by Pajarita » Fri May 01, 2020 9:20 am
Welcome to the forum. Unfortunately for the animals, your partner is right. Animals are considered personal property under the law and nobody can do anything unless there is severe abuse. But then, you are right too. For one thing, you share a home so the decision of what comes into this home need to be taken by both partners for a very simple reason: what comes into the home affects EVERYBODY living in it. My husband is not a parrot person but he loves me a lot and indulges my love for birds so he does not mind my taking them in (I ALWAYS ask him if it's OK to bring in a new one and would not do it if he did not agree) BUT I take care of everything: cleaning, feeding, interacting, medicating, etc.
The other issue is the bird's wellbeing... Now, under the conditions that you described, the bird will have a terrible life. Parrots are highly social animals and need company 24/7/365 - being alone is, to put it in accurate and simple terms: torture to them. Furthermore, they need to be kept at a strict solar schedule with exposure to dawn and dusk and fed at twilight (research avian photoperiodism) so, if your partner works 12 hours shifts, there is no way on this green earth that she can do it. A human light schedule with isolation translates into a very unhealthy life for the bird because their endocrine system works based on the different length of the day during the different seasons and, as a 'broken' endocrine system means a depressed immune system, this added to chronic anxiety from being always alone... well, you do the math.
