by Pajarita » Sat Jan 27, 2018 11:25 am
Well, I tell you, I don't take in macaws precisely because I don't have 30 ft long rooms where one can fly. Of course, if you only have the one bird, you can train it to fly with a harness and take him out BUT, if you live in the North, it can only be done during the warm weather so the bird would have to spend months and months without flight... The only kind I would consider taking in would be one that cannot fly at all -like the cockatoos I've taken.
And, yes, again, when you work full time, you end up with a bird that is chronically overly hormonal and spends way too many hours in a cage. There is really nothing you can do about that unless you get somebody to come over during the day to birdsit or take him to a daycare place. I used to know a dog groomer who had a large bird flight room [she had parrots of her own] and would care for birds that belonged to people who worked full time. And there is also quite a number of people who have people come over to spend time with their birds during the day [I know this guy in NYC who owns two ekkies and has a housekeeper that comes in every day mostly so the birds are not alone but he also goes in and out all day long because he owns an art gallery in SoHo a few blocks away from his house]. But, of course, this means that the bird might bond to somebody else instead of you and you end up with still another expensive item in your budget. I actually quit working because of the birds... I could keep them to a solar schedule because they all lived cage-free in a large birdroom and my husband was home during the day [I cleaned the room in the dark with night vision goggles and left the food prepared from the night before so my husband just had to put it out in the morning] but, because I was not there during the day, I could not really check on them health-wise and I was always worrying and worrying that one was going to get sick or hurt and that I was going to miss it.
The truth of the matter is that parrots always get the short end of the stick in captivity and that, unless you don't work outside the home, you end up with a bird that will have a screwed up endocrine system with the corresponding health and mood problems this brings to them. Of course, breeders, pet stores and even rescues omit this information all the time and then there is always the people who think that an overly hormonal bird is just 'in love with them' not realizing that it's a health issue... Parrots are, BY FAR, the hardest pet to keep healthy and happy!