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I went to a Parrot Conference last weekend with Claire in the Air and Redzone and our avian vet gave an interesting talk on how important socialisation is for adolescent parrots. I thought I'd write what I remember from his talk here and get your responses to it. Claire and Redzone, if you've got anything to add, please do!

He started by talking about how when pet birds were wild caught (which is now illegal in Australia), they may have been difficult to tame but health-wise they were less likely to present with problems such as plucking and over-attachment to humans. He explained that birds in the wild will hatch and then be raised by their parents alongside their siblings and then when they are out of the nest they will hang out with other adolescent birds until it is time to find a mate and pair off. He claimed that because many pet birds end up in one-bird households during their adolescence, many do not realise that they are a bird and this causes imprinting on humans and birds thinking that a human is their mate. In the wild, when the bird selects a mate, they spend very little time apart. So, if the bird thinks a human is their mate, this can cause great distress when the human leaves the bird to go about regular human activities.

He recommends that breeders keep their birds a little longer and have them hang out with groups of adolescents. He didn't think it mattered whether the birds were handraised or parent-raised providing they got some of this socialisation. The breeder can spend time handling the birds so as to get them as tame as possible (if the birds are going to end up as companion parrots). He also suggested that breeders recommend to their customers that they get a second bird at some point to keep the bird company.

I found this all very interesting. With my study of two, I do believe we got our girl too young but our second bird was older. We have had less issues with our second bird. I think some of the problems we had with our girl may have been avoided had she been properly socialised, although many of the problems were due to my own ignorance <sigh>.

Any way, what are you thoughts?

Ellie.

I didn't do research on this, but it just seems to make sense to me.

People have known since before I was born that you have to leave little puppies and kittens with their families for a certain amount of time before sending them to new homes in order to prevent "overattachment" to people and a failure to relate to others of their own kind. By the same token, we know that if humans are introduced too late, there is likely to be a certain discomfort with humans that is not ever overcome.

I don't want to say that birds are the same as puppies and kittens. Of course they are not, but as social living creatures I feel there is a lot of crossover they share, and share with humans as well.

Great topic, Ellie.
I grew up with a succession of small pets and horses. It was firmly drilled into me by my mother that social animals need a companion, so I always had 2 of everything. Except the cat, until he adopted a stray kitten and it moved in too.

If my memory serves me correctly, the vet also touched on the discomfort the bird experiences when it is left without company every day, while the owner is at work. Our pet parrots wild counterparts never hang out on their own, their buddy is always nearby. There is safety in numbers when you are a parrot.

As far as I know, dogs have been studied for much longer and experiments on the effects social deprivation were done on them many years ago.

An issue I have with two birds is that one loves birds and the other (who was meant to be a companion for the first) only seems to be interested in people. He was pulled away from his mother very very early and hand fed and made into a 'people' bird.

I don't know the history behind my original bird but he seems to relate very well to both bird and people.

The end result is that the companion bird has rejected the original bird for the most part. So just in this I can see issues with taking a bird too early.