Do not pry birds from the cage bars

wordsonbirds:

Please, please.

I know that lots of folks will assume that the bird will let go when they realize that they aren’t going to win in this tug-of-war where their body is the rope. So a lot of people when their bird is being exceptionally stubborn will try to pick them up and if a bird doesn’t want to go they will clamp their feet down hard as they can.

It’s often not just that they are being stubborn and don’t want to move, a lot of the time they are scared.

They see someone reaching in and grabbing them from their ‘nest’ and especially young ones will hold on to the bars for dear life against an intruder trying to abduct them. Because as far as they are concerned it could be a matter of life and death.

Not all birds will bite, some will just struggle to get away and others will end up freezing up completely, which only makes their grip stronger.

So you can’t assume if your bird isn’t biting that you are not hurting them.

I say all of this because that is what happened to a little Meyer’s a couple of weeks ago. You know those little babes I’ve posted pictures of once in awhile? Someone wanted to take them out of the cage but the baby was reluctant and the person decided to just keep pulling on the bird until they let go.

Unfortunately the only point the bird let go was when their toe broke.

There is absolutely no need to use that kind of force unless you are in a life or death situation (and even then care should be taken to try to prevent injury or further harm). If you just want your baby out of the cage because you want to do something with them, you need to find other methods of getting them out of the cage.

Grabbing and pulling while they desperately cling on is a recipe for disaster.

Remember they are so much more fragile than we are and we are so much stronger than them. Their bones are not dense and their muscles are comparatively small. But that doesn’t mean that they aren’t strong enough to hold onto something. Especially parrots are designed to be able to hold on for dear life and they are strong enough to pull their body.

You have to be very careful of the amount of force you apply to any interaction with them, and you certainly shouldn’t be trying to out muscle them.

Please, don’t pry birds off of things they are desperately clinging to. Find another way to get them off.