What Defines a Special Needs Parrot?

I often get asked “what is a special needs parrot?” What kind of extra needs do they have? Well, I think universally we can all agree that a special needs bird is a bird with a injury, deformity, or organ damage that requires special accommodations for, like different handling, unique cage set up, or lifelong medications.

But I think we can go deeper than that. I can easily argue that birds who have extreme behaviors needing consistent management have special needs right? I wouldn’t usually practice all these management training with a bird that is sweet all the time with everyone. So wouldn’t the training be special care?

Like for Crazy Bird, my blue front amazon, he’s literally tried to kill two people, as well as given tons of others some extremely damaging bites. His training that I do everyday is to keep him from feeling the need to aggress while building our trust. I guess he’s a bad example because he does have neurological problems, balance issues, and vision problems which would make him true special needs, but his behaviors are easily arguable to add to that list.

I think this also comes back to humans. We are so hypercritical of people with disabilities and special needs to dismiss them. “That’s not real.” “You’re over reacting.” I have my own slew of severe medical problems, and I get it ALL the time. But when we look at the actual definition of special needs, it is “needing special requirements resulting from learning difficulties, physical disabilities, or emotional and behavioral difficulties” but it never lists what exactly those are. As long as __ is affected for that person to need unique care or aids unlike the average would be special needs.

I’m glad not all of my birds appear to be special needs at first glance. That doesn’t mean I won’t put the same amount of energy into a bird that is less disabled than another. No matter the unique qualities by animals have, they’re all equal in my eyes in what they deserve from me.