birds!

My anatomy lab exam went well. I haven't gotten the grade back yet, but I may have pulled off an A. I hope so... but a B+ is cool too and I KNOW I did at least that well. Next up, Anatomy lecture exam on friday. Mucho studying to do between now and then. I have decided that I want an A in all of my classes this term and I am going to do my best to get some. Hopefully I don't crash and burn half way through the semester in the classic Dayna-style.

This afternoon I had the most productive afternoon of lectures since I started vet school. I was engaged for the entire 4 hours and my anatomy professor's wife (also a vet) gave us our first lecture on animal well-being. It was an entire lecture on birds and it was AWESOME! She brought a in little love bird named Kirby for the class to pass around and hold, and she brought a big parrot Oscar (a yellow crested amazon) in for us to see as well. She raised Oscar from a featherless little chick, and he is now 5. He is named Oscar because apparently he is a grouch. heh. I got to pet him a little and he squawked at me, but he didn't try to bite or anything. Big birds can be kind of scary - and the really big ones can bite so hard that you can lose pieces of your finger to their sharp beaks. I saw some nasty ones at the emergency clinic in Calgary before I came to vet school. Anyways....

Here are some cool facts I learned about birds today (and when I say "birds" I am meaning exotic birds like parrots and your other typical pet types)!

1. Birds are an impulse buy pet. People buy them on a whim, because it is fun to have a little bird sit on your shoulder in the pet store. They often have no idea what they are getting into. Birds are a lot of work.
2. Birds are highly intelligent and can live a very long time. Here is a cool movie about a super intelligent African Grey parrot who can answer all kinds of questions that demonstrate that he understands what is being said to him - and isn't just mimicking people's words. In fact, African Greys are about as intelligent as a 4 year old human!
3. Bird cages need horizontal bars in them for climbing. They also need to have perches of multiple sizes and materials as their feet need variety and exercise. Making a bird stand on the same perch day in and day out is like making a person stand around in the same pair of shoes all day long. The feet need exercise.
4. Cage placement is also very important when keeping birds. They need to know that you are the alpha in your flock - otherwise they will begin to boss you around and behave in inappropriate ways (biting, aggression). They must always be housed below eye level so that they know their place in the ranks. If you buy a bird from a store where the cages are kept way up high - you may be in for some behaviour problems in the future.
5. Birds are intensely curious creatures and LOVE to destroy things.
6. Birds need 10 to 12 hours of darkness each night so that they can sleep properly. If they don't get this, they will begin to act out due to sleep deprivation.
7. Some of the most beautiful birds are incredibly loud. Cockatoos have incredibly loud voices, and aratinga conures scream all day long because it makes them happy. If your bird screams at you for 15 minutes and you yell at it to shut up, you have probably made it very happy! yelling back is exactly what birds want you to do! you are being very bird-like when you make a lot of noise.... (probably not the best way to discourage excessive squawking and screaming).
8. Some birds have feathers that degrade into a fine powder that gets all over the place. Some people are highly allergic to this powder.
9. In general, parrots from Africa are usually quieter than parrots from South America.
10. Macaws are very popular birds. They have life spans anywhere from 30 to 80 years and they are good talkers. The hyacinth macaw is a favorite pet. In addition to being huge, beautiful, and smart, they are also considered to be the jokesters of the parrots. One downside is that they eat macadamia nuts and can cost up to $15 a day to feed. yikes.
11. Senegals make good pets. They like to mimic sounds and are good talkers. They can develop phobias later in life though, so they need lots of exposure to different things while they are young.
12. Budgies are considered by some to be garbage pets. Pet stores will often give you a free budgie if you buy a cage. However, budgies are the best talkers of all the pet birds! Apparently budgies also like to laugh with eachother.
13. You can tell the sex of some birds just by looking at them (this is called sexual dimorphism). A male budgie has a blue cere, and a female has a brown one when she is sexually receptive and a white one when it's not mating time.
14. Cockatoos are also sexually dimprohic. Males have black eyes and females have brown ones.
15. All baby birds have black eyes.
16. Doves and pigeons mate for life. They almost always have 2 eggs to a clutch, and the male and female take turns sitting on them until they hatch.

Did you learn a lot? I can't wait for more of these type of classes. Too bad we don't have them more often!

ok, that's it for now!

xox