I appreciate all the new followers from what I’m guessing is one of my parrot posts, so please understand I’m only saying this because it always comes up and I feel morally obligated to stress this: PLEASE DO NOT GET A PARROT BECAUSE MINE SEEMS FUNNY. PARROTS ARE NOT LIKE OTHER PETS. THEY ARE LIKE CHILDREN. YOU CANNOT HAVE A PARROT AND EXPECT IT TO SIT IN A CAGE ALL DAY, OR PLAY WITH YOU ONLY WHEN IT’S CONVENIENT FOR YOU. THEY ARE LOUD AND SOCIALLY NEEDY, AND IT IS CRUEL TO TRAIN THAT OUT OF THEM.
A parrot that rarely screams or wants attention is often either physiologically unhealthy or emotionally broken. Vocalizing is just part of their day. They also habitually shriek with the expectation that others will casually call back to let them know they’re still alive: parrots are prey animals and this is what flocks do for survival. Parrots will scream when it’s upsetting or inconvenient to you, FULL STOP.
Punishing parrots for natural behavior is WRONG, but that’s what humans do because we’re selfish and myopic.
* We cannot watch TV or listen to music most of the time because my parrot starts shrieking. He thinks it’s time for everyone to vocalize, because that’s what flocks do. Punishing him for this in the past made us seem unreasonable and mean, not to mention it hurts their feelings – everyone else gets to make noise, but not him? – and he treated us accordingly. He was wary of us, would try to bite us, got upset around us, etc.
People do not think like parrots. We don’t realize that when we yell at a parrot for something like that, it’s as if we were having a conversation with our friends, and another friend walked over, and we screamed, “SHUT THE FUCK UP!” at them. Imagine how terrible you would feel if you were that friend. That’s how we make parrots feel: like they are unwanted and beneath us. But unlike the hypothetical friend, parrots can’t go somewhere else to feel loved and valued.
* I can’t have phone conversations without my parrot talking over me the whole time for the same reason. I have literally had to just give up and hang up on people multiple times.
* Other times, noise simply upsets him, and he stays wound up and anxious until we turn it off. To his credit, he often tries going in another room instead, and sometimes that’s enough.
* Whenever I sit down to write, there are spells where I have to get up every several minutes just because my parrot wants something from me. This is balanced out by long hours during the day where he’s pretty chill, but please understand, no human gets to schedule that. Some parrot trainers will say you can make them stop by ignoring them, but that made our parrot angry and resentful and more needy – as it should, because THEY ARE LIVING BEINGS AND HAVE NEEDS. You can’t enslave a creature, then get upset when it relies upon you for all its needs. Social needs are just as important as food and water and toys, and you’re a dick if you ignore a screaming parrot just because you’ve decided your needs are more important. Your parrot didn’t buy you and lock you in a cage, you made a decision to take a creature out of the wild and strip it of its freedoms and all the birds that would be meeting its social needs.
Writing is important to me, but I cannot morally ignore a creature whose very basic needs aren’t being met. This means I have to stop writing and do things that are boring for me, or things I’m not in the mood for, just like if I had a toddler. You know when little kids want you to play with them when you have a million things you’d rather be doing? And you have to put on a happy face and act like it’s fun? Yeah.
This causes me a ton of stress every day. A couple of times per week I regret ever getting a parrot, and I knew what I was getting myself into. People tell me I’m one of the most patient people they’ve ever met, but I still snap a few times a week, get frustrated at my parrot, and then have to apologize because he didn’t do anything I shouldn’t have expected.
* Most of the time a parrot screaming just means “PLEASE INCLUDE ME!” I have to carry my parrot around on my shoulder while I’m doing chores, even though this is ergonomically uncomfortable and slows me down considerably. And sometimes there are activities where he can’t be included, and I have to feel like shit about it because he just thinks I don’t want to include him.
And then there’s everything in this LONG LONG post I wrote in the past: the costs, all the things you CANNOT have in the house or they might die, all the behavioral problems you’ll encounter, how you shouldn’t get one if you want to travel much, etc. Do you like wearing perfume, or painting, or putting styling products in your hair? Are you a smoker? You won’t be able to do a lot of those things anymore, or not indoors. Are you done with school yet? Do you want to travel? Do you intend to have kids later? That’s going to cause an upheaval that could change your parrot’s personality into something you can no longer deal with.
I honestly no longer believe parrots should be kept as pets because I don’t think most humans are capable of meeting their social and emotional needs. I love my parrot dearly and want what’s best for him, but he was born in captivity. I can never get rid of him because of the psychological trauma it causes a bird to be separated from their flock. Mine is an African Grey, and in the wild, they form decades-long monogamous attachments. I go out of my way to prioritize my parrot and I still feel like shit that he doesn’t have a real mate or anything, and it DEFINITELY causes behavioral issues. I can’t get him a mate because 1) they’d just make more parrots doomed to be pets, and 2) if I get him a male parrot or another species of parrot for companionship, they might not get along and then I’d have TWO needy parrots. That’s also a big financial burden I can’t afford right now. So instead, my parrot wishes *I* were his mate, and sometimes gets so jealous of my husband that he attacks him. This despite the fact that I’m super careful not to touch him in any ways that parrots consider sexual. It’s rare that he attacks my husband, but it makes me feel bad.
The only parrots that anyone should consider as pets are the MANY that are in parrot rescues. Rescues are ALWAYS full because people get parrots for nothing more than their own amusement, then get upset to discover other living creatures don’t exist solely to please them. And those birds are NOT a good option for anyone who has never owned a bird before, because they are often traumatized and have severe behavioral issues, thus need to be handled with even MORE love and care than usual. They’ve been given up by their previous owners, don’t understand why, and have sadness and trust issues.
Parrots are not like cats. Cats are predators and being alone doesn’t make them think they’re going to die. Cats have been domesticated.
Parrots are not like dogs. Dogs are predators, and while they’re social and you can certainly get a very needy dog, I have NEVER met a dog as needy as a typical parrot except for psychologically damaged rescue dogs. Dogs have been domesticated.
Parrots are prey animals who rely on their social connections to their flock for a feeling of safety. Parrots are not domesticated. Imagine if you had a dog who literally felt it was going to get eaten when it was alone. Imagine if every time you couldn’t give your dog as much attention as it wanted, it started hyperventilating because it feels so unsafe.
Sure, some parrots, for whatever reason, aren’t so bad about this. Some species are a little more secure. Some people have well-adjusted parrots because they have multiple parrots and dote on them all, but most of us can’t afford this and don’t want to put in that much effort. And some parrots end up hating humans so much they feel safer alone than being yelled at, and so they go into a cold silence for the rest of their life. But you can’t assume you’re going to get a parrot whose behavior will mesh with human expectations, because parrots are not mammals.
Watch the documentary Parrot Confidential on Netflix or PBS if this didn’t convince you not to get a parrot. No one wants to think they’d be the pet owner who leaves their parrot under a blanket all day, or never lets them out of their cage, or ignores them for hours, but most people are terrible at making another human their priority, much less an animal whose emoting is alien to them.
Many parrot owners and former breeders in that documentary have reached the same conclusion I have: they shouldn’t be pets, but now we can’t do anything about it except warn other people not to get them.
