by Pajarita » Mon Jan 06, 2020 12:45 pm
I am with Liz.: he is desperate to come out! Birds are not meant to be kept in jail (which is what a cage is for a bird) for hours and hours and hours, my dear. If you are out of your house for so many hours every day, I don't see how you can keep any bird happy and healthy... Isn't there somebody in the house that can let him out to fly for, at the very least, 4 or 5 hours? Because this is standard procedure for all parrots: 4 to 5 hours of out-of-cage time and, at the very least, 2 to 3 hours of one-on-one. Added to this, you need to keep in mind that quakers are not tropical birds so they are VERY sensitive to the number of daylight hours you are giving them and need to be kept at a super strict solar schedule with two full hours of dawn and dusk for their endocrine system to stay in tune with the seasons. Failure to do this for the entire life of the bird will result in screams, aggression, plucking, etc. And quakers can be VERY aggressive and VERY loud when unhappy - PLUS they tend to pluck. Also, check the diet because you can't free-feed them any protein food (seeds, nuts, pellets, etc) - if you do, they end up overly-hormonal (read screams, aggression, plucking, etc).
Quakers can be the sweetest, easiest birds in the world to keep but they can also be terrible pets - it all depends on whether they are getting the proper care or not because they are highly intelligent as well as fearless and do not have any patience when not treated right. My own quaker, Keku, is one of the best birds I have and have ever had. Now, I will admit to being a bit biased when it comes to quakers because they are one of my favorite species but this is not only my opinion, my husband (who is NOT a parrot person) agrees and even my children and grandchildren comment what a sweetheart she is. She is super affectionate, never bites, never screams, bathes regularly, eats a huge range of produce (LOVES her greens with a passion and eats A LOT of them every single day), is very obedient (she even drops whatever she has picked up when I tell her to 'Drop it!), goes into her cage without a single problem and talks up a storm... Why? Because she gets the right diet, is kept at a super strict solar schedule and is out of her cage flying around and interacting with me and the other birds from 6:30 am (without any artificial light on because I only turn them on at 8:30 am this time of the year) to 2 or 2:30 pm - I turn off the lights at 2:30 and feed them dinner at 3 or 3:15 pm (she is asleep by, latest, 6 pm).
Parrots are not easy birds to keep happy and healthy... you need to be there for them all day long because they suffer loneliness something terrible, you need to keep them the way nature meant for them to live: following the sun schedule as it changes from day to day and season to season, you need to feed them the right diet for their species (people think all parrots eat the same thing but they don't), they need to fly for hours and hours (not only to exercise and as a form of entertainment but also because it's the only way to keep their respiratory system healthy and to dissipate bad hormones -like stress or sexual) and they need physical interaction with their chosen human for hours and hours every single day. If I had to rate pets in terms of how easy it is to keep them healthy and happy, I would say that, from 1 to 10, 1 being the easiest and 10 being the hardest, parrots are always a 10 with dogs being a 3 (because you need to walk and groom as well as feed and water twice a day) and cats a 1 (feed, water, clean litter twice a day and that's that).