Lullabye

[JessiMuse]

I wouldn't be surprised if Alex would be, in some way, affected by the stress of being plucked and abandoned. I have dealt with emotionally stressed cockatiels before. We once rescued four cockatiels from the humane society, who showed signs of having been force weaned, which does create some permanent behavior problems. The youngest one who was the least problematic, liked being held to my chest with my hand over his body as I gave him scritches (I kid you not, he actually enjoyed it that way), and would bite me otherwise.

Compared to them, Alex is pretty close to normal. I can take a crybaby better than I can take a bird that bites me after immediately enjoying scritches.

And though it is true that a lot of animals including parrots and humans CAN suffer some permanent effects from early on stress, some parrots, like humans, can recover. Some may more likely recover than others, and I can only hope, for emotional stability in Alex.

Although aside from crying a little more than the average fledgling and wanting to cling to me constantly (that might be a given for baby birds), he still acts like the average cockatiel. I think the only real problem would be if I were to breed him when he gets older. I read a study somewhere that baby cockatiels who are plucked as a chick will pluck their own chicks.

[Greg]

The point was that stress (and physical and emotional stress both manifest alike, namely, by elevated production of stress hormones, hormones that have all kinds of different effects on the body -see the below study link) when babies affects their reaction to stress for the rest of their lives. The baby birds in the study were not actually exposed to stressors, they were given stress hormones, the reference to bad weather and lack of food was an example given by the researchers. This is the conclusion:
"Early exposure to stress hormones is known to affect later responses to stressful situations in the adult. Using the zebra finch as a model provides us with an important tool with which to investigate the role of stress hormones on adult characteristics. Our results show an individual’s stress response can be re-programmed as a result of post-natal exposure to elevated corticosterone levels. This indicates that if a bird is exposed to stress early in life, for example through bad weather conditions or lack of food, this has implications for the way it will react to situations throughout its life. We now want to study how the observed changes in stress hormone response relate to any behavioural changes observed, and in turn to birds’ long term health and survival.”

We already knew of many different consequences to elevated stress hormones (see below studies) but we did not know that suffering it early in life affected the birds for the rest of their lives.

More studies on stress:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 084509.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 084509.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 234825.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 102025.htm

http://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledg ... d-23672697

But, if you have articles from reputable sources that contradict this, please, post the links to them so we can all learn/compare to what this study found.

It took me a long time to read all those links. Not one of them even applies to baby parrots. No need to find anything to contradict it. I have to wonder why you are trying so hard to prove that a baby parrot would have a stressfull life with its owners because of some trauma in its past. Every study will find stress causes problems, and of course that would be expected, and in fact needed for their survival.

I survived a bad tornado when I was a child and it blew me blocks away from home and I still feel fear when the wind blows stongly. Why wouldnt any animal be the same? However, that does not mean I need extra special care the rest of my life, or unable to have a normal healthy life, or die earlier, only because I feel stress with heavy winds. I would never tell a parrot owner, that their loved baby, will have problems, even have a shorter life, because they had some stress early on. I dont have a fortune telling degree to do this. I have seen baby parrots, become so well adusted that the earlier traumatic stess could not even be seen.

Finches are not parrots. Finches will never have the kind of trust with owners that a parrot can. Nature has enabled baby animals to overcome many stresses to be functioning well enough to live sucessfully in their environments. The vast majority of traumatized baby parrots will overcome most anything.

[Greg]

I wouldn't be surprised if Alex would be, in some way, affected by the stress of being plucked and abandoned. I have dealt with emotionally stressed cockatiels before. We once rescued four cockatiels from the humane society, who showed signs of having been force weaned, which does create some permanent behavior problems. The youngest one who was the least problematic, liked being held to my chest with my hand over his body as I gave him scritches (I kid you not, he actually enjoyed it that way), and would bite me otherwise.

Compared to them, Alex is pretty close to normal. I can take a crybaby better than I can take a bird that bites me after immediately enjoying scritches.

And though it is true that a lot of animals including parrots and humans CAN suffer some permanent effects from early on stress, some parrots, like humans, can recover. Some may more likely recover than others, and I can only hope, for emotional stability in Alex.

Although aside from crying a little more than the average fledgling and wanting to cling to me constantly (that might be a given for baby birds), he still acts like the average cockatiel. I think the only real problem would be if I were to breed him when he gets older. I read a study somewhere that baby cockatiels who are plucked as a chick will pluck their own chicks.

Alex will most likely grow up well. Although it is true that he learned that adults pluck babies early in life, it only makes it a little more likely he may do that. As for the four cockatiels you rescued, cockatiels breed so freely, that many times when you rescue them from a secondary place, they are also inbred, which can cause all kinds of problems. I am glad you are rescuing cockatiels they are such nice parrots. My wife has become sensitive to their dust, so cockatiels are one parrot we can no longer rescue.

[Wolf]

I am not saying that you are wrong simply because I do not know, but I would like to know what you are basing your opinion on when you state that Jessemuse's cockatiel may be inbred?

[Pajarita]

I have no problems that stress affects parrots and all animals including us. It is only when you use studies out of context to say that someone's baby Parrot, will never be normal that I have to say something. It's for the benefit of the members, and not to argue.

It's not me saying anything, Seagoatdeb, I merely reference the results from scientific studies. I happen to believe in science... we might not know everything there is to know about birds but the one true thing we have to guide us are scientific studies because we have learned that theories from 'avian experts' are wrong more often than not (remember the height dominance and the leader of the flock theories?). Thankfully, there have been more and more studies in the last years.

[Pajarita]

It took me a long time to read all those links. Not one of them even applies to baby parrots. No need to find anything to contradict it. I have to wonder why you are trying so hard to prove that a baby parrot would have a stressfull life with its owners because of some trauma in its past. Every study will find stress causes problems, and of course that would be expected, and in fact needed for their survival.

I survived a bad tornado when I was a child and it blew me blocks away from home and I still feel fear when the wind blows stongly. Why wouldnt any animal be the same? However, that does not mean I need extra special care the rest of my life, or unable to have a normal healthy life, or die earlier, only because I feel stress with heavy winds. I would never tell a parrot owner, that their loved baby, will have problems, even have a shorter life, because they had some stress early on. I dont have a fortune telling degree to do this. I have seen baby parrots, become so well adusted that the earlier traumatic stess could not even be seen.

Finches are not parrots. Finches will never have the kind of trust with owners that a parrot can. Nature has enabled baby animals to overcome many stresses to be functioning well enough to live sucessfully in their environments. The vast majority of traumatized baby parrots will overcome most anything.

I am not trying 'hard' to prove anything. I am simple referring to a scientific study which Seagoatdeb asked the link for.

Now, as to your arguments, no, finches are not parrots but then rats are not people and we use them on human studies. This is common in science. The argument that a study done on another avian species is not valid on parrots is a common one but the fact is that there are very few studies done on parrots and will continue to be for the simple reason that parrots live too long and researchers cannot wait years and years to publish or they would all die of starvation. Finches are used all the time as subjects of all kinds of avian studies (if I remember correctly, Michael was involved in a couple of them dealing with behavior when he was working at the university) because of their short lifespan and rapid reproduction rate. And, unfortunately, the fact that stress causes parrots to live less was proven by a study on African Grays although it had nothing to do with infancy stress but the stress of living without another parrot as companion.

Last but not least (and this is really not a criticism but a point that needs to be made), one cannot really use a personal example as argument against a scientific study findings because one cannot possibly be as objective when it comes to self-analysis than a scientist is about measurable results (we are talking about actual levels of hormones measured).

As to your experience with traumatized baby parrots, personally, I don't often use my perception of things as an argument when it comes to parrots supposed happiness or stress because although I try to be objective, the truth of the matter is that none of us, no matter how long we have had parrots or how many, is prepared to make a valid pronouncement on this. We simply do not instinctually identify or even recognize the manifestation of the feelings as we could do with a dog, for example. We can give our own, uninformed opinion on it but it really has no scientific value, does it? I know mine doesn't and that's why I go to scientific studies.

[JessiMuse]

Those rescues were a long time ago. We don't have them anymore, as we couldn't provide for them at the time. We were able to give them homes with people who could provide. Plus, my mom didn't like the noise they made.

I actually did suspect those cockatiels to be siblings at least, if not inbred. The three males were whitefaced pieds with almost the exact same markings (only real difference I remember that one was a Pearl, one was a dirtyfaced, and one was a normal pied). One of them was bonded to the one female whitefaced Pearl that came with them, and they had one chick in the nest box (my mom wanted to breed), which died within 4 days. Granted, I don't think the parents knew what they were doing either, which might have contributed to the chick's death.

They were like watching an endless soap opera. The youngest male (the Pearl pied) was also in love with the one female, but that wasn't exactly mutual since she was already bonded to the regular pied, so the two males fought to the point of there being blood in he cage (we had to separate the youngest male from the pair soon after). Meanwhile, the dirtyfaced pied male was in love with the youngest male, but that also wasn't mutual, so I would just hear him constantly sing to the younger male, as the younger male constantly tried to get away from him.
Funny thing about the dirtyfaced pied though, is that it took us forever to determine the gender. He was the only one who wasn't attracted to female, and so for a while, we thought he was a female. We tried pairing "her" up with my sister's cockatiel at the time, a gray male, but that didn't happen. Eventually, we came to the conclusion that he was a gay male, in love with a cockatiel who probably was his brother. Didn't know that parrots could even be gay.
During the entire time, it didn't even occur to me that those four could have been related, until after we gave them new homes.


Alex though, isn't inbred. In the situation to which I got Alex in, I was actually able to look into his background more than I could with the four rescues, which helps a lot. I guess it wasn't exactly a rescue though. The person bred cockatiels, and she let us have Alex because my mom's handfeeding experience. I myself am still learning.

I did apply to a parrot rescue for a cockatiel, but they didn't accept, because my mom smokes. Might apply again when I get my own place, or if my mom quits.

[Wolf]

Maybe I missed this information earlier and Greg caught it which may be why he said they may have been inbred.

[JessiMuse]

Well this is the first time I talked about them, and I don't think I said anything that implied them on being inbred, other than mentioning behavioral problems. Greg's assumption might have been more or less a lucky guess.

[seagoatdeb]

Cockatiels come into season more often than most other species and they are large flock parrots and get along well in the same cages more often than not, and that causes a lot of the inbreeding problems. It is one of the first things I suspect when someone is giving away or selling a few cockatiels.