04/01/2024
To cage, or not to cage... (deconstructed)
Birds fly... so why not have them free-flighted, all the time?
The dream is (of course) to have them in the most natural environment possible, fully flighted... with other birds, with plants, and if they *have to* be captive, in a massive aviary.
The reality, sadly, is not always as easy.
Here's why, unpacked in a few posts:
Let's explore it backwards from my list.
Part 1
If they *have to* be captive..
First up, the widely accepted idea is adopt, don't shop.
I never encourage buying birds - and certainly not from breeders - and I most especially discourage buying baby birds.
Not only because baby birds are hectic to feed properly (and it is the baby birds who suffer for our ignorance with burnt crops etc) but also, because doing so means the baby bird will grow up to see you as their parent.
Why is this bad?
Because: at sexual maturity, doting baby birds reject their parents, to seek a mate.
And no, being raised in your home will not erase this instinct.
If I had cash for every time I have read or heard "My baby bird loved me when he was little, now she bites... what can I do?"
Don't buy baby birds from breeders, is the answer.
Having said this.. birds are the 3rd most popular "pet" purchased... and the number 1 most surrendered.
They're fragile, complicated, expensive, loud, not particularly obedient (if you want obedience, get a dog) loud and messy.
Did I say loud, and messy? 🤣
And, if treated incorrectly, they bite.
Even when treated correctly, they bite.
Even so; people buy baby birds, or adult birds, and once they realize the stark reality; they surrender them.
(IF the bird is lucky.)
The amount of times birds are shunted into the garage and left to live out their miserably long lives there, is another post entirely.
Anyway: there is this.
The other common scenario is that the original owner has died and the bird was not placed in the person's will.
Or, the family is emigrating and can't take their bird with them.
These are the 3 most common reasons for the why, for the *have to* ... regarding birds being captive.
And no, you cannot release a parrot into the 'wild' ie suburbia.
Doing so is illegal, it is officially called 'Abandonment' for good reason, and it is an incredibly cruel (and wilfully stupid) act.
It subjects a bird with absolutely zero experience of these surroundings to illness, inclement weather, a terrible slow starvation or predation by raptors, dogs, cats and other wildlife.
Equally, the hapless bird may be recaptured by someone is completely ignorant and who keeps the bird in deplorable conditions, feeding it seeds only, until it dies. (There are fates worse than death, this is one of them)
Hence the emergence of parrot rescue and rehabilitation centres...
And: people with the strange capacity for playing the long game, who are oddly unbothered by piercing shrieks, endless mess and have leathery fingers.
Ie people like me, who take in these long-lived, deeply suspicious, hard-to-win over feathered beings, with their precious pliers-faces.. 🤣
We are not everybody's version of ideal, but we are often the 2nd.. or 3rd..or last chance, that these birds have.
Next post:
Creating the aviary, and company. And after that, the cage.
