Matching a parrot in need of a home with the right household is more than finding the family the parrot of their dreams. As many parrot fosters and adoption coordinators recognize, it can be disheartening to have the parrot returned when the family just can’t make it work or realized their skills were outmatched after a few years of trying. This presentation explores behavior and skill metrics that our consulting and training practice has recognized over several decades that lead to promising outcomes for parrots and how they coordinate with environmental variables in potential homes. These front-end analyses can lead to better adoptee screening, training, and matching that will provide sustainable parrot-human relationships.
Parrots are intelligent and socially complex animals that often face behavioral challenges in human care. These challenges can contribute to high rates of relinquishment and rehoming. Adoption programs play a crucial role in providing second chances for parrots, yet the lack of standardized approaches to assess and address behavioral compatibility often undermines their success. Parrot adopters select their companions in variety of ways. They select based on financial and spatial resources, species preferences, availability, previous experience, peer influence, and individual impressions, ie “the woo factor.” Potential parrot owners have a small variety of options to choose from when it comes to looking for a parrot that needs a home, including
There are less than 100 large adoption organizations specifically devoted to parrot rehoming, with likely many more smaller rehoming entities. A random sample of n =18 of the larger adoption organizations revealed that 95% require some type of avian care class before adopting a bird. However, at this current time, no standardized set of welfare indicators has been identified for parrots (Pissedu et al 2024). This means that the range of evidence based approaches – or lack thereof – in these classes will vary greatly. If the goal is to keep parrots in their homes as long as possible and out of adoption organizations, then identifying factors that lead to failure of compatibility and mismatch of expectations in adopters across a broad spectrum of species and utilizing these to generate a productive adoption and foster care period. Similarly, this information can be used to design classes and supportive information for before, during and after the adoption process to continue the progress for the bird and humans.
Behavioral metrics offer a promising solution for adoptable parrots. A study by Gui et al (2024) developed a quantitative model that objectively evaluates household suitability for pet ownership. They used quantitative measurements for cat adoption and then further incorporated diverse variables to provide a systematic approach to predicting successful pet-human relationships. The goal is to reduce the likelihood of incompatibility and its associated challenges. This study provides a significant advancement in the field of animal welfare and the adoption process.
There are many factors that come in to play when a parrot is adopted, and not least of those is the level of experience the adopting family has. Experience, however, may not be as significant a factor to success as previously believed (Tibbetts, L., & Windsor, K. (n.d.)). For instance, traditional parrot behavior advice has been rooted in coercive techniques based on folk wisdom that proliferates in online communities. In more recent scenarios, information acquired through workshops and courses are targeted at zoological communities based on the controlled relationship between zoo caregiver and animal. This can create hyper focused parrot-human relationships, developing limited external reinforcing relationships for the parrot beyond human and food. And finally, the anthropocentric view of parrot “happiness” may actually be one of the contributing factors to increasing problem behaviors and the pathologic approach to solving them.
As noted by the Tibbetts and Windsor, experience is not always a determining factor in screening for adopter success. More important is their willingness to learn, openness to guidance and sense of commitment, among other variables. This translates to an adoptive household that can guided towards more productive types of information than one that may already have decided which philosophical path to follow, thus closing themselves off to newer developments in science.
In other scenarios, adopters with dog training experience rank highly as suitable homes based on their understanding of operant conditioning and behavior change theory. However, in post-adoption consultations, it’s clear that dog training culture not only varies highly, but does not prepare people for the differences in mechanics and ethology that parrot behavior and training require. This gap can actually lead to higher rates of frustration in those with non-avian animal training experience when outcomes to not meet their expectations based on these logistical and fundamental differences.
This does not make these characteristics unsuitable for adoptive homes. In fact, many birds have thrived in spite of or even because they are not under professional expert care. It means that our current processes for evaluating welfare potential likely still has inadequacies. It also means that the expectations of the adoptee organization and the adopting household are mismatched, and all parties suffer, especially the parrot.
The model used in Gui et al (2024) looked at adoptive cat families in Finland, quantifying material conditions, environmental conditions, and spiritual conditions in weighted indicators such as family financial situation to responsibility and commitment (Table A). These are understandably broad as they function as indicators to generalize to a wide variety of animal species found in companion homes.
Because of the unique needs of parrots, longer scale of maturation, and variety of inputs from caregivers with a small sample size of applied experience or lacking in academic knowledge, the author’s professional practice in parrot behavior consulting and analysis has seen a pattern of more narrow factors that can be used to assess compatibility as well as how to approach continuing education goals for the adoptive household.
In our practice, these metrics help us create a rating system based to identify a range of potential trouble areas that an adoptive household might encounter. They also help to support areas of priority for a constructional approach to skill building both prior to – if applicable – and after the adoptive process.
By systematically evaluating a parrot’s baseline behavioral tendencies and learning history adoption programs can match parrots with adopters who are well-equipped to meet their needs. Furthermore, educating adopters about behavioral science fosters long-term commitment and enhances welfare. In turn, adoption organization volunteers and foster program coordinators can utilize a structure based on available resources to empirically assess what skills the bird is missing to successfully navigate the average household.
Metrics are a helpful way of understanding the relative resiliency a parrot has based on their foundation of skills. In addition, ethologically informed baseline levels of different behaviors are also part of these measurements. In further discussion, we offer some insights for how to assess and measure these indicators as accurately as possible.
Table 1.
*These factors may have overlap in other categories
Table by Avian Behavior International
The assessment of these metrics is an important component to their outcomes. Under many conditions, a bird moving into a new environment will respond very differently to cues than one that has settled in or had exposure to different expertise in training in foster or adoption care services. Still, this is part of the learning history that shapes the adoptive experience and is taken in to account as the whole analysis. A bird may start in one area and level up or down to another. Best practices would note potential variables in the records and possibly even collaboration with an advisor for interpretation.
What these assessments are not are focus on the pathology of a behavior, what is wrong with excessive vocalizations or biting, but an opportunity to explore multiple avenues for skill growth to apply constructional solutions. These assessments are also not meant to put an additional burden on the adopting entity to train a more adoptable parrot. Instead, the idea is to shift our perspective from how we have traditionally looked for answers to solutions and matched those with the optimal home.
Another concept alluded to previously is that the adoptive entity may not accurately mimic the conditions that an adoptive home would that provides insights for some of these factors. In one notable scenario, a blue headed pionus parrot Pionus menstruus was relinquished to an adoption organization due to excessive noise. He stayed in a bird room in foster care with several other parrots for a few months where his noise and loudness relative to the other birds was unremarkable. The bird scored low in other ethological factors, generally inexperienced in environmental factors, and mixed competency in learning history. When he was adopted into a single bird home, his humans became so sensitive to his invasive noise issue that they developed stress related maladies and in desperation boarded him temporarily with a friend. His current long term future at the time of this writing is still uncertain.
Many environmental and ethological factors play into the amount of noise a bird makes. However, the above example is not an isolated one. Options during the foster process can include evaluating different home set ups that would mimic a potential adoptive home.
In similar scenario, a macaw that scored “limited” in most the factors, particular in preference to a single demographic with a strong preference to women, was adopted into an enthusiastic gentleman’s house. With little parrot experience but a background in dog training, he built an outdoor aviary, had a separate room for the bird, and playgyms set up for the parrot as well. However, their initial positive interaction, perhaps based on the parrot’s compliance out of historical coercion rather than interactions out of choice, very quickly dissolved and the parrot was limited to his cage area with few cued behaviors and food choices. The gentleman’s small home in Los Angeles made the fallout behaviors predictably responded to, intensifying their reinforcement history of undesirable behavior and adding to the mutual frustration. Over the course of two years, he also went to several different and often conflicting sources of information, with the end result of an incohesive message that likely added to his problems. He ended up returning the parrot to the adoption organization.
These examples are not to lay blame or fault on any party, neither the adoptive household, the organization, and certainly not the bird. These examples are concepts among many of a disorganized, entrenched set of behavior principles that have continuously swept through the companion animal communities, not just the parrot community, adding to confusion and frustration to an already taxed adoption industry. Where visibility to reach adoptive homes is key, the concept of public adoption events can actually make the future worse and set an unfair precedent for parrots, dogs and cats. Taking animals, even well-socialized ones, to public avenues, in any scenario is one that requires careful consideration and preparation for the welfare of the animal. And yet this is a concept that has become entrenched as a seemingly necessary tool. These are the types of compromises adoptive organizations must face regularly.
Teaching parrots a few basic behaviors is a practice that has been done by many organizations for years, especially as operant conditioning has continued to take hold in the parrot community. However, given the lack of standardization of welfare indicators along with the dearth of resources for adoptive entities, it often still means that parrots are left scoring low on behavior metrics overall. The solution does not have to mean an overhaul of the entire system and narrowing the focus of what types of homes are deemed acceptable. The proposed solutions instead are retooling what we think of as leading to success. These conditions are:
Traditionally, a challenge with biting or stepping up fluency would center on that factor, perhaps widening around movement capability. The solution may even include a resolution in mind that centers on adherences to comfort around demographic preferences, that the bird is a single person or single-gender only bird. Instead, focusing on uplifting a variety of factors to provide more reinforcing opportunities for the parrot rather than the topical approach uplifts the positive foundation of behaviors the bird relies on when faced with stressors.
This approach is highlighted in two examples. In the first, a family adopted a five year old umbrella cockatoo who had spent the majority of his life living in the closet of an older couple. Few other details were known. The adoptive family found him on Craiglist, and they did not have any experience with parrots. But they were curious and they were committed.
There are layers of lessons in this example. The family came to consulting services because the umbrella cockatoo would bite shortly after stepping up. Upon later reflection and analysis, he scored limited on all factors. However at the time, it seemed to the author a straightforward procedure of differential reinforcement of incompatible behavior combined with short intervals. This meant setting him down on perches to build up duration on the arm.
With a bird of low skill set to environmental enrichment opportunities, few reinforcers other than two food treats and tactile reinforcement, no enrichment interest, little variety in diet, no flightedness, and inexperienced movement, his threshold to revert to undesirable behaviors was much lower than a bird with a different background of skill building. By instead adding foraging and foraging complexity, shaping diet variety stepping on to new surfaces, increasing exposure to different dimensions, limiting tactile, increasing work with different handlers, our success with him gained much faster ground than treating the biting directly. By the time the training process was complete and the bird prepared to enter life back with the family, the cockatoo scored competently in most categories, some ethological factors were scored appropriate based on the species.
In a different scenario, another parrot owner relinquished their macaw who had a completely different start. This bird was bred and raised by an accomplished ethical breeder, fully fledged, never clipped, and weaned on to a varied diet. The buyer carefully selected for their experience. They had attended multiple workshops and conferences internationally that targeted to an experienced audience of professional zoo trainers, had multiple large cages and outdoor aviary. They trained the bird every time the bird came out of her home space, and held his attention actively to avoid him from getting into trouble. They had other adopted macaws and cockatoos in the home, but none as flighted and active as this bird. The owner had worked with several certified consultants as problems began to develop when the bird rather abruptly – in their view – started to show signs of aggression. After a particularly bruising attack, they relinquished the bird.
When the author’s services were recommended for this bird, it was clear that bird scored “Excellent” in many environmental factors, the bird had become more limited in diet variety and external reinforcers. Even enrichment interest was falling, as he became more selective in what he would engage with, and the family would then only purchase those toys, further narrowing his engagement. He became, as some might label, spoiled. His environmental conditions, including cage placement, that appeared to have worked for other parrots, could have also been contributing to his lack of security, but the family was unwilling and unable to make suitable changes. His threshold for frustration also lowered to a dangerous level for an older bird.
This scenario was different because this family lacked curiosity and commitment. Due to their experience in training, this appeared more to be something inherently wrong with the bird. This led to the ultimate relinquishment of the bird.
Over the course of the author’s 15+ years of consulting based on operant conditioning, it is fortunate that progressive information has built a practice that has evolved past linear analysis toward a more constructional approach developed by Israel Goldiamond. This movement has also looked for a quantitative analysis of indicators of welfare factors for a structured approach to behavior improvement in parrots that resists community inputs of limited sample size. While novice companion animal communities are often resistant to a clinical approach to behavior challenge resolution, combining a compassionate, elastic approach with rigorous standards of care and broad body of empirical knowledge to help meet potential adopters where they are can alleviate long lasting stressors in the parrot care world. By adhering more strongly to these data can we help parrots and the people that love them have a truly lasting relationship beyond simplistic expectations easily perpetuated in a world filled with curated moments of the modern world of media.
Citations
Clubb, S. (2011). Parrot relinquishment in the US: Why are birds losing their homes? Susan Clubb, DVM. Retrieved from https://susanclubb.com/knowledge-center/avian-medical-library/34-pet-industry/174-parrot-relinquishment-in-the-us-why-are-birds-loosing-their-homes
Farhoody, P. (2012). A framework for solving behavior problems. The Veterinary Clinics of North America. Exotic Animal Practice, 15(3), 399–411. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cvex.2012.06.002
Goldiamond, I. (2002). Toward a constructional approach to social problems: ethical and constitutional issues raised by applied behavior analysis. Behavior and Social Issues, 11(2), 108–197. https://doi.org/10.5210/bsi.v11i2.92
Gui, Y., Li, Z., Xiao, J. Xu, Y., Yang, K. “Modeling Pet Compatibility: A Quantitative Approach to Evaluate Household Suitability for Pet Ownership,” 2024 8th International Conference on Communication and Information Systems (ICCIS), Shenzhen, China, 2024, pp. 16-21, doi: 10.1109/ICCIS63642.2024.10779407.
Heidenreich, B., Farhoody, P., Hetts, S., Madere, S., Estep, D., Pedersen, A., Feuerbacher, E., Fernandez, E. (2021). Behaviour Intervention Guidelines. www.BigForAnimals.com
Mellor, E. L., Mendl, M. T., Cuthill, I. C., van Zeeland, Y. R. A., & Mason, G. J. (2021). Nature calls: Intelligence and natural foraging style predict poor welfare in captive parrots. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 288(20211952). https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.1952
Piseddu A, van Zeeland YR, Rault J-L. What we (don’t) know about parrot welfare: Finding welfare indicators through a systematic literature review. Animal Welfare. 2024;33:e57. doi:10.1017/awf.2024.61
Tibbetts, L., & Windsor, K. (n.d.). Perspectives on Captive Exotic Bird Placement [Webinar]. The Center for Avian & Exotic Medicine & Foster Parrots. Avian Welfare Coalition. Retrieved from https://www.avianwelfare.org/webinars/index.htm
Evaluation model based on the entropy weighting method and the TOPSIS technique for cat-keeping families in Finland (Gui et al 2024).