Taking Sennie for a walk and socialising with others

[JaydeParrot]

Took my Sennie, Cain out to a quiet market place, had her on my shoulder (on a harness). As always, people wanted to meet her, give her a little stroke, which I generally ok, I just watch and make sure she's alright with the attention.

I'm sure everyone who takes their bird outside on a harness has met this type of person but wow! What a learning curve!

I walked past this one market stand, the lady at the stand saw Cain and asked if she could stroke the bird, I said sure just be gentle, which she was- She just wouldn't leave Cain alone. After over a minute of head strokes I could tell Cain was 'fed-up' so I made my excuses, took Cain off my shoulder, put her on my index finger and tried to walk on. The woman just seemed even more interested, walked up to me and pushed her hand against mine to try to get Cain to step up to her like she just did for me.

Poor Cain put one claw on the woman's hand, unsure of what was going on. I quickly had to put my hand around Cain, pick her up and hold her to me to make sure the situation didn't get anymore out of hand than it already seemed. The woman continued to try and interact so I had to give a brief smile, told her I had to leave because I was late to get a car ride home and quickly walked away.

Phew! I try to only walk Cain around nicer, easier going places but... I wouldn't have blamed Cain for biting the woman, I'm not a parrot and I still wanted to bite her, .

Even so, besides that the walk went alright, for the first time ever I met someone who correctly identified Cain as a Senegal Parrot (instead of a cockatiel, budgie or canary ).

I even met a family who said they were having parrot trouble themselves, they were thinking of getting a smaller cage to make the bird quiet, I convinced them not to saying the bird would only be more bored and so probably be more noisy as a result. They said they'd had it for years and asked if I thought they should take it out of it's cage to interact, I told them DEFINITELY and that being such intelligent creatures, a parrot would be miserable in a small cage for its entire life. I explained some of the best and easier ways to tame a parrot. They liked Cain and seemed interested in trying to make their bird as tame as mine.

So troublesome woman aside, it was a great walk.

Anyone else have any interesting experiances taking their parrot outside?

I always get asked if Cain is a baby bird (people always seem to think parrots should be bigger), does anyone else ever get this question?

[Elaihr]

Hi!

I'm currently training my Blue-headed Pionus Penny to wear a harness, and it's going alright (a bit slow, but I'm not in a hurry). As she won't accept getting it put on entirely yet (she sticks her head through the head-hole but is pretty quick to get out of it again) I've been taking her outside in a small dog's cage, it pretty much resembles a small bird's cage... She seems to enjoy it, although last time she was a bit freaked out when a toddler came up to us. She panicked a bit but when she noticed the little girl didn't do anything she calmed down, so I guess it was a good learning experience

I've had people say she's both small and big! Some people think she's huge (guess they're comparing her to a budgie), while some say she's small (when they hear the word "parrot" they probably think macaw), and they ask if she'll get any bigger when she gets older.

Good luck on your walks, hope you don't meet more people like that woman, I understand why they're curious but some people really should read up on how to approach an animal (any animal, not just parrots) :/

[Pajarita]

No, my birds never go on walks anywhere. I believe exposing a parrot to the street and strange people is stressful and my entire husbandry revolves around reducing stress as much as possible from their life.

[Michael]

It's only stressful for birds that never go outside.

[Pajarita]

In reality, Michael, neither you nor I really know for certain. People thought that their lone pet bird was happy and healthy as could be but we now know that they were under stress to the point that they will, most likely, age and die before birds which had companions. Maybe, in the future, they will do a study comparing telomeres of parrots that are not exposed to strange people and places and ones that are and we will know for sure. But, in the meantime, I opt for the 'better safe than sorry' option.

[JaydeParrot]

Personally, I think taking a bird outside is good because it allows them to experiance the world outside of walls. It can be stressful but to be honest I sometimes have days where I feel too stressed to want to leave the house, but if I didn't push myself to leave the house I'd just be a
really unsocialised person who'd be setting myself up for failure as I'd have no viable social skills when I finally did have to meet or socialize with others.

Both my birds have blossomed from scared shells, terrified and screaming when someone just walks into the same room as them, to parrots so tame you'd think they were 6 month old hand reared birds- they lie on their backs, fly back to me on command, e.t.c. I try to push them a bit further everyday to make them more and more tame so that they don't stress when something unexpected happens.

That said, if you're a rescuer of more than three or four parrots, the idea of harness training them all and taking them each out for a walk at least once a week can be tough to near impossible and for different reasons may just not be ideal. There's different theories on this, I personally think taking parrots outside builds character, gives them the ability to understand the world outside of their home, how to deal with new problems and ultimately prevents them from stressing out so much when they're presented with new problems.

What is a telomere?

[mrbowlerhat]

for the first time ever I met someone who correctly identified Cain as a Senegal Parrot (instead of a cockatiel, budgie or canary ).

Haha, someone once heard Alaska chattering in her carrier and said "ooooh, is it a parrot?". I showed her Alaska, and she was like "Oh. Heh. What a pretty parakeet."
...And I just stood there like "..........:C NO. She's a big, bad, dangerous TIGER----- I mean SENEGAL PARROT! :C"

[JaydeParrot]

Yeah, lol I always say the bird doesn't have to be big to be a parrot but people still...

Was really suprised when someone saw my on my shoulder and asked if she was a Canary though, .

[marie83]

I do think that if it is not done right then going outside would be incrediably stressful for a bird, as it would be for anybody or any animal, but for one that has been introduced and carefully managed then the enrichment and natural daylight benefits is a really good thing. I'm of the opinion that whilst we should fit round the animals we keep we wouldnt be doing them any favours if they were not used to different experiences so that when the unexpected does happen they are better equipped to handle it.
Like I say though, it all has to be carefully managed, you wouldnt chuck a toddler in the deep end of a pool and expect it to cope and learn to swim immediately.

I dont think that anyone could disagree that prolonged stress is a bad thing but each and every animal on the planet has some resiliance to short term and hopefully infrequent stress. Obviously wild animals have the opportunity to fight or flight and a parrot on a harness does not but most would become obviously distresssed and could be removed from the situation like jaydeparrot did.

[Pajarita]

Like I said, we can all have opinions but none of us knows for sure and my motto has always been "when in doubt, don't do it".

Socialization outside one's family and territory is a beneficial thing for predators which live in small groups with juveniles leaving to establish their own family group but you don't see it happening in the wild with prey animals. Parrots flocks are a large extended family, they always stay within their own territory (and this is the reason why it's calculated that 30 - 40% of bird species will become extinct due to global warming: because they can't 'move' to another territory as fast as the landscape would change) and do not 'mingle' with other species, most especially predator ones, so however gradual or 'well done' we do it, it's still not a natural thing and I try my best to make everything as close to nature as I can for them.

Besides, and I don't mean to offend anybody here but it's my honest opinion, I think that most people take their birds out to show them off because the bird would be very happy just staying in and interacting with his human.