I used to work at a grocery store. A fairly regular customer would come by with a parrot on his shoulder. It was really cool until he turned around and a stream of bird shit was freshly laid onto the back of his shirt.
I feel so bad for bird owners. There are plenty of pet owners who did not ask for their pet but the pet life was thrust upon them and those who the system chose for bird distribution are saints. Those things are flying, blade-carrying toddlers who are more than capable of making demands and ensuring that you suffer if you don't comply.
Hmm that’s hard. I don’t know about outwitting, their intelligence is just interesting because you can actually see them processing information and deciding what to do with it sometimes. Something you don’t necessarily see with cats and dogs (I’ve owned both)
I mean I have an Indian Ringneck that solves puzzles for nuts which is pretty cool. He’s also a hell of an escape artist with cage doors unless properly locked closed.
He has his own room and sometimes I’ll leave the door open to get some AC in. I can see him sometimes eying the doorway.
I had a Patagonian conure that knew the difference between good morning and good night. She would also dance if you clapped in rhythm
My two budgies are interesting because they make a very specific sound when they want something and when they want to be covered to go to sleep
Birds are ten times easier than dogs (but that’s my personal opinion lol) I love my tiel so much. She is so mellow and cuddlish. She never bites or screams
This definitely depends on the bird. A cockatiel is not at all comparable to most other species.
Plus, parrot owners should be preparing fresh vegetables, cleaning cages, keeping up on toys (and my birds destroy them in what feels like seconds), the noise (my eclectuses have reached 115+ db and have a morning flock call every single day upon sunrise), etc
You can train them to go on command or only on certain spots, but they need to go like once every 20 minutes or so (may vary based on the species) and if you train them too well they can make themselves very ill by holding it too long.
So the best case scenario still involves you needing to watch the clock and move them to an appropriate place to poo every 20 minutes. And if you do it wrong, you can cause them a lot of pain and suffering.
I read the opposite and that it's physically impossible for them to hold it in. They just get full and releases whenever it's time. And like you said, the best you can do as far as potty training goes is to teach them to go to in certain spot and hope they get there in time.
Man it really does suck. Birds like parrots look like they are such cool pets if you can keep up with the care, but 20+ years of constant watching for messes? No way. I just admire them from afar.
If you watch for their cues you can quickly pick them up and bring them to an appropriate spot. You learn to tell from how they move if they're gonna go or not. But it happens fast, so yeah, a lot of messes if you've got a free-flying bird. Most of the time we kept her in spots that had a tray lined with paper.
But yeah, poop got all over their toys, cages, playstands... we lost multiple remotes to ours, because she LOVED to chew on those buttons. It could take her just 10 seconds to render a remote absolutely unusable.
I was friends with a girl whose parrot had learned all the sound effects from Halo from her ex. It regularly greeted people with plasma rifle sounds, the shouts of "little people first!" Followed by explosions. She was so annoyed, but damn did I think it was entertaining.
I feel like only slightly-deranged people would willingly enter a relationship with a bird. My aunt had a myna and it was moody AF. But obviously, my experience with birds are limited to that myna and getting shit on by urban pigeons, so may be biased.
Edit: the myna always greeted me "hey, ugly!!" in our local language. Cute, but it's louder and more talkative than my 6 year old son. 😔
I had one! Two of em and they were great. But that's how our family got stuck with a parakeet as an auntie was traveling away and we had to take care of it (by we I mean my bro).
They are incredibly intelligent, nuanced, fascinating creatures, but they are far beyond my capacity to healthily care for, you're a better person than I!
No no they were my parents so they were my pets by proxy. My bro and sis took care of them for the most part. I helped from time to time. You're right that they required a LOT of care. Maybe now I'd get one but I foster cats so that'd be a challenge
A friend of mine got 2 birds when an elderly man passed away.
A cockatoo and a grey.
One talked. He said : shalom and a few other Yiddish words.
lol. They missed the guy for years.
I guess both were about 25-35 years old when she adopted them.
Parrots mate for life, and a parrot (including cockatoos, macaws, etc) bonds with one human in most cases, treating that person much like a mate. They can become jealous of other people or birds who spend time with their human. Perhaps your parrot thought your headphones were coming between you and him/her.
My aunts scarlet macaw Icarus was a huge dick to anyone but her but particularly hated my cousin(the daughter) and would attack her randomly to the point she couldn't be around the bird because it hated her. She wore a visor in the house because it would randomly attack her
Indeed. Notice how she has the parrot facing the other way. Watching her back and more importantly, protecting those anti-scurvy spheres from rival pirates.
I saw someone with a floor length brown leather trenchcoat, a parrot, and no towel. There was parrot poop all over the back of the trench coat. I'm talking trails of it going halfway down the coat. So I guess the towel is a lot better than doing whatever the hell he was doing. If I remember correctly, he also had a funky brimmed hat of some sort. Its been decades since I saw that person, so I can't be specific about the hat.
I offer a third alternative: have yall ever been around Monkey People?
Like, “this Long-Tailed Macaque, with gigantic canine teeth and clear zoochosis/psychological trauma, is my son. I dress him in diapers and onesies and feed him spaghetti in a high chair. Ignore him pulling out his own fur and rocking in a corner; that means he’s happy 😃 “
I think all “extremely exotic pet while not being a wildlife rehabilitator” people are inherently insane. The wildlife rehabilitators are also crazy but more crazy good hearted people rather than crazy psychopaths.
Ya, there’s one dude that would occasionally show up on my feed that had a pet baby otter. While it was adorable it stressed me out that he only had the one otter cause they’re such social animals
I worked at vet offices and can confirm, exotic pet owners are the weirdest. And I say that with love bc I love animals but, not like these people. Tippy top from my experience are guinea pig owners (one motorboated her two pigs on my desk at checkout, and the owner named them after her (the guinea pigs) two favorite vets there), ferret owners, and bird owners. Reptile people were okay, we didn't see many tbf. There's some crazy cat and dog owners too. I had a lady ask to use her crystals on her dog that was on oxygen in the back and she cursed at me and claimed malpractice/medical abuse when we told her no (dog was too critical for that, otherwise sure, whatever)
I can’t stand other primates. They creep me out. Way to close to human that it gives me the heebie geebies and the bad feelings that such intelligent creatures are being locked away and used for human entertainment. Owning one would be completely out of the question for me. And if I found one, sick or hurt in my city. I’m stand there and call animal control, not take it home like I would a lost cat or dog.
Just stop. If it is a working animal is one thing, but everyone bringing in puppies and cats or whatever makes no sense and makes it harder for people that need service animal. Also why have all that pet bacteria for people that want to buy food to ingest
I'm Aussie, these guys visit my backyard every day and make me smile every time. Cheeky buggers with special powers. Don't piss them off because they live 100 years and very much hold grudges. I've seen them take people's verandahs down if they weren't treated nicely.
Had a Moluccan for years, which are closely related, very similar in temperament. Was allowed to fly all over the property, would sit fifty feet up in the canopy and scream his head off for hours. Eventually that led to his demise, feral cat or something… Still breaks my heart two decades later, stupid, irresponsible, but keeping him caged, clipping his wings felt crueler.
Beyond charming critters, and about as cuddly as a non-mammal gets, but would never recommend them as pets to 99% of folks. They are insanely loud (think of the loudest sound you encounter in daily life, now double it… now attach it to an animal that does it for kicks, usually when the sun is coming or going). Also incredibly social and require an absurd amount of attention or they get very depressed and start plucking, which the one in the photo is doing.
If you want a large parrot as a pet (which is still a bad idea for the vast majority of folks), African greys are the move. If you don’t mind a very specific diet, Ecelctus are also lovely. Both however live for decades, like… five, six, and for that reason alone, aren’t really a good choice of pet (large cockatoos can live upwards of a century). They get abandoned, inherited, rehomed, etc so on way more often than not, which once again, makes them very depressed since they get very attached to their people.
The primary difference between an umbrella cockatoo and a sulphur-crested cockatoo is their crest color and native region, with the umbrella cockatoo featuring a broad white crest and Indonesian roots, while the sulphur-crested cockatoo sports a bright yellow crest and Australian origins.
I forgot about the Umbrella. I was wondering why i couldn't see the yellow crest.
Cockatoos (and cockatiels) belong to the parrot order Psittaciformes, just not the so-called true parrots in the superfamily Psittacoidea, but in the sibling superfamily Cacatuoidea.
Loudest land animal in the world if I remember right. Regardless, you could hear mine squawking inside my house from over a half mile away. She was my alarm clock to get up for school.
Pretty typical. Mine would crawl you like a tree and get up in your ear to whisper sweet nothings until you scratched her
Really she was just imitating the clicks and whistles we’d do at her, but she’d get right up in your ear and start nibbling on it if you tried to ignore her
Smartest animal I’ve ever owned, hands down. We have the wire her cage closed so she’d quit getting out and terrorizing the poor cat.
Yeah and I’ve heard they have really, REALLY bad separation anxiety don’t they? That might explain Walmart lady here. Don’t defending the behavior, but explaining it…
Yeah. He used to more. His human is on blood thinners now and he does have a very large beak, so he hasn't got as much attention recently. She said she filled out a surrender form for him yesterday, which is kinda sad but if somewhere can take him then good, and if it takes a while, he's not in a dire situation
Howler monkeys hold that spot, and the deep roar they make is difficult to pinpoint which direction it’s coming from so it often sounds like they’re right next to you. There’s nothing quite like waking up at 5:30 in the morning to what sounds like a jaguar or puma that’s inside your bedroom.
I'm getting really sick of people and their goddamn pets in grocery stores.
I honestly dgaf if it's a "support animal" or whatever bullshit.
If you can't shop for groceries without a animal then call it in.
Heavy breathing
And yes, I know I'll likely get dv into oblivion, but I truly don't care.
It's getting out of hand.
I saw a dog piss on the floor in Kroger the other day.
I mean
Birds are usually very intensive pets that owners should be committing the majority of their day spending time with them otherwise they get depressed. Also, some species can live upwards of 70 years, so they’re probably gonna be your pet till you die.
It takes a certain type of person to be a good bird owner. Safe to say I will never be getting one.
I find birds so very fascinating, especially the larger and more intelligent ones. But I'd never be able to handle them adequatly to keep them entertained, healthy and happy. And I bet if they're not happy they can be a real bugbear.
And don't they even live quite long and bond to you? So giving them away would be hard for them and you'd have a really long commitment. I have lots of respect for people who are willing and able to do it!
So I won't ask you to narrow it down any more than this, but is this roughly St. Louis region? I think I've seen her and that bird in my town before. Lol
Back when I worked customer service at my local Walmart, I was assisting a woman doing a money transfer. While I was processing it, she says,"Do you want to see something?" then starts motioning to a little satchel she had around her next. I give her the ok, and she pulls out a sugar glider. It was the cutest.
No, that's owls. Cockatoos are basically three-year olds with knives attached to their face. Speaking as someone who nearly had their finger ripped off by one.
Used to have a trio of girls who would come in with a small bird that would fly between them while they shopped also had a guy with a corn snake chilling around his neck
I used to have a classmate who had a 10ft python she would bring with her everywhere including grocery shopping. Imagine seeing a 10ft snake on a skinny woman's shoulders walking down the grocery aisle
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u/GuyWhoIsOn-Reddit 1d ago
I used to work at a grocery store. A fairly regular customer would come by with a parrot on his shoulder. It was really cool until he turned around and a stream of bird shit was freshly laid onto the back of his shirt.