Is it Genetical ?

[Ring0Neck]

Many times it lays in front of us... yet we saldomly see it.

As i was visiting a breeder that has over 20 years of hand feeding parrots i saw something that only made sense at home when it hit me:
Tamness is passed on genetically.

In short: Breeder had over 50 ringnecks from 4 breeders. all handfed by 1 person.
All parent birds from all 4 breeders are not tame, caged breeding pairs that might have been or not handfed when young.
a group of 5 or so chicks stood out because they were flying uncontrolably into cage walls as if it was the end of days.
He said: "It was really difficult feeding these chicks, they were like rabbits".
these birds were acquired from 1 breeder that his stock never gets handraised and very little human interaction.
Although all the birds were handfed the same way by the same person all birds from this breeder we truly wild, at one point i was thinking; I hope they don't break their necks.


Some experiments done with other animals also suggest the same thing..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox

[InTheAir]

Ringoneck, That's an interesting thought.
We have been considering breeding our boy one day in the hope his temperament is passed on to the chicks.
Our bird is super tame, his mother HATES people and his father used to be tame.
When we got him the breeder had a blue baby that she hand raised with the rest that did not like people. She only has 2 pairs and all the other babies were tame.

But I have heard of wild caught amazon parrots that have turned out to be very tame pets.

I have been thinking along the lines of an even tempered bird will be easier to tame than a highly strung one, rather than an inherited tendency to accept people. .. temperament does seem to be a quality that can be bred in animals. .. a high proportion of thoroughbred horses are total nut cases, whereas a draught horse will generally have a more stable nature and will be more inclined to accept things that are out of the ordinary and adjust to changes more quickly.

I'd love to hear more observations on this topic.

- Claire

[sheyd]

not sure... I wasn't looking at handraising (it's not something I'm interested in) as you know I had to pull the weakest from the nest at 4 weeks and 1 day old. I was going to handfed them rather than handraise them- guess I failed at that because it didn't take long for them not to fear or run away from me even though I was handling them minimally- once they started acting like 'pets' I could not ignore them so interaction began- lol and now they're very friendly @ 7 weeks old.

on the other hand, the one in the aviary hurt himself superficially madly flying about when I went to check on him on his first day out of the nesting box- he still won't look at me when he's sitting on a perch---he's terrified.

[Skyes_crew]

It's amazing that all three birds came out of the same nest yet have such different reactions towards humans. Is you pr boy ok?

I have two yearlings in a flight together. Neither one gets handled or has ever been hand tamed or hand fed. At feeding time, the one will sit quietly on a nearby branch and watch what I'm doing. The other will be flying around like the hounds of hell are on his heels. Now I'm curious enough to find out the level of tameness of the parents on both birds.

[zentoucan]

there is a theory that animal instinct is passed on through genes. so over 20 years of breeding where the breeder and the birds have a large amount of interaction the "tameness" can be passed on from the parents to the offspring. compared to a breeder whom has a very limited interaction with his birds. yet there are cases when this theory is not applicable. one parent hates humans, the other semi tame yet their offspring is very friendly and tame. maybe we are looking too much into this and it's just the individual bird. if we all behaved the same the world would be a very boring place.

[sheyd]

yeah he's okay Melissa- just scratched the skin between his nares- and banged his wing- he's all good now though.

forgot to mention that the parents aren't at all flighty- very easy to take pictures of them- can even get close on the outside of their aviary- different story on the inside.. lol

[ellieelectrons]

We bought our boy "Charlie" because of the reputation the chicks that emerged from his parents had for being tame, so there may be something to that.

Ellie.

[Ring0Neck]

Corectus Molossus

[sheyd]

That hen I had still didn't work out if Indigo or just plain Blue (my brother has her now) came from calm disposed (aviary) parents but is a nut, even after a full year her fearfulness of humans is unbelievable. I think(hope) my young cock won't be like her - he is fearful but he is also just out of the nest---we will see.

[InTheAir]

I was just thinking about this topic again, it occurs to me that other birds modeling behaviour may also be another huge influence that we have overlooked.
My new bird follows the older ones lead on almost everything. If the older bird remains calm, she does too.
But, she did tame up enough to climb on my hand and fly to me before she met the other bird, so she must naturally be pretty adaptable or well disposed towards people anyway.

If you put a really wild bird into a flight full of friendly ones and kept it there for a long period, does it's attitude to people start to change?

[sheyd]

In my experience...no. The nut I said I had, would fly frantically about while spooking all the others. Some just aren't 'quiet'.

My chick as you're probably aware (from my photographic posts) is now comfortable enough to stretch out and let me take his picture . I can feed his parents through the bars of the aviary and they'll take the food from my fingers---- he almost took some himself today but decided against it. - as I suspected, he just needed some time adjusting to the outside world.

Ps-- he calls the shots with his dad, but not with his mum- she does with both of them lol

[InTheAir]

Interesting. Those hens certainly wear the pants, don't they?

My new bird still chases Nila around at almost every opportunity (though she was comparatively chilled out yesterday). Maybe it's more a case of competition in our household, than follow the leader!

[sheyd]

They certainly do!