by Pajarita » Thu Feb 15, 2018 11:21 am
No problem with the topic. Nothing is really 'dirty' or forbidden when it comes to health matters. Yes, pet birds that are overly hormonal do masturbate but macaws are all considered low hormone birds because they only have a single breeding season in the wild, small clutches and, sometimes, even skip a year as they continue supplementing their babies food intake for nine months after hatching so, for a macaw to masturbate, it means that it's super-duper overly hormonal -most likely due to many years or the wrong light schedule and, probably, also free-feeding it high protein. The problem with this is not only that the bird is physically uncomfortable and possibly, even in chronic pain, as well as terribly sexually frustrated [so we are talking both physical AND emotional stress] but that this indicates a very screwed up endocrine system and that means all kinds of problems because the endocrine system affects mood, sleep, appetite, growth and development, metabolism, tissue function, etc.
One needs to be very careful about stress when it comes to parrots... The thing is that captivity is always stressful to them - even under the best of circumstances and in the best of homes [my entire life revolves around my birds but I am under no illusion that they are stress-free]. It's inevitable because the conditions we keep them under and the diet we give them is so unnatural. You can't take an animal out of its natural habitat and social structure and put it in a completely different 'set-up' without harmful consequences to the animal - it's impossible. So eliminating stress is one of our 'main directives' as parrot keepers.