Okay, my time to shine! As someone who's adopted 19 rescues over the years, I know a thing or two about birbs (parrots). I know this has already been stated by others, but...
Touching a bird anywhere besides the beak, neck, or head sexually stimulates them. Only their mates will touch them elsewhere, and touching their back is especially stimulating since the only time they typically feel pressure on their backs is when they're being mounted. So, when you see someone touching a bird somewhere besides their head, it's freaking creepy.
Breeding behaviour, as stated by others, is strongly influenced by photoperiod. For this reason, I only have the lights on in my indoor aviary for 10 hours per day. One of the birds I adopted was a chronic egg layer, and she's only laid an egg once since coming to live with me, thanks to my strict light restrictions and not providing my birds with any potential nesting spots. Laying eggs is not only dangerous due to the potential for egg binding (i.e., the egg becomes stuck inside their body, which is often deadly), but also due to the fact that it can lead to mineral deficiencies as it requires a good amount of calcium, etc., to form egg shells. This is one of the reasons egg laying hens on factory farms are slaughtered after only a year. They're forced to lay an egg nearly everyday which is extremely taxing on their bodies, resulting in them becoming "spent" before their second birthday, meaning they'll be slaughtered and turned into low-quality animal feed while they're still extremely young.
As for crows, they're great people, but they can be nasty to other species. Crows are known for mobbing other animals, including ground predators such as foxes, and often go for the eyes. This is one of the reasons it's important to never leave your companion birds alone outside unattended, even when they're in a cage. There's been numerous instances when someone's taken their budgies (or other parrots) outside in their cage, left them alone for just a minute to grab something, only to come back and find them being viciously attacked through the bars of their cage by corvids. Corvids (especially magpies) are known for attacking pedestrians, typically going for the eyes. In some instances, humans have actually had their eyes gouged by corvids, resulting in full or partial blindness.
Oh, and I HATE the smell of birds. Parrots have this sickeningly sweet smell to them. My parrotlet, Noah, has a bit of a musk to him as well.
last edited at Oct 4, 2020 10:07AM
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