Interesting disseration on Greys

[DavidH]

http://www.stub.unibe.ch/download/eldiss/04schmid_r.pdf

 

I promise you will learn something new about Greys if you read this.

[Talon]

WOW! This is wonderful information. Thanks for sharing this with us!!

Karma for you. B)

[Nychsa]

Wow, long report David, I book marked it and will return to it - need some time to read that on

[Luvparrots]

Thanks for the info David!!!

[danmcq]

Great find David. Thanks for posting this. :-)

[ranaz]

Thanks for sharing :silly:

Its really interesting :lol:

[DavidH]

Maybe once a few people read it, we can have a discussion. I think in the post-Alex age, we may see a lot more studies on AGs, but this one was particularly interesting because it focused on breeding and lifelong care for our darlings.

[judygram]

I haven't had a chance to read it all but I will, thanks David for posting the link for us.

[Nychsa]

Ok, I finally had a good chance to read through this.

 

It is certainly a document that is viewed strictly from the perspective of a biologist.

 

To me, I understood the leading criteria relative to determining whether a behavior/activity is positive or negative is whether that kind of behavior/activity would lead to a thriving situation in the wild. I believe they stated as much in the begining of the document.

 

I thik as parrot "parents", I know I evaluate whether or not Bella and Jiggy appear to be content, happy and well.

 

Happiness is an elusive topic. I think even as human beings we'd be hard pressed to adequately characterize when we are truely happy. Most often we are unhappy because everything is constantly changing and this invokes experiences of loss, fear, aversion, craving in our mind streams. We don't suffer because someone we loved died - we suffer because we experience loss.

 

So, in my mind, when looking at Bella, Jiggy, Doc and Dream, I try to infuse their environment with things that seem to bring them joy, and keep those things at bay which would cause unhappy responses such as fear, anger etc..

 

As a personal choice, I've left Jiggy and Bella fighted. The house is large enough for them to get some good speeds going, and it allows me to see what kind of choices they make and potentially why.

 

Through out the house they have foraging opportunities. Jiggy (conure) forages more than Bella. Bella seems to be more involved with what the dogs or myself are doing. She's also much more interested in "cyphering" things out - opening things, shredding something, playing with something. She clearly needs more mental stimulation than Jiggy.

 

But, I would be loathe to generalize Bella's behavior and say this is so for all greys. One thing I've found through out my life time is that all animals have their very own personalities, adn while some things can be generalized, I think more often than not, there are bigger personality differences!<br><br>Post edited by: Nychsa, at: 2009/03/08 16:14

[LaceyGrey]

Great article David, thanks! Very interesting read, I learned a lot.

[Lyric]

It was very interesting and I do believe there is something to be said for how the breeder's techniques affect the parrot later in life.

What saddened me was reading the statistics about the birds involved in the study, particularly the ones that were disciplined roughly, kept in bad conditions or never allowed out of their cages.

Thanks for posting this David, as always you are a great contributor to this forum.