Choosing Birds As Pets : Section 1

CARE OF YOUR NEW PET BIRD

Once you have chosen a new pet bird you need to start caring for it. "Caring for it" can mean many different things to different people. To me it means a lot more than just putting the bird in a cage and making sure the bird has fresh food and water daily and that the cage is cleaned out each week.

In the past, pet birds have often been regarded as live ornaments and fun toys which are nice to have, cheap to acquire, and not worth spending money on because they are or were cheap to replace. What's more little could be done for them if they became sick.

Apart from avoiding malicious cruelty there was little responsibility attached to owning a bird; it was a possession and it was considered our God-given right to do whatever we liked with it. Birds were usually thought of as having bird brains, and anyone who thought otherwise was likely to be considered a twit, that is, not unlike the old concept of a "bird-brain".

However, we are learning that birds have remarkably complex brains, emotions and needs. With appropriate training they can communicate about many of these with us.

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