i know way too much about how large psittacids are bred to ever support the pet parrot industry
consider the blue and gold macaw, Ara ararauna. b&g macaws reach full sexual maturity within the first five years of their life, though their breeding age in the wild (though variable) tends to be anywhere from 15-30 years old. they will typically raise one clutch (1-3 eggs) about every other year. like (almost) all larger psittacids, they’re monogamous and have incredibly long lifespans.
going by their natural reproductive habits, the blue and gold macaw is impossible to profitably breed. even a super active, 100% successful pair would only produce three chicks a year, which is a pathetic payout when you factour in the costs of food, equipment, veterinary care, etc.
breeders know this, and they know they cannot change the nature of those birds, but they can tweak the environment their birds are in to maximise profit and profit exclusively. enter the current standard practise for breeding: stimulus deprivation. when you put two birds in a wire cage with nothing but a nest box and perches, the only real stimulation they get is from interacting with one another, and ultimately that leads to more mating. so, too, is the reason for the breeder’s minimal contact with the birds past the provision of food and water – bonding and interacting with one or both birds from a breeding pair significantly lessens the chance that they’ll breed. in addition to that, breeding pairs are often
coerced into breeding at a younger age, with the “advisable” window being 4-12 years,
separated from their mate if production is slowed down, then paired up with more active/virile birds,
and often deprived of the ability to hatch their own chicks, but if they are allowed to incubate and hatch, the chicks are taken from them within the first week.
as it stands, the profitable average for large parrots is 2-3 clutches per year, or about 8-10 eggs annually, with 4-6 breeding pairs of each bird available being the general standard to maintain a regular and available stock.
at the end of the day, the basic living requirements for these birds (food, clean water, space to move around, a sanitary environment, veterinary access) are met, but the birds are far from properly cared for. missing toes, bald heads/breasts, obesity, and stereotypies are rife in medium- and large-scale breeding facilities. more unfortunate still, however, is that parrot breeders aren’t measured by the treatment of their breeding pairs as much as they are by the cleanliness of the establishment and the treatment of the chicks. that “lots of love” standard that these breeders always seem to brag about never extends past the animals they intend to sell, because that’s an active danger to the profitability of their business.
so i repeat: there is absolutely no way to breed macaws, amazons, cockatoos, etc for a profit while also keeping their health in mind. there is no way to make a living off of breeding them without ignoring their needs and effectively exploiting them. it is impossible to make any money off of breeding them unless you compromise their health.
(since i’m obligated to say it, parrots are not pets. all psittacids, with the debatable exception of the english budgerigar, are wild animals and not suited for household life. the appeal of sweet baby parrots or a smart “talking bird” or some high-class exotic is not worth the intensive care these birds require. and contrary to popular belief, the “pet” parrot industry does not support captive breeding and reintroduction efforts, and as a matter of fact, the rising popularity of hybrid macaws and excessive “pet” parrots flooding the market makes things worse.)
And you use positive punishment to resolve the issue (hitting/kicking, lead jerk, prong collar etc).
And it works and the dog stops going for other dogs.
It is literally because you’ve physically abused your dog to the point that their desire to defend themselves against a perceived threat is outweighed by the fear they have that you are going to inflict pain on them.
THIS is what i mean when I say animal rights groups are absolute garbage that waste time, resources and money, all whilst doing nothing for animal’s welfare.
peta have ruined a person’s life and career over a fucking photo. This is what peta does with it’s donated money and resources. This is what you’re supporting when you support animal rights groups.
This is such an ignorant and dense statement. You want to slam animal rights groups? By all means, target PETA. Call them out all you want. But the VAST majority of animal rights groups fight tooth and nail for animals to have some semblance of respect and not be treated as tools and products in a world that sees nothing past the price tag. I can tell you know nothing of animal rights organizations by the generalized anger you’re displacing about PETA. Don’t disrespect the hard work animal rights activists do through rescue, sanctuaries, law, politics, and public awareness
Rescues, sanctuaries, law advocates, etc is the work of animal WELFARE groups. Animal rights groups (ELF, PETA, ALF, HSUS, protection for furbearers, mercy for animals, and even greenpeace) are classified as domestic terrorists.
Maybe if they did some good you could defend this, but the issue is most of these groups have charges of falsifying footage and criminal cruelty to stage the “awareness” videos they produce.
Your local humane society, and animal welfare organizations are the ones on the ground rescuing animals.
HSUS is facing fraud and racketeering charges relating mostly to taking hundreds of thousands in donations to help victims of Katrina. Not a single cent they can account for helped any animal and worse they interfered with real rescue groups and put them in danger.
Mercy for Animals is under heavy suspicion of having staged the famous skinned alive tanuki video. A lot of their claims and even the footage which they did release (over an hour of cut footage was withheld even with court orders for it) contradicts their story.
the man has no clue what he is doing and has obviously never done this before
he is in street clothes not a butcher outfit like a man nearby
onlookers are confused asking in the local dialect why he is trying to skin it alive and commenting how abnormal that is which has been translated by native speakers
look at the pile. Why is it the ONLY bloody animal in the pile? Because it’s the only one that was skinned alive. The rest are bloodless which is how skinning a dead animal is.
it is more difficult, dangerous and results in a lower value fur… there is no rational reason someone would do more work for less pay.
PETA has been caught using clips from court confirmed staged films where criminal cruelty charges were laid as well as misleading about the origins of real cruelty claiming footage shot at a fox urine/musk farm of foxes with injuries to the bone is a “normal fur farm”.
The real situation was these were animals seized from a farm that had been shut down for cruelty before peta arrived and shot their footage before the vet arrived to humanely euthanize the animals via lethal injection.
Protector for Furbearers has criminal charges for catching coyotes and setting them loose in a small pen filled with barbaric traps that are never really used and filmed them suffering for hours in their completely staged film They Take So Long to Die.
How about Arctik films who has criminal charges and a signed statement from the man who clubbed a baby seal and skinned it alive was paid to do so by animal rights groups. The footage is still used by PETA and HSUS.
ALF has caused massive environmental damage mass releasing captive mink from fur farms into the wild. The release mink died slowly from hunger and many were run over. Those that survived? Decimated the populations of many species and may have caused the extinction of a bird.
Animal welfare is good- animal rights groups are bad.
Ps I’m an ex-member of animal rights groups for a reason. They hurt way more animals and people than they do any good.
PETA uses donations to
buy freezers to store the majority of the animals they take in and immediately kill
to make falsified ads and try bully kids into being vegan
pay bail on those who fire bomb labs- with people inside. You may not agree with animal testing but killing or harming someone who is just doing their job and maybe the only way they can make ends meet? Try justify that to their families.
Thanks @lilrabbitssong. I really really good break down on the difference between animal rights and animal welfare groups and why it’s important to know that difference.
this is literally no way to treat any animal, and it’s completely avoidable.
.5ppm+ ammonia is inexcusable – this betta was literally burning alive every second he was in that water – and it’s entirely from lack of care. not to mention his fins are literally rotting off and he is completely emaciated – this fish was not being fed.
for example, here is my completely healthy male dumbo eared betta, arwen:
his back has a nice curve outward to it, meaning he is a healthy weight. his stomach has a gentle swell, meaning he was fed recently and an appropriate amount for his size. he doesn’t have fin rot, meaning his fins are not blackening and necrotic – literally rotting away.
for comparison, here is the doubletail male i got today:
both his back and stomach are sunken in – this betta is both emaciated and hasn’t eaten in several days at least. his fins are necrotic and rotting away – he is quite literally decaying while still alive. he is also VERY pale – meaning he is stressed and sick. (NOTE: the healthy betta used as an example isn’t a double tail – which means exactly what it sounds like. he only has one tail while the betta i got today has two)
this is a comparison between the two from above:
it was difficult to take a picture of arwen from above because a healthy betta is very unlikely to sit still when your hands are hovering above them – my betta would be excited and dancing around for food, because they are conditioned to associate my hands above them with eating. in general, a healthy betta isn’t going to sit still for a picture. aside from that, i think it’s very apparent the difference between the two. arwen’s body is all gentle, healthy curves. his head isn’t large in proportion to his body and it doesn’t look weirdly disjointed from the rest of his body.
i’d normally post this to my fish blog, but i think it’s extremely important for people to really SEE this cruelty for what it is and understand just how easy it would be to provide proper care.
i don’t suggest anyone “rescue” a betta from petsmart or any other store- especially walmart. that being said, i just couldn’t leave him, he was belly up and i knew if i didnt take him no one else would – not like it would have mattered because i got him at closing and i know he wouldnt have survived the night had i not taken him. i also saw an opportunity for education – because i have 10k followers on this blog.
this is his new home. a clean, warm environment dosed with aquarium salt and stressguard(a fish antiseptic). i will have to monitor him closely for a while, change out his water daily and dose him with more antiseptic and aquarium salt.
this is the difference in just 5 hours
please, properly care for your animals, and dont support companies that don’t.
On my schedule today was a pancake tortoise that was coming in because it wasn’t eating. I got all of my examination equipment ready and went into the exam room to get started. A young man was sitting in a chair with a shoebox on his lap. We chatted for a bit and then I started asking him questions about his tortoise.
I found out he had purchased the tortoise from a reptile show 8 years ago and that it lived in a ten gallon aquarium with gravel for substrate. It’s diet consisted of lettuce and carrots. Only. The only water provided was from a spray bottle that was used to mist the cage every other day. There was no heat, UV light, cage decor, hide, nothing. I wrote everything down and asked him for the box.
I opened the box and looked inside and nearly lost my composure. Inside was a stunted, gnarled creature about 4 inches long with a grossly abnormal shell. I took him out and put him on the table and pulled himself across the table bits and pieces of his carapace fell off. I don’t mean the scutes, I mean the actual pieces of bone that make up the shell. You could see his organs through gaps in his ribs.
“I will be right back” I said and grabbed the tortoise and went into the treatment room. I was so angry that my hands were shaking. Calculating some dosages I handed them to my tech and asked her to draw up pain medication and a sedative. “Did he approve this?” she asked.
“No. I don’t care. Please draw it up and give this IM.”
Slowly I walked back into the room. I asked the owner how long the tortoise had been like that. He wasn’t sure. He had just stopped eating a day ago. Up until then it was perfectly healthy.
“Your tortoise has been very poorly taken care of. If he were a dog this would be considered animal abuse. Because he is a reptile I am not very likely to get far with the authorities so I’m gonna make you a deal. You sign him over to me and pay for the examination and you can go.”
He thought about it and told me no, it was his tortoise. I asked why he didn’t take care of it. “I thought I was” was his response.
“Why doesn’t he have any source of heat?”
“I didn’t know they needed it.”
“Why didn’t you give him UV light?”
“I didn’t know they needed it.”
“You are telling me that you never opened a book, magazine, internet care sheet, nothing to find out how to care for a tortoise?”
“Yeah. I just thought I knew.”
We talked some more and I finally convinced him to sign the tortoise over. I went back to check on him and he looked even worse. More of his shell had fallen off. I could see his lungs now. I decided it would be for the best to humanely euthanize him so he wouldn’t suffer anymore.
In this day and age “I didn’t know” is not a valid excuse. You can look up anything on your phone from who invented pizza to where the closest movie theater is. There are literally hundreds of books, websites, and internet forums all about reptile care. You can call any veterinarian before purchasing an animal and ask them about their care and I promise you they will talk to you.
I am no longer going to gently nudge people in the right direction husbandry wise. I will no longer tell them “well, lots of people make that mistake, it’s ok”. I am going to call it like it is and if an animal is suffering they will know it is abuse. There is zero excuse for this.
It is sad that reptiles and other exotics don’t have the “cute” factor other animals do. No one would allow an owner to get away with feeding their dog nothing but potato peelings because they just “didn’t know” and yet it is perfectly fine to own a reptile and watch it slowly starve to death because someone “didn’t know” it needed to eat insects.
Iguanas that live in cages so small they can’t turn around. Tortoises kept without the proper heat gradient. Monitor lizards over fed until they are morbidly obese and can’t even walk. This is all abuse and it is wrong. Unfortunately reptiles are survivors and they can be dying for YEARS before anything is noticed. Owners confuse being alive with being healthy far too often.
I simply cannot stand by and watch this happen anymore. I allowed myself to be drawn into the “well, exotics are different, people just don’t know” mind set and did lots of hand holding while owners declined or refused my recommendations. From now on I promise I will flat out tell people it is animal cruelty and will have to make a phone call if things don’t change. It will not make me a popular vet nor a rich one but at least I will be able to sleep at night.
My challenge to everyone is that if they notice an animal being abused politely but firmly call the owner out. There is no need to internet shame, threaten violence or bully someone. Simply tell them what they are doing is wrong, their animal is suffering and they need to fix it. There are numerous reliable resources to find the proper information. If they won’t fix it the proper authorities need to be contacted.
BettSplendens Tumblr Evac 