Parrot Behavior You Thought was Normal, but is Not
Today I wanted to talk about what is normal and abnormal for parrot care and life. I see a lot of myths out there due to too much information and thinking in an archaic way about what life with a parrot is. Because of this misinformation, people just live with behaviors that are abnormal thinking its normal. It disallows for parrots and their caretakers to get help sooner. As we know, the longer an animal preforms a behavior, the more challenging it can be, or impossible, to fully eradicate the behavior.
The first statement is “if you have a bird, you will be bit.” To start, I do believe that this statement is a great scare off for people who think they want birds without realistically wanting them. On the other hand, it is very misleading and untrue of parrot care. Parrot biting is an unnatural behavior. In the wild, it is rare for another parrot to bite another parrot enough to break skin. It is not a normal form of communication. The main reasons we see it in our care is due to frustration, not responding to body language, not teaching enough skills, and inadequate care in various ways. Parrots do not out the gate just bite, same with puppies for example. They are conditioned to respond this way depending on various factors. The argument of “they are wild, undomesticated animals” in this situation does not work because it is an unnatural behavior.
Bites do happen, but it is not something that should be an everyday occurrence. It is extremely rare for me to get bit. Even when I first got Crazy Bird, the parrot that almost killed two people, that was highly reactive, severe aggression, and launching, I have still to this day 4 years later never got bit by him. He is the worst bird I have worked with behaviorally in the severity of his behaviors, the complexities of his behaviors, and the longevity of rehearsing these behaviors. I have never gotten bit by him. Recently, my Meyers Parrot Noel has started to be aggressive around her cage. She would jump down onto my head when I bent down to service her cage and try to bite and attack. I have found through assessment that it was likely stemmed from me cleaning her cage with her in it. It is a practice I never recommend, but she always appeared to be comfortable, especially since she had the choice to leave the aviary with the door wide open. So, we are using management practices, like having her go into another cage while I clean her cage, while we are working on counterconditioning. I saw a bite happen, knew it was not normal, and immediately started working on decreasing the behavior. It has gone well so far!
Biting can also be a sign of something medically going on with your bird. Chronic pain, injuries, illness, organ failure, and so much more can cause an increase in biting in parrots. Maybe your bird is hormonally triggered and needs hormone regulating implants and injections. I hesitantly put hormones in here because EVERYTHING is blamed on hormones when it rarely is related. Since I am talking generally here, I do need to mention it. Whenever you see a change in your bird’s behavior, droppings, weight, amount of food eaten, or for me if they blink the wrong way, always contact your vet first before a behavioralist. If you contact me, that is what I am going to tell you to do unless your bird has been to the vet since the behavior has started and has been medically cleared.
If you are getting bites consistently from a bird, or consistently doing a specific thing, like Noel’s cage cleaning or stepping up or servicing the cage or bowls, then you need to either work on the behavior yourself or find a professional to help you. Living with it puts us and our parrots under chronic stress. This can lead to medical concerns arising in the bird due to prolonged stress, as well as push us past our breaking point and deciding to rehome. Through my work, I want to get to clients before they are thinking about rehoming, even though most of my clients come to me with the ultimatum of we help these behaviors or they rehome.
The next one is about parrots and their energy levels. I have met many parrots, mostly cockatoos, that are high strung. They never sit still, they are always searching for enrichment, pacing, etc. Usually, an increase in vocalizations also happen with parrots like this. This jitteriness is not normal. Yes, parrots are higher energy birds, and no we do not want perch potatoes, but it becomes excessive. This is not just hot cockatoos, or whatever species, is. It shows something is not adding up right. It could be diet related by feeding too much, too much fats, too much sugars, too much carbohydrates. It could be the bird’s cage is too small for them, especially when they are spending all day in it while you are at work. It could be they need more exercise through walking, climbing, flying, bathing, etc. resulting in likely making play areas bigger and more complex. It could be not enough mental stimulation. It could also be signs of stress and frustration, so other avenues and reasons also need to be considered beyond what I listed.
On the other hand, perch potatoes are also not normal. Parrots can slow down with age, but sitting in the same spot on the same perch all day is not normal energy levels as well. This is very common in amazons; I know I have them! This is a bird that needs a more complex environment and more enrichment to motivate them and interest them to move around. Depending on why the bird is being lazy will depend on what you change. Getting a bigger cage with things more spread out can increase your bird’s mobility. Doing more training can help. Bathing can increase the want to chew after, as well as get the bird moving and expelling energy with flapping.
Like I mentioned before, if your bird is too lazy or too high strung, always see a vet first before contacting a behavioralist. Both can be signs of mental health concerns, vitamin deficiencies, illness, etc. Your vet should medically clear your bird before you reach out to a behavioralist. This is a big thing because you could hire me or someone else to help with your bird’s behavior, and we never see a big difference no matter the methods we try. So, you have invested in a behavioralist and trainer and then must invest more for medical care and diagnosis. If you started medically, then we know that its ruled out, and we can better focus on behavior work. Though a vet can be an investment itself, and maybe stressful for you and your bird, but it is necessary because of how well parrots can hide medical concerns. I never would have guessed that Merlin, my blue and gold macaw, had a previously broken wing. I expected arthritis due to his age and being in a small cage most of his life, but the wing break I did not consider. I wanted to teach him how to fly but because I wanted him to be medically cleared, my vet said he should not learn to fly, rather, focus on flapping on the perch. It was a safety thing. If I did not know, Merlin easily could have broken his keel bone or started to become aggressive due to increased pain.
Speaking of stressful vet visits, this is also not normal. Your parrot should never be stressed enough to pass away. I have had a bird pass away at the vets due to stress… It’s a long story of how it all happened but the summary is because of COVID I could not go in with my bird. They could not take in the towel he has been restraint trained for due to regulations at the time. I tried to explain his training, but he got too stressed and passed away. From the very beginning, I never blamed anyone for his passing. My vet cried as he told me that Gus passed away. They tried to resuscitate him for 10 minutes. After living through it, I never want anyone to experience that. I worked so hard with my guys on cooperate care behaviors to decrease this stress. Because they are exotics, needing to be restrained, and can be neophobic naturally, cooperative care is something I heavily emphasize with clients and in my education. Maybe you do not work up to the training needing for your vet to be able to take wing x-rays without restraint, or getting an injection willingly because that can be complex. But, the least we can do is carrier train, restraint train with a towel, and syringe train. Having these three foundational behaviors in cooperative care go the LONGEST way with decreasing that stress.
Let us be honest. I am sure that you have a parrot, or multiple that have not been to the vet in the past year. This is likely because the vet can be so stressful for us and the bird that it punishes us to wanting to do it again unless we absolutely must. With this looming fear of your bird dying at the vet due to what is commonly talked about online, it just does not happen. I get it. But, think about this another way. Does your puppy to kitty miss a yearly vet appointment? If so, its likely due to what I described above, but most people with domestic species take their animals willingly for yearly’s as prescribed because though the animal and yourself are stressed, there is no looming concept that your animal will die of stress. If even your domestic species behaviors keep you from going to the vet, again, its not normal, and there are tons of ways a behavioralist can help!
Without an emphasis on these valuable behaviors and understand your bird correctly, people do not focus on it and see the issues arising. There is more emphasis on training your bird to step up on your hand, do fun tricks, or cuddling your bird than teaching skills they need to be successful in our care. Looking at other exotic, undomesticated animals that we take care of, like zoos, they only focus on cooperative care behaviors, or curving unnatural behaviors seen. When I have worked with zoos, we focus on behaviors like going on a scale, presenting body parts for body checks and blood draws to avoid chronic sedation, reducing abnormal repetitive behaviors like gorilla regurgitation, etc. We do not focus on tricks and cute behaviors, or making them cuddly tame with people. We focus on showcasing the animal as naturally as possible to aid in education by observing the animal, creating connections with the animal, and education materials and presentations. The focus is on helping the animal cope and be successful in our care. We focus on enriching the animal’s life and making it the best we can for them.
Since these are wild and undomesticated animals, why aren’t we treating them the same behaviorally as we do a tiger, an elephant, a giraffe, and penguin? Why are we not following similar protocols of increasing species-specific behaviors, meeting their needs, while also helping them be successful in our care? I mean, if your bird was a tiger that was lunging at the bars at you, vocalizing, not letting you take food bowls away, etc. you would be like “oh ****, we need to fix this.” Because of stereotypes and untrue information, we can easily just put it off. Also, a 600g parrot is less frightening than a tiger, but why are we treating the same behaviors differently?
I understand that a lot of people may not have known this. Again, so much lack of proper education out there. I do not blame or judge anyone if you apply to these situations or had a similar though process. But this is now the wake-up call that these behaviors are not normal, and ways we are thinking and excusing unnatural problematic parrot behavior is just apart of the deal. It is a new year coming up, so leave those behaviors in the past.
If any of this applies to you, I want to help you. I work with all species of animals internationally. I will leave a link to learn more about my services below, but I want to give anyone reading this a 10% discount off their initial training session with me where you get a written training plan and a 1–2-hour video call to go over everything to get you started. I want to help genuinely, even putting the business aspect aside. I started my business with the sole goal of keeping birds out of rescues and in their loving homes through behavioral management and education. I started my career in rescues and initially thought I wanted to have my own. After working in one everyday 12-hour shifts for 6 years straight, learning the ins and outs of a nonprofit, I decided it is not my time for such an adventure. I still wanted to help. So, this was the next best thing that I could offer.
So, feel free to reach out if you have any questions, just want to chat, or if you are looking to learn more about my behavioral services. You can click on the links I provided, or just respond to this email. I do get responses from you guys!