Pet care

[asterroc]

sclerotic_rings wrote a nice post on why not to get a Christmas puppy. I started to reply and realized it was unwieldingly long (yeah, I know "unwieldingly" isn't a word, it just fit), so I'm posting it here.


When I was a kid I convinced my parents to get me a pair of zebra finches. I did not take care of them myself, and since all they did was sit in a cage and chirp, I got bored of them. They were anticipated to live five years, and after they didn't die in five years, I told my parents I wanted something more interactive. The finches went to my grandmother who continued to take loving care of them until they were a whopping ten years old, and I bought a cockatiel with my own money.

Buying Peeper on my own, and when I was an older, more mature, 12 years old, gave me a bit more responsibility for her, and yet my parents took care of her more than I did, and entirely throughout my college years. I reclaimed her when I went to grad school, and I still have her now, some 6 years later. She is 15 years old, and when we got her we were told her life expectancy was 15, but now vets're saying 20-25.

I've learned a lot about proper care of a bird that I didn't know when I first got her. I've actually had a coworker looking to unload her cockatiel, and I offered to take her. The coworker backed out when I explained what I would do to care for the new bird and my own responsibly - take the new bird to the vet immediately, quarantine for a month, and then convert her to a pellet diet. Just like how cats and dogs eat cat/dog food rather than table scraps, it's healthier for birds to eat pellets than seeds or human food. The bird community discovering this is part of what has increased the life expectancy for birds since when I first got Peeper. But I think my coworker didn't think it was worth the "hassle" to take care of our birds correctly. *shrug*


Proper pet care takes a lot of time and effort, and things change too. Peeper has turned out to be both a bigger responsibility and bigger joy than I could've imagined. My parents did their best to make sure I was willing to take care of her as a child, and I still wasn't that successful. It was only because they were responsible themselves that Peeper has thrived as she has. Only when I reached adulthood was I able to care for her myself, but I now do so better than my parents ever did. :) Parents - really talk over getting a pet with your kid before doing so, and despite the kid's promises be prepared to be the caretaker yourself. In the case of non-traditional pets (that is, not cats and not dogs) don't be surprised when everything you learned about them when you first got them turns out to be wrong as we learn more about their care.


Big parrots are even more of an issue. You may not realize this, but the large parrots you see in pet stores - African grays, Amazon blues, reds, and greens, and cockatoos in white and peach - live as long as a human. That's 80-100 years. If you find one in a pet store, she's probably been passed around to various owners throughout her life. Human children who are fostered with many families have a hard time adjusting, and so do parrots. They will be screamers, hand biters, and feather pluckers (kinda like human trichtotillomania, and caused by distress or poor diet in the bird). Do not buy a pet-store parrot.

If you really do want a parrot, first spend a lot of time around one to make sure you really can stand it. Could you deal with it if you had a car horn honking in your house all day? Can you play with the parrot as much as you would a dog or a child? Do you really need all the legs on your tables? Can you eliminate most of the aerosols in the house, be extra careful or eliminate teflon pans (fumes from a burnt non-stick pan will kill your bird - think canary in a coal mine), and don't have lead paint in the house? Do you have friends, family, and neighbors who can take care of the bird if you're sick or on vacation? Then find a reputable breeder and a lawyer to help you write your will to provide for your parrot after your death. She will outlive you.


I don't think I'll ever buy a big parrot, though I'm considering a slightly bigger bird than Peeper, a small parrot, in the future. Peeper's very loving, which I appreciate, but for a next bird I think I'd like something more playful, more interactive in that way.