Kris­tel-Marie Ram­nath

Al­though it is my per­son­al opin­ion that birds should re­main free to fly and con­quer the sky, many own­ers suc­cess­ful­ly keep some species as pets. Choos­ing the right bird as a pet should start with ad­her­ing to the ex­ist­ing leg­is­la­tion. I re­fer here to the Con­ser­va­tion of Wild Life Act 1958 which per­mits some species such as the Com­mon Ama­zon par­rot, the Bullfinch, the Para­keet and the Pi­coplat to be legal­ly cap­tured and kept caged; but pro­hibits the cap­tiv­i­ty of oth­er species dur­ing closed hunt­ing sea­son (April 1 to Sep­tem­ber 30) such as wild ducks, wa­ter­fowl and the com­mon vul­ture (cor­beau). For the full list of species please con­tact the Wildlife Sec­tion, Forestry Di­vi­sion at 662-5114.

Hav­ing as­cer­tained that you are per­mit­ted to keep a par­tic­u­lar species (or ob­tained a per­mit to keep a pro­tect­ed species), you should spend some time re­search­ing the fol­low­ing:

• Life span of the bird (some large par­rots can live for decades and may out­live you);

• Bird be­hav­iours and what you want or ex­pect from your bird (talk­ing, singing, per­form­ing tricks, some like to be han­dled and tol­er­ate cud­dling where­as oth­ers are more apt to bite you);

• In­ci­dence of species-re­lat­ed be­hav­iour­al prob­lems (bit­ing, scream­ing, feath­er-pluck­ing);

• Your lifestyle

Once you have cho­sen a species suit­able to your en­vi­ron­ment and stan­dard of liv­ing, the next step is to choose a breed­er. In an ide­al world, you would be able to go to a reg­is­tered breed­er who is breed­ing based on im­proved ge­net­ics for aes­thet­ics, health and tem­pera­ment. How­ev­er, all of our pet stores are un­reg­u­lat­ed and most sell live birds; and the breed­ers we have tend to be more con­cerned with mak­ing a sale than with the wel­fare of the an­i­mal. If you can source a rep­utable breed­er, make sure the bird is not tak­en from the par­ent be­fore it has be­come in­de­pen­dent (at least six to eight weeks old). The first step is to take your bird to an avian vet­eri­nar­i­an for a thor­ough ex­am­i­na­tion to en­sure that it is healthy. To en­sure a long, hap­py and healthy life for your new com­pan­ion clean the bird's en­vi­ron­ment dai­ly! Clean the feed­ing uten­sils, perch­es, toys and cage with hot, soapy wa­ter. If you use pa­per for drop­pings, do not use pa­per print­ed with coloured ink since most of these are tox­ic to birds. Birds should nev­er be placed near draughty win­dows, doors or air vents since they are un­able to es­cape the air flow and can be­come ill af­ter pro­longed ex­po­sure. At the oth­er ex­treme, do not leave them in di­rect sun­light.

Birds need the sun's ul­tra-vi­o­let rays to help in the ab­sorp­tion of cal­ci­um from the food they eat. Cal­ci­um makes their mus­cles well-toned and makes their bones strong and tough. Caged birds are of­ten de­nied sun­light as most of the time they re­main in­doors. In­door birds need 12-16 hours of light a day. It is best to keep your birds on the same sched­ule so their in­ter­nal clocks are not con­stant­ly be­ing re­set. To en­sure op­ti­mal ex­po­sure to sun rays you can keep the cage near a win­dow through which UV rays are com­ing in or place the cage out­side on a sun­ny day but re­mem­ber to cov­er a part of the cage with a cloth so that if the bird feels to cool it­self it can get un­der the cloth. If you must use a cage, it should be large enough for your bird to spread and flap its wings with­out hit­ting the bars. A flight cage is ide­al, where the bird can ac­tu­al­ly fly there­by de­vel­op­ing the flight mus­cles. Cages can be use­ful at times in pro­tect­ing your birds from the "out­side" world (oth­er pets, chil­dren, friends and rel­a­tives) as well as keep­ing the bird out of trou­ble. We will com­plete our tips on bird care in cap­tiv­i­ty in my next col­umn.

Guide to Buy­ing from a Pet Store

If you have no choice but to pur­chase a bird from a pet store, check it for the fol­low­ing:

En­sure the bird is breath­ing well (not wheez­ing or strain­ing).

Eyes and nos­trils should be clear and clean.

Feath­ers should be shiny with no bare spots.

The bird should be alert and aware.

Feel the bird's breast bone to check its weight. A pro­trud­ing breast bone means the bird is un­der­weight and could be ill.

Han­dle the bird to make sure it likes you.

A sick bird would look tired, droopy with ruf­fled fea­tures and would al­ways have the ten­den­cy to hide its head un­der its wings.

An ill bird would al­so have its drop­pings stuck to the feath­er of the tail.

Al­ways re­quest a com­plete bill of sale and make sure you can re­turn the bird if your vet de­ter­mines it is not healthy.

This ar­ti­cle is copy­right to Best Pets An­i­mal Be­hav­iour Ser­vice. For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion con­tact Kris­tel-Marie Ram­nath at 689-8113 or best­pets­be­have@ hot­mail.com