by Darko » Thu Apr 19, 2018 11:38 am
When I fly with my paraglider or do skydiving I have greater chance of making my life shorter but it's still better life then living unadventurous safe life inside an apartment, and when we; fly,run, ski, ride a bike or drive a fast car and rapidly move through space our entire metal and body chemistry changes in a matter of seconds. This is because all of our senses of sight, sound, touch and hearing shift into an entirely different gear. The simple task of knowing what is going on around us when we are moving at a normal pace becomes a very complicated three dimensional puzzle of super-fast decisions. Our brain has to learn to figure out what important things are changing while everything is changing around us. As we achieve the ability to operate on this much higher level, we become something of a Superhero that changes who we are and the way we experience life. The same thing happens to a bird when he has the freedom to fine tune his flying skills.
You can spend lots of money on full spectrum lights that rarely work properly, or spend a few minutes outside each week.
For a bird to benefit from even the best indoor full spectrum lighting system it is necessary to have a very high intensity light source very close to the bird for several hours a day. If the light source is not intense enough to eventually cause sunburn it is of little benefit. Outdoor intensity is hundreds of times greater and makes contact with the entire bird. Inside light sources are too low to make a difference and usually illuminate only one side of the bird at a time.
Without lots of exercise the best diet will not maintain adequate bone density. Muscles pulling on bones build bones with available calcium. As a bird flies a great deal of stress is put on all of the bones making them denser and stronger. To maintain adequate bone density as an adult a young parrot needs to aggressively exercise to develop very dense bones so they can maintain bone density as they get older.
It is important not to confuse passive play with toys and flapping wings on top of the cage as activities that encourage bone and muscle development. The activities must involve weight bearing or resistance exercises. A parrot can only achieve these goals through flight.
Wild parrots fly for miles and do not pant when they land. Most parrots cannot run across a room without becoming oxygen deprived.
Without a fit cardiovascular system nothing else really matters. Parrots suffer from all of the same problems inactive people do. For 20 years veterinary medicine has been preoccupied with learning about basic health and disease control just to make the average parrot “well”, soon they will start considering your pets “fitness”. Can you visualize the parrot stress test of the future? Yes, you can do an EKG on a parrot.