Post by Adele on Oct 13, 2006 18:08:55 GMT -7
I took a tour of our avian facility here at UC Davis. I found out that our university has a flock of orange wing amazons. In addition, the Roudybush feed was formulated at this school by a Ph.D. student using the orange wing amazon flock.
Unfortunately the flock didn't look so well. The breeder birds were in cages 8'x3'x3'. All of the Amazons were very aggressive as they are only handled once every two months to get their nails and beaks trimmed. The juvenile amazons (3-5yrs) weren't as lucky as the breeding pairs. They were housed in individual cages. The cages themselves were an average parrot size, but they only had one perch in each cage and no toys. There were 10 breeding pairs and 15 juveniles (35 total). The juveniles were also only taken out of their cage every two months. All of them were scared of us visiting. Atleast half of them were badly plucked. The manager of the facility, when asked why they plucked, said that it is normal parrot behavior. The parrots are used in behavior experiments (such as measuring interest in certain colors, shapes, etc.). I certainly would not have wanted to be one of them. They pluck because they are flock animals that are housed alone and never let out. They looked absolutely miserable. I am definitely looking into how to adopt the ones that are badly plucked so they won't just put them down. I know they are experiment animals, but they aren't like mice that live at most 2 years and have minimal intelligence. I was upset by the situation. There are so many graduate students that I am sure it would be easy to get people to take better care of them for free.
Unfortunately the flock didn't look so well. The breeder birds were in cages 8'x3'x3'. All of the Amazons were very aggressive as they are only handled once every two months to get their nails and beaks trimmed. The juvenile amazons (3-5yrs) weren't as lucky as the breeding pairs. They were housed in individual cages. The cages themselves were an average parrot size, but they only had one perch in each cage and no toys. There were 10 breeding pairs and 15 juveniles (35 total). The juveniles were also only taken out of their cage every two months. All of them were scared of us visiting. Atleast half of them were badly plucked. The manager of the facility, when asked why they plucked, said that it is normal parrot behavior. The parrots are used in behavior experiments (such as measuring interest in certain colors, shapes, etc.). I certainly would not have wanted to be one of them. They pluck because they are flock animals that are housed alone and never let out. They looked absolutely miserable. I am definitely looking into how to adopt the ones that are badly plucked so they won't just put them down. I know they are experiment animals, but they aren't like mice that live at most 2 years and have minimal intelligence. I was upset by the situation. There are so many graduate students that I am sure it would be easy to get people to take better care of them for free.
I wish that as society, that we could treat humans that have been cruel to animals the way that they mistreated the animals that were in their care. That would be fair punishment. If you have a parrot locked up in a small cage with no toys and no interaction except to have their nails trimmed once every two months, then you should be placed in a very small jail cell with nothing but a single bed (and toilet facility), and not be allowed out except once every two months. Lol - I think I woke up on the wrong side of the bed... hehehe... But seriously - I just hate to hear stories about animals being mistreated or neglected. It makes me really sad... 
). I know I would certainly be happy to give one a home... even if they never become 'personable', at least they'd have a good home and good food and so forth.