Behavior Poll - Page 2

03-29-2007, 03:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Graehstone

Nate, by the same token though, Man being what he is (top of the food chain and all that) will always seek to be the dominant one no matter how hard we try to be the "benevolent teacher."
We just struggle along and kind of hope for the best.

Oh, absolutely Mike. That's partly my point. Dominance, submission and the social hierarchy applies to people, not parrots. We do the best we can, but to some extent our behavior is as much "hard-wired" as is our fids'.

03-29-2007, 07:23 PM

I voted "Other". It's frequently a security issue, where for whatever reason they feel safer up high. It's often caused by the sound of strong winds outside, or the sight or sound of something in the house that they're not used to.

Sometimes they play the “Nah, Nah you can’t make me go back in the cage!” game but they don't specifically pick high places for that. They'll just fly back and forth between various high and low places until someone gets tired and gives up.

03-30-2007, 02:16 AM

My answer only applies when they are in the bedroom and I want to put them back in their room to sleep. They like to go up on the picture rail and do the "Nah nah can't reach me" thing. Just like a human kids who doesn't want to go to bed and makes the parents chase them around, I have to chase them around with a net and put them back in the bird room!

They KNOW they have to go back, they just like to be brats!

03-30-2007, 08:54 PM

If your birds are doing it at bed time it's because they are trying to get higher than the angle of the setting sun. (the lamps).

Try putting a smallish lamp with a dimmer on the floor. Dim for 15-30 minutes. Every bird wants to be in their sleeping spot at dusk.

I can't promise this will work for the birds who are up in the evening with busy houses keeping human hours. If I dont close the cage doors when mine are in their cage at about 6:00 they wait ...then come back out and sit up on the boing waiting for me to say time for bed. They go to bed at 6:45 this time of year but would be happy to even go earlier. Depending on the light or lack of it.

03-30-2007, 09:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Quito's Qage

I voted "other", but to my way of thinking, they are only displaying "parrot behavior"! I know, I know, semantics. But I think it says something about the way we view our avian friends. The author of that article is right on the money when he says: "We must get used to the idea that these intelligent and intuitive creatures cannot be compared to any other pet animal we are likely to encounter. Their reaction to outside stimuli are driven by instinct AND reasoning. A parrot does nothing without a reason--even if it is often beyond our intuitive and emphatic abilities to understand." I would go a bit further and add that we shouldn't judge their behavior based on what we would expect from a human, or a human child either!

I think Dominance is a concept that applies to pack animals (like humans and dogs). Birds are not pack animals, and as the author also pointed out, there are no "flock leaders" as such, nor any recognizable hierarchy as there is in any pack. We also need to remember that parrots are prey animals. Again, very different from the pack carnivores and omnivores that are more closely related to us.

Perhaps parrots may display many different behaviors when the seek their high spots. Aggression is certainly one, but I'm not sure that it's necessarily tied directly to the high spot. Attaining security must be high on the list, since they are, after all, flighted birds. Their lives are all about getting high, whether in trees or on the wing. "Nyah nyah, you can't reach me"? Sure, that comes in to play as well. Birds see no reason whatsoever why they should do something just because we want them to. Again, it's the Apples and Oranges thing. Dogs have an inbred "need to please" due to their pack nature combined with thousands of years of subjugation (ok, domestication) to the will of humans. Birds just want to do what they want to do!

I totally agree. It's just about bird instinctive undomesticated behavior. The more we do things THEIR way, the more "cooperation" we think we get.

The conflict with the OLD way of thinking that imprinting a bird from babyhood makes them think they are human. They're stuck in limbo, really not 100% bird, and of course not human. IMO.

Every bird flies to the high branches for security and sleep. That's why when they get lost outside and you're frantically calling them from below they're afraid to fly down even though they know you...it's counterintuitive. Unless they're recall trained and even then it's iffy if you've lost control of the situation.

03-30-2007, 10:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cindy215

If your birds are doing it at bed time it's because they are trying to get higher than the angle of the setting sun. (the lamps).

Try putting a smallish lamp with a dimmer on the floor. Dim for 15-30 minutes. Every bird wants to be in their sleeping spot at dusk.

I can't promise this will work for the birds who are up in the evening with busy houses keeping human hours. If I dont close the cage doors when mine are in their cage at about 6:00 they wait ...then come back out and sit up on the boing waiting for me to say time for bed. They go to bed at 6:45 this time of year but would be happy to even go earlier. Depending on the light or lack of it.

I know for a fact its nothing to do with this. She is perfectly content sitting wherever, until I say "Night, night time!" and walk to get her to step up. THEN, she climbs high away from me!

03-31-2007, 02:21 AM

Night time is not the reason for my suns going high, they do this in the morning when filled with energy so I know it is a game.

04-02-2007, 01:23 PM

I voted "other"; both Bud & Piper like to throw little tantrums if they're asked to step up off of either of our shoulders before they think it's time! They usually settle down pretty quickly but they make sure the fact that they're stepping up is under protest!

04-03-2007, 03:41 PM

I voted "other" also. It's totally a security thing with Tully. He goes up high when he's nervous only. If it's bedtime and he doesn't want to go in his cage, he'll still come right to me, but then flat refuse to let go of my hand.

I have never felt like any of my birds have ever wanted to "dominate" me. I think Willis would like to KILL me sometimes, but dominate? Never.

04-07-2007, 07:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Graehstone

Nate, by the same token though, Man being what he is (top of the food chain and all that) will always seek to be the dominant one no matter how hard we try to be the "benevolent teacher."

We just struggle along and kind of hope for the best.

on a roll now