end.
He changed towards me, too. His pupils would dilate when he saw me, and he would coo and cluck in an alarmingly creepy manner. He’d back away from me with his wings extended as though to invite me to dance with him. When he would allow me to hold him, he alternated between the trance-like cooing and hissing and panting with an occasional nip thrown in for good measure.
“He’s trying to mate with you,” my vet explained to me. As he said this, three vet techs–all visibly terrified–were attempting to contain Bruce in his towel cocoon while the vet trimmed his nails and wing feathers. The noises were unearthly, demonic-sounding, as Bruce protested and snapped. The vet looked at me kindly and with something close to pity as he said, in a quiet voice one would use to speak to a very small child, “Amazons get hot when they grow up.” When I suggested this was a seasonal issue, or some sort of mood disorder he shook his head, Bruce still screaming in the towel in his hands. “This is how he’s going to be.” I asked if it was something he might grow out of and a vague shrug was all I got. “Maybe.”
Upon my return from the vet it took me a full forty-five minutes to get him from the travel cage to his full size cage and I only succeeded after resorting to heavy gardening gloves. Bruce hasn’t had his wings clipped since.
And so, nowadays we share our home with a mean-spirited eccentric with the brains and temperament of a human toddler that can bite hard enough to shatter a human finger bone. His hatred of my husband has transformed into pure misandry. He lunges at the side of the cage like a cobra with a triumphant “Ha ha!” when a Y chromosome, regardless of age, gets too near his fortress. He will grudgingly allow me to pet his head through the bars sometimes, but, more often than not, will ignore me or snap irritably at my fingers. One morning not long ago I heard the distinct sound of laughter, a Disney villain-esque chuckle; a “Ha! Ha! Ha!” with a pause for a whistle, followed by “Yeah! Ha! Ha! Ha!” Bruce had pushed open a latch I hadn’t closed tightly and was sitting on top of his otherwise locked cage. Upon seeing me he ruffled his feathers, pinned his eyes, said “Hi Bruce! Yeah!” and let loose a string of high pitched giggly Ha!s. Clearly, he was proud of himself.
Inconveniences like these only happen on work days, which this was, and when I’m running late, which I was. Leaving him out of the cage was not an option but how was I to get him back in? Foolishly I stuck my finger out like in the old days and asked him to step up while I opened the cage door with the other hand. At this he looked me right in the eye, shrieked “Ow!” and sunk his beak into my finger with gusto. It dropped me to my knees and in the ensuing torrent of tears and cussing he took off flying from the top of the cage only to fly head first into the screen door. I sucked on my finger trying in vain to come up with a plan as Bruce bounced up from his collision, cocked his head at the screen and then turned around and sauntered back towards me and the cage. Parrots walk like ducks, therefore it’s not a particularly graceful gait but even allowing for that it was a damn fine impression of the sort of walk of shame one does after falling in front of a group of people. He silently waddled past me, hopped into his open cage, climbed to his favorite perch, and turned his back to me while fluffing his feathers. It appeared life outside the cage was not all it’s cracked up to be. No escape attempts have occurred since.
The What to Do About Bruce conversation is a frequent one at my house. My husband insists Bruce would be happier if we gave him to Busch Gardens or a parrot rescue but I am not keen on the idea of abandoning him like that. Bruce has always been a caged bird, he’s never experienced other birds and I don’t believe in dumping an animal just because he’s inconvenient, or as in Bruce’s case, a vicious, feathered eccentric. And while we can’t handle him like we used to, it doesn’t seem to bother Bruce. At night we watch TV and he’ll busily destroy a new toy or whistle along with a theme song or holler a wordless exclamation at a football game. His taste in nuts has changed over the years from almonds to peanuts. He used to prefer the grape-shaped fruit pellets, but now seems to favor the orange. When I give him a new toy or re-fill his peanut dispenser he’ll sound downright joyous when he says “Ha ha ha yeah!” I don’t think Bruce is miserable, I think he’s fine. It’s the human family that has to adapt to the bird and not the other way around. We’ll never know how old he is and Amazons live to be 25 to 30 years old. Who knows what version of Bruce we’ll have by then or when that will be? I can foresee a time when having a feathered misandrist roommate with a taste for legumes and tree nuts might be the only company I care to keep. So I shut the husband down when he brings up relocation. I buy raw peanuts in bulk and sweep feathers out of every corner in my house. The essence of Bruce, the force of nature that is his personality, so distinct, so individual is a privilege to be a witness to. I adore him for all of his quirks and am happy to be his caretaker.
But I think I might invest in a good pair of falconry gloves, just in case he ever gets out of that cage again. And male houseguests are forewarned: I cannot guarantee your safety.
Tags: animals, birds, hoarders, katie turner, misandry, parrots, these are the bruces you know
I thought “free-runing chickens” may have been a typo, but it strikes me now that those chickens were probably involved in some sort of witchcraft, which was probably a theme among that woman’s birds. Hence, Bruce.
ETA: Even though it was changed, I still stand by my assumptions.
this is perfect
This came in IMMEDIATELY after you and I decided that an official Toast Stance was NO BIRDS AS PETS, but it was obviously perfect.
I am deeply honored that my weird bird adoption made the cut
If anything, I think this post affirms that stance.
“One blog I encountered suggested that the only cruelty-free way to live with a bird was to dedicate the entire house so that he may fly free throughout it.”
This doesn’t surprise me but I still have to register my horror about it.
There is a woman I know online who often lets her birds – who are fully flighted – roam at will through her house. I still sometimes shudder a bit, although I am all about live and let live.
no no no no no no no
Does this mean that they also…poop at will? Throughout her house?
*weeps*
I know someone who also lets her birds fly freely inside. Do they poop freely as well? Yes. Yes, they do.
For awhile she had a dove couple, one male, one of indeterminate gender. The male started courting me, apparently attracted by my frizzy hair (so I was told, helpfully). His mate retaliated by taking a copious crap all over my brand new shirt.
I hate everything about what you just described.
eHHHH tiny bird poops are easy to clean. No stains, no stink. If it means they feel happier, I’ll live with it.
Hardwood floors help.
Right but I guess I just worry about stuff other than the floors, like vases, or knicknacks, or bedsheets, or my hair. Maybe I’m overestimating how much birds poop?
Honestly, this is a big part of the reason I don’t have birds. It seems cruel to me to take an animal that can fly and then confine it to a very small place. :/
I had zebra finches as a kid, and many of my friends had finches or canaries or budgies. Most of them let the birds out of their cages for a while every day and the birds would fly around… and poop on things. I’m not down with bird poop inside my house.
Yes, this exactly. These are not indoor creatures.
(Sidebar: is it possible or rational to potty-train a bird?)
That’s an interesting question. Some people have, I guess? http://www.mit.edu/~rei/birds-potty.html
When a friend of mine worked at a pet store, they had a green parrot (don’t know what kind) who would get twitchy and want to be put on the floor right before he pooped, so I suspect it’s possible.
My friend’s cockatiel wears a bird diaper.
That is…a sentence, there.
Yep.
(Your friend will not be spared when the birds turn on us.)
I will begin distancing myself. Although, why I haven’t already (bird diaper and all) is beyond me.
I just did an actual spit-take.
I worked at a pet store for a while and one of my co-workers had a potty-trained bird (a conure, I think). The bird knew that he was supposed to poop when he was held out at arms length, so his owner would hold him out over a trash can and he’d go for it. I don’t remember how the bird indicated that he needed to go– maybe by chirping a bunch? It was pretty impressive. Incidentally, I was CONSTANTLY covered in poop of every kind at that job.
Katie, you are a better woman than I. This article should be handed out to every person fool enough to want to invite a small flighted dinosaur into their homes.
Thank you. It is a massive obligation. Why I agreed to do it is beyond me
So I read this: He’d greet me in the mornings with “Hi Bruce, I love you.”
I became vaguely unsettled. Cute, in a way. Certainly very adorable in what it indicates about the author’s behavior. But… a bizarre, rote facsimile of love? Somewhere between instinctual connection and real communication? I wondered, is this truly… the winged, feathered embodiment of the Uncanny Valley, provided by NATURE HERSELF??
Then I got to: At this he looked me right in the eye, shrieked “Ow!” and sunk his beak into my finger with gusto.
And I lost all capacity for thought, rational or otherwise.
For me, it was the villainous cackle as he devised a way to open his cage, “Ha ha ha!” I don’t know how much self-awareness non-human animals have, and I know some people think the answer is “none.” But the more stories I hear about animals responding to – or in this case, speaking – human phrases in an apparently meaningful way, the more I doubt that.
Me: “Oh no mister I see you, do NOT poop on this carpet”
Rabbit: stares me in the eye with utter contempt, then very deliberately takes an enormous dump on the carpet.
This is terrifying and incredible. Also, imagining “God DAMN, God DAMN” in Beyonce’s ***Flawless inflection.
This is an absolutely fantastic piece. thank you SO MUCH for sharing it. Above all, I hugely respect your commitment to the raising of a smart (if belligerent/asshole), long-lived animal. It seems like parrots would be a kind of pet that a lot of people dump.
Thank you. I am stubborn enough to suffer rather than pawn him off.
I spent the latter half of this cringing back as far away from the computer screen as I could get. Ye gods.
This article leads me to believe I have a lot in common with Amazon parrots.
As do I which may be why I am willing to tolerate his quirks..
One morning not long ago I heard the distinct sound of laughter, a Disney villain-esque chuckle; a “Ha! Ha! Ha!” with a pause for a whistle, followed by “Yeah! Ha! Ha! Ha!” Bruce had pushed open a latch I hadn’t closed tightly and was sitting on top of his otherwise locked cage. Upon seeing me he ruffled his feathers, pinned his eyes, said “Hi Bruce! Yeah!” and let loose a string of high pitched giggly Ha!s. Clearly, he was proud of himself.
THIS IS WHY I AM AFRAID OF BIRDS OH GOD THEY ARE SO CREEPY KEEP THEM AWAY FROM ME
One Easter, my dad got us a bunch of ducklings. My sisters loved them; I was afraid of them. The way they’d pop their fuzzy heads over the top of the box and then would stare at me reminded me too much of the velociraptors in Jurassic Park.
These days, whenever I walk my dog in the nearby park, which has a huge pond and tons of geese, swans, ducks, etc., I give those bird a wide berth. They are terrifying.
Don’t even get me started on geese. My uncle used to raise them and they would attack me when I would try to walk from my parents’ car to the house (I was ~3yrs old, so the geese were about my height). NOPENOPENOPE
Geese: honest-to-god velociraptors
I had a landlady who was keeping a small group of geese in the backyard.
Then they systematically killed their own babies/siblings, by a combination of neglect/ostracizing (in the cold) and straight-up violence. They are horrible.
My sister’s now EX husband had a parrot . My sister tolerated the parrot The parrot loved her. After she had a baby the parrot could imitate the baby crying so well she was constantly checking on the baby to find that it was Ziggy. When her marriage soured she spent weeks teaching Ziggy to say FU G- so that after she was gone, that’s what the bird said all the time to her ex husband.
Ah so we can train them to be misandrists
BIRDS ARE STRANGE D:
*coughs* ANYWAY, my mom’s friends used to have birds and one of them was quite attached to the husband and would try to attack the wife when she kissed the husband. ALARMING. Also, I feel ya big time on the keeping an animal that needs a lot of space and putting it in a very small space. After my grandmother died, we were left with her bird (named Tweety, ugh) and we felt shitty about the whole thing, but we didn’t know what else to do. Not that we did the right thing, but yeah.
Bruce is a fantastic animal name, though, and if my dog Bruce learned to speak by imitating me he would mostly say “hi Bruce, I love yeeeew” as well.
My dad used to have a parrot and it was just the worst.
This piece, on the other hand, is awesome. Good on you for your commitment to the crazy green bastard.
He is a terribly charming crazy green bastard, unless you happen to be a male
Damn.
I can’t imagine if every time after my cat bit me she said, “Ha ha ha, yeah!” (which is, I’m sure, what she is thinking). I suspect she wouldn’t have lived this long.
When I was a kid we had a parrot named Maya, who did a pitch-perfect imitation of the phone ringing, and loved biting everything she could. After she bit down on you, she’d let out this terrible “ha! ha! ha!” to let you know just how much she enjoyed causing you pain. I don’t think she ever broke the skin, but it was still QUITE unpleasant.
We ended up giving her back to the guy we got her from, and she was mauled by dogs a few years later. I really, really wanted to be sad, but no dice.
And then we had 3 cockatiels, which were very pleasant little puffballs. They’d kind of kiss you with their beaks and let you scratch their heads and aside from the pounds and pounds of birdseed they threw on the ground every day, they were really wonderful pets.
My granddad was once chased around our front garden by an enraged swan while my grandmother stood in the doorway, blocking the door shut and cackling. Birds and misandry: two great tastes, etc!
Just thinking on: going to a friend’s house and admiring their large bird, which is loose. Assuming it’s safe to pet but asking. Being told “no, it will take your finger off” in this cheerful, normal voice by my friend, as if it’s normal to have such a thing, by choice, in one’s home.
My grandfather had three parrots when I was growing up. Two Amazons and an African Grey. They stood on the table next to him at every meal and ate off his plate. He taught them to sing opera in the shower. They yelled “JEANETTE!” (my grandmother’s name) at regular intervals. They terrified yet fascinated me.
No. NO. We do NOT let the birds eat off our plates. NO.
I am a Bird Person and blah blah blah standard disclaimers that keeping a large bird is about the same as having a child in your house but ANYWAY
you can REALLY TELL i am an awful bird person because I read this and clasped my face and cooed out loud “AW, BRUCE LOVES HER”
I love you bird person!
My mom tells this story about her boss, who used to have a parrot. The boss’s wife loved the parrot, the boss not so much. Eventually, the parrot was given to another coworker who had other birds and enjoyed them.
One day in the elevator, boss asked adoptive coworker how the parrot was. Coworker explained he was settling in well, but they were surprised the first time their house got a little loud with kids playing and stuff and the parrot shrieked “SHUT THE FUCK UP!”
A parrot after my own heart.
I had a lovebird as a teenager. My mom bought him for my sister (I think it was a divorce thing). She named him Gus. Gus decided that he ADORED me and hated everyone else, especially men, and especially men who came near me. He would bite their necks and draw blood. Everyone in the house, including the dog and the cat, were terrified of Gus. God it was awful. He was so sweet on me though, and like cuddle under my hair and purr into my ear, rubbing my neck affectionately with his beak, and loved to ride around between my boobs, chirp/purring happily.
He also used to box the cherries on the cherry tree with his beak, which was pretty cute. Like a little Ali.
I couldn’t bear to clip his wings often enough, because watching him try to fly and not be able to broke my heart. Once he got away and ended up in a city a ferry ride away (taken there by caring people, not his little wings). We got him back. But eventually he flew away for good, and I like to think that he ended up with a real mate, one who matched him better in size. I bet she’s about 3 oz.
AAAAAAAAGH! As a teenager I got suckered into a cockatoo for whom I housesat a few times and who taught himself my name and did the same cooing “I love you” trick.
And then he tried to murder my family.
When I left for my first year of college, my parents quietly found him a place in an exotic bird sanctuary. I was beyond distraught, but you know what? Cedric found a (male) blue macaw who became his platonic life partner, and he is far happier than he ever was at my house, even with me, who (allegedly) he loved. So maybe you could let Bruce try out a situation with other birds?
I have put a lot of thought into it and if I found the right scenario I would give it a try but for now I don’t trust he’d be happier anywhere else. As ornery as he is he’s only ever been a one person bird.
Oh yeah, I totally get it, and honestly I wasn’t trying to convince you to do anything in particular with him! I just wanted to share my experience because I would have sworn to you up one side and down the other that Cedric would only ever be happy with me, and then he was way happier with his new friend. It’s so hard to tell with them, though, and you’ve got to do what you think is best, knowing what you do about the bird.
“And then he tried to murder my family.”
HOW HAS NO ONE ASKED FOR DETAILS ON THIS PART? I am imagining the bird hopping around with a knife in its beak, going “Ha ha ha!”
“in the woods near the banks of the Caloosahatchee River”
I dearly love the place names in Florida! (And also listening to out-of-state folks fumble their way through “Lake Kissimmee”)
It’s one of the things that makes hurricane season so much fun: listening to national anchors try and pronounce names like Pahokee and Appalachicola
We also have this in southern Louisiana! I love to hear out-of-towners say Tchopitoulas.
This tale, as well as the others in the comments alerting me to the fact that terrifying misandry-driven birds are a thing, have warmed my mad bird-loving heart.
(Also the tag “these are the bruces you know”, oh ho ho, bless you The Toast, bless you.)
I loved this. Bruce sounds hilarious and I kind of wish I could hang out with him. More stories about weird pets!
I admit it. I’m a crazy bird lady. I even turned my best friend into another crazy bird lady. This story was awesome, and I see a lot of my own amazon parrot in Bruce! I have had my Mo since he was only 3 months old. He’s almost 16 years old, now! Life with a crazy amazon doesn’t have to be hell. I would love to share some tips and tricks I have learned with Katie!
ANYTIME!!
Firstly, Katie, you are one brave soul to take on a second-hand bird! I highly commend you!!
Here are a few things that have helped immensely with Mo.
1) No more fruit!! I read somewhere (I can’t remember where, sorry), that many wild amazons only have access to in-season fruit near the beginning of their mating season. Eating fruits brings about a hormonal change that causes mating behavior. Amazons can be really aggressive, even to their own mates. If Bruce has already “claimed” you, this doesn’t surprise me that he’s being a crazy bird if he’s feeling frisky.
2) No more peanuts! Peanuts and sunflowers are high in fat, and also have a chemical that is addictive to little birds’ brains that makes them go all Hulk-psycho/unpredictable, like a kid who eats only potato chips. (No, I don’t have kids. That’s a whole other issue.) Of course birds like peanuts and sunflowers, they’re junk food! The oil content can make feathers get blotchy black spots, too. While feeding wild birds this stuff is one thing, house birds don’t benefit from it. I recommend almonds, because they’re much lower in fatty oils, and don’t cause psychosis. Mo loves “lazy nuts” that are easy to open, or even unshelled. My macaw must have them in the shell, no substitutes.
3) Birdchannel.com has really good info and articles, good reminders and tips. I’m pretty sure this is where I read about the fruit thing, but again, can’t remember.
4) I highly recommend the book The Parrot Problem Solver, by Barbar Heidenreich. It has helped get me through tough situations with my own birds.
Hang in there. It doesn’t have to be hell. Even Mo has unpredictable days where he’ll be totally snuggly earlier, then later turn around and jump at me like a fighting chicken. We’re having a time right now, as the daylight hours are getting longer, and he’s getting “spring fever.” All this info is what has helped us with Mo, my amazon. We also have a second hand macaw, which is a whole other bowl of nuts and bolts and crazy! I admire your patience and stubbornness. Many blessings on your endeavor!
Wow thank you so much. I had no idea about peanuts! What do you feed your guys? I gave up on fruit a long time ago because he wasn’t interested. Right now I have him on Zupreem and the Kaytee seed and nut mix for macaws. Any suggestions?
Zupreem is good food. My macaw gets the rainbow version, as well as the conure. Mo gets Kaytee’s boring old brown stuff, but has only recently been interested in the “rainbow cereal” Zupreem. I let him have a fistful on top of his brown pellets, until we get low enough on those to try to switch him over. I’ve been trying for YEARS to get him to eat the rainbow stuff, but I guess it just wouldn’t be the same until he saw his bird-sister gorging on it. They all get fresh veggies daily, and have their own preferences. Most often accepted are red peppers, sugar peas, sweet potato (I tell Mo it’s cheese and he runs over, then gives me a dirty look when he bites it and discovers it’s not cheese!), Brussels sprouts, or broccoli. The macaw also gets LaFeber’s garden veggie/seed ball treats, and in-shell almonds with her breakfast. If she doesn’t get these in a timely fashion, she screams her little hiny off. Surprisingly, the macaw doesn’t really have noticeable behavior change with bits of fruit or other treat foods. Mo, however, will be a demon-face the day after having apple (which he asks for by name), or hot oatmeal. I hate to be a jerk, but I just can’t have him acting that way, so he doesn’t get these things anymore. (Me: “I made you breakfast, Mo!” Mo: “Some apple!?” and runs over to his bowl. Me: “No, but you have tasty green peas and pretty red peppers!” Mo checks the contents of his bowl then glares at me.) Sorry for the short novel, but I hope this info helps!
It does! Thank you! I am going to incorporate these suggestions as soon as I can. How long do you let the veggies stay in the cage before you take them out? When I was trying to give him fresh stuff before it would get rotten real fast…
I throw out uneaten veggies in the morning, when they’re replaced by new veggies. If something gets nasty or rotten before then, it gets thrown out. I go by the rule of if I wouldn’t eat it, I don’t expect the birds to eat it.
The macaw is notorious for immediately throwing unwanted veggies (broccoli, Brussels sprouts) on the floor. Those get taken out the next morning or two, also.
Katie, I am Rita Murphy’s Mom. My husband, Ray, has a 22 year old Senegal parrot, Thelma, who thinks that SHE is his wife, not me. Your story is hilarious & I look forward to reading more from you.
Mary Huber
Oh my gosh! Hi! And thank you!
My boyfriend’s mom has a cockatoo named Peaches and she is THE WORST. She’ll look you right in the eye and scream ear-splittingly, and she’s incredibly mean. On the other hand, my boyfriend’s dad has a cockatiel named Peekaboo, who is a little annoying but mostly hilarious. He likes snap peas, biting holes in books, and you can hypnotize him by shaking a sock (or dishtowel, or tissue) over his head. He’ll follow that dang sock anywhere, singing to it cheerfully.
People who do not understand parrots should not have them.
My grandfather had this Galah – a type of Cockatoo with pink and grey colouring – which lived in a cage beside the outdoor toilet in his backyard. When I was a kid and we stayed there I’d be terrified of going to the outdoor toilet in the middle of the night for all sorts of reasons but also because the Galah would shriek and scream at you. In the day, it would say much more reasonable things like “hello sexy legs”, which my grandfather thought was hilarious.
My partner and I are foster parents to an African Gray and my partner is the preferred human. I, as the human partner, am a reviled and hated human. The key to out happy coexistence is realizing that I am in the way of their forever unconsummated love and not taking it personally. I have internalized that to the parrot I am an obstacle to BOTH survival and reproduction and that evolution has shaped each and every living organism to respond to such a threat with every ounce of on’s being. When my partner is away, I have to resort to subterfuge to get the parrot back in the cage. Pound cake or cheese in small doses works. We also read that responding to bites by screaming is the wrong thing to do: the emotional response give the bird positive feedback. Indifference after the fact or social ostracism is much better punishment. Parrots are social animals and being socially isolated (e.g., putting in a cage and showing your back to it and then closing door) is a very effective training tool. This has worked for us, it does not stop the parrot from occasionally lunging at me, but keeps the biting to a minimum.
Thanks for this article, I am going through this EXACT issue with a conure I’ve had for several years. He used to be so playful and great but all the sudden he’s a time bomb for random attacks. I’m a guy and his behavior improves a little when my long distance GF is visiting, but it’s becoming difficult to not think of him as a great source of stress.
Bird puberty is straight up horrifying. I feel your pain.
A friend sent me this article because she knows I’m a parrot person. I got my first parrot, Jade, for my 12th birthday. I’m turning 30 soon, and still have Jade. (Pardon any typos, she is standing on the keyboard.) She is a little foot-long green parrot called a nanday conure. She pulled her feathers out when I went to college and left her with my parents. She also lost an eye when one of their foster cats bit her. (Their own cats had the fear of got put into them, so we were lax having little Jade out with the foster cats.)
Despite her missing eye and feathers, little Jade could live to be 30. The rescue I work with has two amazons that are around 50-60 years old. So, Bruce may be around for quite a while.
PBS recently had an episode of Nature on parrot rescues, and as a “parrot person” I thought it was accurate and worth watching. Parrots are challenging pets, and people buy babies and then dump the bird off on someone else when they have a baby, get married, or get old. Parrot rescue are overflowing with older birds that nobody wants as pets. The documentary is here: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/parrot-co…
I saw that documentary and found it fascinating and tragic. It reaffirmed why I wasn’t willing to send him to a rescue and made my husband understand it as well. We really don’t have any idea how old he is, the best guess is somewhere around 10 but that is only a guess.
This is an important and relevant video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYBAXBu_dpA