Walter is becoming a spoiled bird and a problem
13For the past week or so, he has refused to come down off his high perch on his play stand to eat his breakfast (eggs, melon, string beans and chick peas) He used to come down when he saw me bring his food dish. The last couple of days I had to take him down and put him in front of the dish for him to eat.
Today he wanted no part of the food I gave him until I gave him the tails from the peel and eat shrimp I had for lunch. That he came down for and started to eat. SPOILED BIRD.
- 11 comments, 55 replies
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So what are you going to do?
Charlie does that occasionally. I just leave his kibble out and he gets no treats/snacks until he decides to eat. Usually resolves itself in a day or so.
@tinamarie1974 I would do that except Walter gets all his liquid from his juicy melons (cantaloupe and honey dew) -he hasn’t had a water dish in his cage for months. So if he doesn’t come down for food, he doesn’t get anything to drink.
@Felton10 oh, yeah that would be a problem
@tinamarie1974 Last time I put his water dish in his cage, he took a bath in the water and got it all dirty.
@Felton10 @tinamarie1974 So what does Walter do for showers or baths? With all their dander they like to wash off frequently. Our grandgrey takes baths in his water dish occasionally, and we just change it out after he is done. Other times, like now in the winter when the air is dry, he likes a shower. He will fluff and ruffle and bow his head until we go get the spray bottle and spritz him. He will ruffle and coo while he enjoys his shower. When he has had enough he lets us know by moving to the other end of his perch.
@gio @tinamarie1974 we put him in the shower on this perch when he starts itching a lot or produces a lot of dander. Then spray him with a spray bottle until he is dripping wet. He loves it.
@tinamarie1974 That didn’t work with Christina Crawford.
@gio @tinamarie1974 picture of Walter getting a shower today.
@Felton10 @gio such a handsome boy!!
@Felton10 @gio @tinamarie1974 I have to agree with you.
@Felton10 @gio @Walterbird
/giphy giggle
@Felton10 @gio @tinamarie1974 @Walterbird
So modest, too.
@Felton10 @gio @Kyeh @Walterbird does he realize he posted birdie porn? He IS naked!?!?!?!
@Felton10 @gio @tinamarie1974 @Walterbird
Oooo, so not modest that way!
@gio @Kyeh @tinamarie1974 @Walterbird Hey Walter has feathers covering his sensitive areas-he is NOT naked. No birdie porn here.
@Felton10 @gio @Kyeh @Walterbird Like this??
@Felton10 @gio @Kyeh @tinamarie1974 My owner pets and rubs my ear holes (where all birds love to be petted) and is above my waist. So no inappropriate activity going on here. I keep all my feathers on at all times.
@Felton10 @gio @Kyeh @Walterbird Ear holes? I had no idea
/giphy the more you know
@gio @Kyeh @tinamarie1974 @Walterbird Wouldn’t expect you or anyone else to know something like that if you have never owned a bird. He climbs down from the cage and bangs his beak on my computer when he wants to be petted.
@Felton10 @gio @Kyeh @tinamarie1974 Well how else do you expect me to get your attention? Poop on your head?
time for the special parrot dungeon, isn’t it?
@f00l NOT THE DUNGEON!!!
In my defense, if you had been given essentially the same food for breakfast for 25 years, wouldn’t you get tired of it? I am on strike for a better variety of food.
Yesterday I was given blintzes which wasn’t bad, but today it was back to eggs for the main course and I finally had enough.
@Walterbird That is what we get for trying to treat you like a person instead of a bird.
@Felton10 @Walterbird
I don’t see anything wrong with the idea that you learn to cook like a 5 star chef and then custom do fancy meals fit for a Paris food cathedral for Walter.
I bet @walterbird would go for this.
Stop being an enabler for bad behavior.
If he gets thirsty enough, he will drink.
@mike808 Maybe good enough for Apollo but not for Walter.
In my defense Walter has the best of food. Here he is eating a prime rib bone during the holidays. His cage (now clean as I pressure washed it last weekend) is a stainless steel cage which costs probably 5 times more than a regular one which you can’t pressure wash as the paint will come off.
@Felton10 Are parrots omnivore predators in the wild? Or is it environmental pressure? I just can’t see parrots as carrion eaters either. So what’s the story on the dead beef on-the-bone eating?
People I get. We’re omnivore apex predators. In the case of parrots, I’m not convinced this isn’t well-intentioned but still forced behavior we impose on wild animals we call “pets” trying to “humanize” them. As in we want our pets to have human traits, psychologically, so we expect and force them to behave like humans in other ways too. (like putting clothes on cats and dogs - they already have clothes. It’s called fur.)
I’m not going all PETA here, just scientific curiosity and wondering what trained veterinarians think about the situation.
@mike808 A variety of foods is good for his health-including proteins. We let him try everything we eat except things that would be bad for him. In the past week he has had lobster and king crab legs.
No clothes for him, but we do give him free reign in the house and he is not locked in the cage at any time when we are in the house only at night and when we go out. I wouldn’t want to be locked in a cage all day and neither would you even though that is what a lot of captive parrots face.
@Felton10 @mike808 so what would be considered “bad” for Walter?
@mike808 @tinamarie1974 Avocatos and chocolate for example although he does like dessert once and a while.
@Felton10 When would a parrot in their natural habitat encounter lobster, beef, or king crab is kind of what I’m asking. If not those proteins, what would their natural protein sources be? Insects? Not criticizing, just curious. Don’t they originate from tropical rainforest (e.g. Brazil, Congo, etc,)? Are they predators in the wild?
@mike808 One blurb I read listed chicken as a protein source but not sure it mean wild parrots or what you should feel them in captivity. Said they like to eat the marrow of bones which Walter does.
@Felton10 Just curious. One of those things like when you hear the cat food commercials say “Cats love the taste of tuna”. I think we all know that there has never been a domesticated cat that ever landed an ocean-going tuna. So how could they possibly have an evolutionary selection towards tuna as a dietary source to “love” it?
That’s why I was wondering if parrots were carrion eaters in the wild, opportunistic omnivores, or originally insectivores. And since we humans don’t eat insects (generally or intentionally), we just imposed our (human) dietary sources on our pets. Not that it was malicious or anything, that’s just how we humans are wired. We impose humanistic concepts onto the world around us. Like seeing giant faces and canals on Mars or shapes in clouds.
@mike808 I read that birds have only a few taste buds, but given the things Walter likes to eat and takes one bite of and walks away from I doubt that is true. Right now he has really developed a taste for artichoke leaves.
@Felton10 Maybe there are other receptors like smell and texture that signal what is either safe or unsafe to eat, or he just decides to “wing it” and roll the dice that whatever it is won’t kill him. And if his trained servants prepared it and served it to him, then there’s a good chance they aren’t trying to kill him, given his most excellent, generous, kind, and benevolent rule over his empire and its peasants.
I have to admit, there are some pretty odd things that we humans eat that at some point someone decided “Fuck it, I’m gonna eat it anyway.” and didn’t die. Either out of desparation, or out of juvenile stupidity seeking a minor elevation in social status.
@Felton10 @mike808
…raw oysters comes to mind…
Who was first person who tried that… and why?
@Felton10 @icehole I was thinking sea urchin and the runner-up in the WTF? foods is Lutefisk.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutefisk
The all-time winner is, of course … Surströmming
It’s like “cheffed up” Lutefisk. Now with more umami!
Dude #1: Hey, we just caught this fish! Let’s eat it!
Dude #2: No, bruh. Let’s pickle it in lye (soap) and then bury it for a year and then dig it up and eat it!
Dude #1: OK. That sounds awesome! As long as you let me try it first!
DIPLOMAT! RAT-A-TAT! FAT CAT! AWESOME!
My wife thinks it is a reaction to the stress of being passed over again for GOAT.
Walter you are in my top 5 birds of all time.
Also in no order included are Larry, Big , Tweety and Poe
@CaptAmehrican blasphemy.
/image harvey birdman
Maybe put a a small ramekin size dish of water in there so he can’t swim in it and see if he’ll drink. Also maybe he’s just full from the meal he had yesterday or stop feeding him such high end stuff so he’ll eat regular stuff when needed. Only give the high end stuff on very special occasions (no more than once a month). Think like trying to get your kids to eat vegetables. If you don’t make them do it for days on end and then all of sudden expect them to their gonna give you push back.
@Star2236 Well, I think he eats what they eat, and they obviously eat very fancy food!
@Kyeh
Well then they get a starving bird when don’t put our fancy food.
@Star2236 I’m pretty sure that’s never going to happen - in case you haven’t noticed, Walter is one very doted-upon bird.
@Kyeh
-things people should stop doing in the new year- complaining about how they treat their special bird if they don’t REALLY want help. Lol I’m just being sarcastic for people who don’t get that, I’ve been told my sarcasm is hard to see.
@Star2236 You know, I think this topic is actually a humble brag.
“Oh, poor me, my beautiful valuable parrot won’t eat his luxurious meals unless I baby him.” Yeah, poor, poor @Felton10!
@Kyeh Hey you have been one of Walter’s biggest followers for a long time. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t spoil him if you got the chance?
I have owned birds for about 35 years now and treated all of them the same with a high degree of success. I don’t think there is anything wrong with not treating them like birds do you?
@Felton10 If his vet thinks he’s healthy, then I think it’s all fine. But the amount of effort you put into his care is probably more than I would be willing to do! My cat gets cat food and treats, and plain water. Of course, he does have 3 water bowls throughout the house that get refilled on demand; he LOVES fresh water for some reason. So I guess our little tyrants have their way with us, even if we realize it’s excessive.
@Kyeh Had checkups the last two times I took him in for a wing and claw trim plus blood work and vet said he should live to be 60. Yikes. Yep-they control us more than we would like to admit.
@Felton10 Wow. I wonder if your son or daughter will let him continue to live in the manner to which he is accustomed! Maybe you’ll just have to live to be 120 years old or something like that… how old is he now?
@Kyeh Since both my son an daughter-in-law work the logistics of letting him be free all day won’t be available but my son said they would take him. He turned 25 this year-we got him when he was 10 weeks old.
@Felton10 @Kyeh My cats have a fountain and two other water bowls. And this morning, the calico girl deemed it too cold to get off her heating pad to go into the kitchen to eat breakfast so she got it served in bed. Not spoiled at all. LOL
@Felton10 @ironcheftoni
Oh, my! Breakfast in bed, what a little empress!
“A bird can live a lot longer without food than it can without water. Approximately 75 percent of a bird’s body is made up of water. Each day, an adult bird needs to drink enough water to make up 5 percent of its body weight to replace the water lost from waste removal, respiration and evaporation.”
Parrots need clean, fresh water provided to them EVERY DAY.
@ciela Told the vet that he gets most if not all of his liquid from melons and she said that was alright. Make sure they sit out before cutting so they are nice and juicy. If you could see how much of them he eats, you would know he is getting enough liquid. And without being too graphic, his poop is certainly liquidity enough-no change in how it looked from when he was drinking water.
I was concerned about it also until I talked to the vet. Thanks for the info and your concern.
@Felton10 Thank you for clarifying!
The deal is you let him get up high. When his eye level is above yours, he is in charge - not you. I learned this lesson very early with my blue and gold macaw.
BTW, props on the cage that’s easy to wash. I always used wrought iron and took them outside once a week to hose the whole shooting match down.
@allergycheryl My wife says that if I stay on top of his poops the cage, it wouldn’t get so nasty, but I have 35 years of bad habits to overcome. Besides he spends very little time in the cage-from 9:00 am till around 7:00 PM on his play gym in the great room (high up way above eye level) and goes into his cage to eat dinner at 7:00 and then on top of the cage until I lock him in for the night at midnight.
Walter!!!
@walterbird!
Walter, you have become very spoilt and over-indulged!
/giphy Walter!
@f00l Who me???
@Walterbird
Yes, you!!!
YOU, @walterbird, are SPOILT!!!
You now owe amends to everyone in your household.
(I’m sure you’ll get right on to completing that little task asap)
@f00l I do leave a little present on the floor every time I walk around the house. Isn’t that enough?
@Walterbird
You owe the full twelve step parrot amends and recovery routine, @walterbird.
Haven’t you read the “spoilt pet recovery manual”?
You mustn’t only just talk the talk.
(Or squawk the squawk.)
You must also walk the walk.
(Or, perhaps, waddle the waddle)
Working the entire program of amends and recovery will require years, if not decades, of total dedication and ingested melon-ry.