I'd like to take a moment to talk about parrots in human households. See how cute this fuzzface is? He was no longer welcome in his home when he was 5 years old. He had become dangerously aggressive to most of his human flock. Why and how did that happen? I'll tell you, yay!

Many people buy baby parrots from pet stores. For a few years, all is well. The young bird is playful, loving and cooperative even with a lot of handling like snuggles and hugs. But then, like every other creature, PUBERTY STRIKES at some point. Usually around 2-6 yrs, depending.

At that point the bird is like a human teenager. MAAAHHHHMMM YOU'RE EMBARRASSING ME! Many become less appreciative of the snuggles, or worse, they appreciate them TOO much, in the wrong kind of way. When birds become sexually mature, they will want to find a mate. It's normal.

What most human families don't know or understand is how their interactions with their bird are now being seen in a new light by the bird. The bird wants independence and to settle down with a mate and make bebeh parrots. Humans are often blissfully unaware of how this works.

And because of this, humans accidentally lead their parrots on, unintentionally engaging in foreplay or mate bonding interactions or encouraging nesting behavior. Examples:

Touching a bird's back or tail: sexytimes! Letting your bird eat from your mouth: mate! Letting your bird shred stuff up in a box or a drawer: nest!

When this behavior starts and humans accidentally encourage it, it starts a chain of events that leads to bad behavior.

I want to say up front that it's really hard to resist this stuff because it's really adorable. Even the best of us have sometimes not put our foot down when we ought to. But the message we send our bird is: yes, it's time to mate, and with one of us.

When your bird chooses a mate from your "flock", they may become aggressive towards the other human family members to try to protect and stake their claim. If they have chosen a nest site, they'll be aggressive about defending that, too.

Aggression can include biting and screaming, and it can feel like it's come from nowhere. One minute you had a very well behaved bird, and the next, it's become an unholy terror! You hear a lot of people say a bird "got nasty" all if a sudden. It's not really nasty, just horny.

Once aggression starts, it can be quickly unintentionally reinforced by humans. When it comes to parrots, every moment is a training moment, whether you mean for it to be or not. You're always reinforcing a behavior, whether it's bad or good.

So if a bird comes to prefer the lady of the house, for instance, and bites the husband when he kisses his wife, and the couple assumes the bird just "likes her better" or has "bonded" to her more, they might start letting the bird spend more time with her and less with him.

The bird believes, aha, this is working for me! Soon the bird may start attacking the man even when he's not touching his wife. You can see how this can very quickly get out of hand. Suddenly the bird is confined to its cage more or even reprimanded. Bad behavior spiral!

This is the point where many people decide the bird has turned mean. Sometimes they surrender the bird to a rescue or try to sell it. Sometimes they just leave them in their cage and stop interacting with them as much. Either way, nobody is happy with how things are going.

The best way to avoid this is to prevent it. Learn what constitutes mating and nesting behavior and discourage it by not rewarding it or participating in it. There are also many ways to convince the bird it's not a good time to breed.

A couple of examples: restricting daylight hours and reducing the amount of fat in their diet. There are more, which I'm happy to talk about or you can find by Googling. I'm going to move on, though, by backtracking.

I mentioned way back that birds may not want to be handled as much as they did when they were juveniles. This can lead to bad behavior when humans do not expect this change of heart from their bird and try to continue handling their bird as they always did.

When a human tries to "force" their bird to do something it doesn't want, it will first try to say no with body language. If that is ignored, it may escalate all the way to biting, which is a bird's last resort.

They don't WANT to bite you, but if every other method of communication is ignored, they will. If you repeatedly ignore their signals, they will learn that biting is the ONLY way they can enforce their boundaries, and it becomes their first response instead of last resort.

And suddenly, a once-sweet bird has "turned mean". The way to avoid this is learn your bird's language and respect their boundaries. I like to say birds are the perfect way to teach consent. If a bird doesn't want something, they tell you, but you have to listen.

Again, the best way to avoid having to deal with a bitey bird is to prevent the accidental training-in of the idea that biting is the only way to enforce their boundaries. You may be sad your bird doesn't want to cuddle anymore, but it's growing up and you have to respect that.

So, now we come to that fuzzface in the photo. He'd chosen a mate, and he stopped liking cuddles. The family tried to make it work but eventually gave up, and now he's part of my flock. He was a real terror. Now he's a very sweet bird. He needed lots of training to get there.

I'm happy to talk about how we got there, but mostly I wanted to point out that the super cute birb pictures you see don't tell you the whole story, and many, MANY birds need new homes because of the things people don't know or expect when they get a bird.

To be frank, parrots do NOT make good pets. They don't belong in human households. We are fundamentally unsuitable habitats. But the reality is, people breed and sell them and then think they "turn mean" and "get rid" of them, so suckers like me end up with them.

I do the best I can but they are perpetual toddlers and need constant attention and supervision. I love them, but I do not recommend them. But, I'll also help you, if you need it. So please ask, sooner rather than later, so you and your bird can be happy together.

I also highly recommend Barbara Heidenreich for more information on force free positive reinforcement training. Excellent resource. Ok, thus ends my novel. Enjoy birb pictures, but be aware! Scritches to all. /fin.