The Importance Of Observation
A quiz for all bird owners: What one act is both the simplest and the most important thing that you can do to insure your birds physical and psychological well being? This one act is both easier than giving your bird fresh water and arguably more important than an annual vet check. Give up? It's Health - How many times have we all been reminded that birds are prey animals and mask symptoms of illness to avoid appearing weak? Well, hopefully plenty. And hopefully it sunk in, because it couldn't be more true. But this piece of information should be used as a warning and not an excuse as most diseases are not entirely hidden, and will not escape the careful eye. Since you must take action at the first sign of distress, you had better know exactly what comprises your birds normal weight, food intake, food out-take (consistency, frequency and appearance of droppings) and behavior. If you don't know what's normal, you won't recognize abnormal and you won't get your bird to a Vet until he is already very sick. This could delay treatment even further, because you may not be able to adequately describe his present physical or behavioral symptoms/indications sufficiently to put the Vet on the right track. It is no less important to keep track of your birds feathers. Poor feather quality can be a sign of a number of problems, most frequently, malnutrition. Additionally, feather plucking is often progressive and habit forming, so detecting early signs of feather damage/over-preening and taking immediate action can prevent a simple problem from developing into something significantly more difficult to remedy, and potentially more harmful to your bird, as plucking can lead to more severe forms of self-mutilation. Happiness (The birds) - Okay, cover your birds eyes so they can't help you with these questions. First, what are your birds favorite foods? Do they eat certain foods before others? When do they like to nap? When and where do they like to be scratched? What noises do they make and when? Are they more irritable at certain times of day? Of year? What are their favorite types of toys? Do they prefer certain toys in certain areas of the cage? Let's face it, from the perspective of our companion animals, we are their world. If they're going to get something, it has to come from us. (Except for furniture, buttons, remote controls, glasses, hair, scabs, our food, dogs tails, portable phones, pencils and pens; they take these by themselves.) So, if we don't know what we've been doing and how they've been reacting to it, we won't know what they like and don't like, or why. For example, our Moluccan Cockatoo, Hitchcock, tends to eat his pasta before his other "wet" foods. Accordingly, if I consistently put it on the bottom of his dish, he would probably die of malnutrition after ceremoniously tossing out all his other food to get to the pasta first. (Although, like many other parrots, Hitchcock will delicately remove and drop disapproved food items, he is capable, when truly offended by a certain offering, of tossing the item a distance measurable only by an automotive odometer. This may sound familiar to other Cockatoo owners.) This brings up another axiom of bird ownership: food that exits the dish is not necessarily food that enters the bird. Look at the bottom of the cage and see what wound up there. The "Crop or Drop" principle. Simple subtraction will tell you what was actually consumed. It looks like this: Food Given - (Food Left in Dish + Food Discarded) = Food Eaten -- Talk about new math. It is overwhelmingly easier to determine the cause of and, thereafter, remedy a behavioral problem if a bird owner can thoroughly and accurately describe the birds behavior and environment both before and after the problem developed. Given that most behaviorists conduct the bulk of their business over the phone, the more detailed picture an owner can paint, the more precisely the behaviorist can pinpoint the cause. Birds are very sensitive, and something that we don't even notice can have a huge effect on them. One great example of this came from a couple who were asking me about their Umbrella Cockatoo, who had, about six months prior, begun to scream in the afternoon and bite in the evening. The couple owned a small restaurant and took the bird to work with them every day. I inquired as to whether they had always taken the bird to work. They said that they had; they said that absolutely nothing had changed about the birds living situation. (Well, if that won't set off the old manure detector, nothing will. Smart as birds may be, they don't usually just spontaneously decide that it would be fun to start biting. Although, after the fact, they seem to find that it is.) This lead to their asking me how their impending move may affect the bird. "Moving?" I asked. It seems that business had improved so dramatically over the past seven months that they were buying a house. Their idea of marketing the restaurant as a coffeehouse/tearoom had managed to fill the one to four p.m. lull experienced by most restaurants. Now let me get this straight: afternoon business increases seven months ago and bird starts misbehaving about a month later? It seems that the increase in business was significant enough to deprive the bird of his afternoon nap (a parrot staple). Well, I know how I feel when I'm deprived of my nap. To the owners, at the restaurant -- was at the restaurant, irrespective of whether they were busy or not. They moved the bird out of the restaurant and into the office during the afternoon and their problems were over. Sure, some birds nip occasionally or scream for the pure joy of it, but the general rule is that a happy and properly socialized bird will not start biting, screaming or plucking, unless something has caused him some measure of distress. Awareness of your birds surroundings will make easier work of figuring out how to keep him happy. Happiness (Yours) - If you think your bird is the only one who is suffering during constant screaming fits, then you have never owned a large Cockatoo or Macaw. Believe me, when they're miserable, you're miserable, anyone you're on the phone with is miserable, your neighbors are miserable, your dogs are miserable, your neighbors dogs are miserable; you get the picture. Hitchcock has several different screams/yells/noises, most of which, to the trained ear, sound quite different from the others. Let's see, there's: "I'm really happy", where are You?", I'm hungry, Why did you stop?î, "Don't even think of messing with me", "Hey, you're kinda cute" and "I want attention in any form, and I want it now". Of course, who can forget everyone's favorite, the Salute to Sundown. Now, given that this Cockatoo hasn't even mumbled anything remotely resembling "Hello", it is safe to assume that he didn't tell me the meanings of these screams. Furthermore, if I had divined this information through my psychic abilities, I wouldn't be sitting here writing this article, I would be in Las Vegas playing roulette. don't get me wrong, Hitchcock is a remarkably quiet bird, all things considered, but he does want his opinions heard, and the only reason that I know what Hitch is "saying" is through careful observation of his behaviors. The good part of understanding is that it gives me the ability to respond; to provide the necessary stimulus that will keep the bird, my eardrums and neighbors happy. (Note: As this is not an article dealing with screaming, please, please do not read this to mean that every time your bird screams you should do whatever he wants in order to make him stop, although most people do just that. However, if your bird has a sound that they make for wanting to be put to bed, or something else that will not contribute to problems of dominance or dependence, there is no harm in complying.) Additionally, any unusual noises (indicative of fear, injury, illness or the unmitigated gall of our Macaw to have climbed on the Cockatoos cage) are immediately recognizable. Finally, any unusual quietness, also a good sign of distress and/or illness, is also clear to the "aware" bird owner. Now, while there are some idiots who, like me, don't mind screaming, no one likes being bitten...unless you are a serious masochist, which could explain why you own birds in the first place. We all know one way that birds tell us that they don't want to be petted at a particular time. Ouch! Let me let you in on a little secret: birds have moods. Just like us, if a bird is in the middle of something, be it a nap, toy, pistachio or even just a daydream, they may not want to be interrupted. Pay attention to the signs and circumstances that usually precede the forceful application of beak upon finger. The beneficial side of this is that you can also learn to recognize when your bird will accept cuddling. This will allow you to prevent excessive blood loss as caused by approaching your bird when he is not so amenable. The more subtle benefit is that you can now offer affection before your bird "demands" it, because you will know when he is about to, which could save wear and tear on both your ears and your furniture. Your bird will just think that you are a mind-reader. Look, Touch and Listen - We can all learn about birds by reading or talking to behaviorists, breeders, Veterinarians or other owners. But exotic birds are such individuals and are so intelligent, that the only way we can learn anything about our particular birds is by going straight to the source. And until the day comes when my birds look up at me and say, "You know, the sweet potato you gave me yesterday wasn't quite warm enough and, by the way, I think I feel an upper respiratory infection coming on", I will continue to keep my eye on the birdies. Okay, maybe two bad puns per article.
|
OBSERVATION; paying close attention to your bird. Let's look at why. (Get it: "observation", "look at". I think that there is some sort of rule that all bird articles must contain at least one bad pun. If I am mistaken in this belief, please feel free to ignore that last sentence.)
Parrots Parrots Parrots