Correlation between sex of owner and food management (Poll)

[Vikki]

OK, I see your point, but based on the population of male vs female here, the outcome is basically the same, both sexes disagree or don't use it as opposed to the ones that do.

[Michael]

Not enough men have answered the question to have any meaningful guess about the opinion of men on the topic. Hopefully more will answer. There is nothing sexist about it. From the start I said, "I am curious if there is a correlation between the sex of the bird owner and feeding mindset." I did not say there has to be but just wanted to find out if it made a difference. Even if half the men answer than women but their result is swung one way while the women another way it could be saying something. However, right now it just takes 1 more guy to answer to go even or increase the spread so you can't say anything at all unless at least 3-5 more guys vote on this so come on! But either way the poll still shows general opinion and you can just add it up to see it sex independent.

[Natacha]

You might not take this in, but I did ask my boyfriend, and tried not to show a bias by telling him my opinion before hearing his answer, but he does think along the same lines as me, where he would want there to be food in the cage just in case something would delay us from coming back home and that way they would have some form of sustenance.

[GlassOnion]

I'm surprised at how many owners disagree with food management. Maybe I'm just categorizing myself wrongly. I do feed distinct 2 meals, but there are always pellets in the cage that they would rather not touch unless they were really hungry.

[Michael]

If pellets were their base food (and btw for those kinds of species they probably shouldn't be) and they happily ate them all day long. Would you remove them from the cage between meals?

[GlassOnion]

Yes I would remove them between meals. Birds in the wild don't have access to food the whole day, and I find they are more encouraged to forage and play if they don't see a dish full of foods all day.

Ps, I use Harrison's, which are lower in fat than some of the other brands I've encountered, but no I don't use them as their main base. I actually make a batch of birdie pancakes (1 egg, 60% vegetables, 20% pellets, 10% rice/grains/seeds, 10% pancake mix) that I feed for breakfast along with a tsp amount of pellets/sprouts and more fresh veggies.

[entrancedbymyGCC]

I am female and I disagree with associating intellectual decisions with sex/gender stereotypes. I have to say that kind of approach to something really pushes my buttons. The way the poll was set up and phrased conjured up images of Michael having images in his mind of all the women on here barefoot and bundled into aprons tending the stove! Picture me rollling my ears here, not having steam blast out my ears, but having been the sole woman in the room in my career on many occasions, it really does bug me when people want to add a little more ink to the outline of the box. But I guess we actually wanted to discuss food management here, so I'll let that go...

I voted "agree" but I am not doing it. Pellets/seeds are available in the cages all the time, fresh food is served twice a day. I don't think having some food available free choice breeds aggression and behavior problems. That kind of reminds me of the bit in "Oliver Twist" where Oliver gets angry and the Beadle comes along and accuses his "keeper" of raising an artificial soul and spirit in him by feeding him too much.

I also don't think it is morally wrong, and I certainly understand how it can vastly enhance training motivation. However, the key part is that I do not agree that "everything is training"... such a statement to me implies that the goal is to impose behavior on the bird and suppress self-motivated behavior entirely when the bird is interacting with a human. It implies that there is no sense of connection, appreciation of the inherent nature of the bird, or, dare I say, friendship, and that everything is purely motivated by a business agreement wherein the bird does what is wanted in exchange for food and the person gets obedience in return for said food. If I had a BIG problem to solve and treats or praise weren't having the desired motivational effect, I'd use food management to get the job done. If I wanted to run a professional bird show, I would very likely take the approach of making the birds work for their food.

But that's not where I am right now. I actually am not all that excited about bribing my pets to interact with me if they don't want to. My training goals are simple: I want my birds allow necessary handling, to step up politely, and if we leave Scotty's flights grown out, to recall. I'd like them to eventually wear harnesses so they can go out with us, and potty training is quite useful. That's pretty much it. I may play with tricks and vocalization training, but I'm way more interested in allowing my birds to express their natural behaviors within safe limits than I am in controlling how they interact with me.

That doesn't mean that focusing on training is in any way wrong or not respectful of the bird's nature and contentedness, but it is also not the only way IMO.

[Michael]

I am female and I disagree with associating intellectual decisions with sex/gender stereotypes. I have to say that kind of approach to something really pushes my buttons. The way the poll was set up and phrased conjured up images of Michael having images in his mind of all the women on here barefoot and bundled into aprons tending the stove! Picture me rollling my ears here, not having steam blast out my ears, but having been the sole woman in the room in my career on many occasions, it really does bug me when people want to add a little more ink to the outline of the box. But I guess we actually wanted to discuss food management here, so I'll let that go...

Cmon, I did not imply any of that. I just wanted to know if there is a correlation between sex and outlook on food management. Unfortunately not enough guys voted to get any kind of idea on their part although the combined results show a surprisingly strong opposition to anything but free feed.

I'm still really confused about why so many people oppose food management (and remember there are all different levels of it so I pretty much defined food management as anything but free feed). I think I've brought up so many reasons to use it regardless of trick training at all. Now "weight management" I will agree is best reserved for trick and flight training. But keeping food limited to 2-3 feedings a day is just so natural and normal that I am really surprised almost no one supports it for birds.

I'm willing to bet no one (or almost no one) who voted against food management practices that in the human world. I bet most of the people here eat 2-4 meals daily (possibly with snacks in between) but that no one here is free feeding themselves with open food wherever they are all the time. When people are at work or at school they obviously don't have open food all the time. The school/employer "food manages" you by giving you a limited time breakfast/lunch/dinner break.

I've been over feeding Kili this week because I want to make sure she has all she needs for her cut to heal. Well since I've started overfeeding her, she has been unmotivated, hormonal (doing the skirt dance and such), aggressive to Truman and other people. She has even been more nippy to me than usual and is annoying about stepping up to come out of cage or off my shoulder. She is also flying to places she isn't supposed to be more. This boldness and lack of caring is always the result of over feeding. I'm going to keep her free fed for just a bit longer until whatever can heal in the short term is healed and then I'll see how she does back on normal food management. Normally I think she's such a well behaved pet bird but all the worst comes out when she is overfed, haha.

And before anyone starts telling me that she's only doing it for food it's not the case. She still steps up, recalls, lets me pet her, etc. It's just she's more annoying than usual and I get surprised when she doesn't step up one out of ten times when normally she's ten for ten. So I may well be exaggerating how bad she is being but compared to how good she normally is, it surprises me. Truman on the other hand has been normally food managed and his behavior has been better than usual. He's been flight recalling better than ever and very motivated. But also he's been wanting to hang out with me more. He'll recall to me without receiving a treat for scratches too. To me it seems that overfeeding just gets in the way of normal behavior in the normal feeding range.

I voted "agree" but I am not doing it. Pellets/seeds are available in the cages all the time, fresh food is served twice a day.

Why don't you do it if you agree with it? I think I've spent a lot of effort explaining the health benefits and reduction of hormonal behavior.

However, the key part is that I do not agree that "everything is training"... such a statement to me implies that the goal is to impose behavior on the bird and suppress self-motivated behavior entirely when the bird is interacting with a human.

I am not saying that everything is trick, click, treat. But I am saying that every positive interaction is reinforcing something. Even if it isn't reinforcing specific behavior, it is reinforcing the relationship with the person. Thus the bird is being trained to be around the person more or come to the person more. This is why I say everything is training. The bird is learning about what it should do from what brings it the most good stuff in return.

[Vikki]

This boldness and lack of caring is always the result of over feeding.

This is something you've repeated a few times in other post that makes no sense to me. In all my experience with all types of birds I have never equated this kind of behavior with food, either too much or too little. That makes absolutely no sense to me. If she's posturing, being stand-offish and being nasty to you and your other bird, it's a strong possibility that she is either hormonal, since it is that time of year and she's doing the skirt dance, or she's in some amount of discomfort from her injury, feels a bit unbalanced by it and just wants to be alone. Birds have complex emotions just as much as humans and if I wanted to be left alone and my partner kept prodding me to do stuff I didn't want to do, I'd bite him too. She's probably being "bold" and flying to new places because she does want to be left alone and perhaps thinks if she goes someplace she doesn't know about, maybe you dont' know about it either, so she's going there for some peace.

[Michael]

Except that's not the case. Immediately since the injury (before diet change occurred), she was being completely herself. I was shocked by how her behavior had not changed at all since the injury. She ate, played, and did tricks like nothing even happened.

Since I've increased her food availability, her behavior has changed somewhat. In terms of going to places, the biggest one has been landing on the couch (by where I'm sitting) which I had previously succeeded in teaching her not to do. She'll act like she wants to be recalled (she says hello, I recall her, she flies to me, then gets to sit on my shoulder or something) but then doesn't come. Normally when she does this pre-recall routine, she is reliably at following up and actually coming. I give her the opportunity to recall if she does it but lately it's been false calls. When she does come and I put her on my shoulder as the normal reward, she gets nippy. She chews on my shirt and nips my ear which too I had normally taught her out of doing. I shake her off whenever she does it but then she's really eager to get to come back again but then starts it all over again. Like I say, this "boldness" as well as the hormonal behavior is brought on by over feeding. She is less likely to get hormonal when her diet is in check. And this makes perfect sense. When their food requirements have not been entirely met for the day, they are more focused on earning food than trying to find nesting areas, etc. It makes so much sense and solves so many problems that I still can't understand what all the opposition to basic food management is.

Is it because people don't believe the benefits? Is it because they are too lazy to follow through with it? Is it because they think their bird will starve? Is it because they think their bird won't like them for not giving them more food? Is it because they feel guilty giving it just the amount of food they need rather than spoiling them with more?

Besides personal attacks against me, I've heard damn few good reasons not to do it thought I've tried to provide many along with examples and my knowledge. One good argument I'd heard is that people are worried the bird could go unfed if they can't make it home or because they have major schedule conflicts. I have my own ways of handling them but am well aware of this being an issue.

When I go away on trips I just have my birds free fed (especially cause their best behavior does not matter so much). When I leave my birds home alone for the weekend, I leave free feed for way more than the time I plan to be gone. When I plan to go out in the evening without knowing what time I'll get back I either free feed them or I make a commitment to make it back in time to feed them. Worst that's ever happened was getting home like 2 hours later than when they are normally fed and feeding them then. This has only happened a couple times because I'm careful and 2 hours won't make a difference. If they missed that meal all together, they'd make up for it just fine the following day. Another concern was if the owner gets ill, caught up, whatever and unexpectedly can't make it back. This is really a concern either way because even a free fed bird will have food and water for only so long. Regardless of how the bird is fed, it is good to have a contingency plan with someone you know to go and feed/water the birds in case of some tragedy befalling the owner. These are valid concerns but they are solvable in most cases.

Now what I'd like to hear is some kind of evidence that parrots spend all day eating in the wild, that mild food management (scheduled feeding and/or up to 10% reduction) is unhealthy, that mild food management worsens behavior, that free feed reduces aggression/hormonal behavior compared to food management, etc. However, I strongly believe that based on things I've read, observed in the wild, conversations with other owners, studying behavioral psychology, training my parrots, and keeping my parrots as pets that food management makes living with a flighted companion parrot more manageable at no harm to the parrot and possibly health benefits over free feed. To me it just seems crazy not to and I still have yet to hear specific benefits to parrot or owner from free feeding or cases where free feeding parrots solved behavioral problems.