A Bird's Gender Preference

[Banana]

Is it true that female birds prefer men over women? I have heard many, many people talk about how male birds prefer women, and female birds prefer men. I'm not exactly sure if this is true, but I am aware that it is 100% possible for a bird to become attached to someone of the gender they least prefer. Thank you

 

[Owlet]

my guess is it's a myth. Don't see why it would matter to a bird unless they have bad history with a specific gender or ended up bonded to a specific gender. But I don't think gender has much of a play in whether a parrot will like you or not.

 

[ChristaNL]

It is complete nonsense.

 

[Squeekmouse]

In MY opinion, the only correlation could be in how men and women typically interact with pets. Stereotypical female nurturing/mother behavior versus stereotypical male buddy/fun/active interaction. But every bird, like every person, has their own personality, so you can probably throw all those stereotypes out the window.


Anyhoo, Yoda is male and he loves me and my husband both equally. Sometimes he wants me more than him, sometimes the other way around. Generally Yoda wants to be with whoever is doing the most interesting thing, ie whoever finds it most inconvenient to have a parrot hanging off of your shirt trying to chew on whatever you are paying attention to.

 

[Kiwibird]

Plenty of people can tell you from firsthand experience that their birds do indeed appear to prefer one gender or the other. That said, it does not necessarily appear to have much to do with the bird's own gender which gender of human they like more. That also doesn't mean a bird will love all women and hate all men (or visa versa). Most like humans of both genders, just like one a little more.

 

[Sandy19]

I have a female bird and she definitely prefers me and my two daughters over my husband and son. It could be a number of things, perhaps it's because we are not big and hairy with deep voices and wearing baseball caps. I don't know.

 

[wrench13]

Nonsense. Parrots like who they like. Which can sometimes be influenced by the application of treats. Sometimes.

 

[LordTriggs]

I don't believe Gender has any real push on who a parrot likes

Just remember Correlation does not equal causation

 

[ChristaNL]

Correlation does not equal causation

Very nicely put!

 

[Scott]

Another urban legend in the wilderness of parrot-land! I've never noticed such correlation.

 

[Squeekmouse]

Yoda HATES it when people wear hats... and men are more likely to wear hats... so therefore Yoda is more likely to hate men.



Then again, Yoda also hates the color white because it reminds him of paper towels or white towels and I think he had some traumatic experience with those. We had a painter painting the deck last week and the guy was wearing all white painter's clothes and every time Yoda saw him he'd fly around in circles squawking, I could almost hear him screaming, "Mom!! Mom!! There's a giant paper towel walking around outside!!!"


So... Yoda is more likely to hate anyone dressed as a paper towel, or wearing a hat....


...and all of this proves that birds are weird and they like what the like, and don't like what they don't like.



Mystery = SOLVED!

 

[LordTriggs]

Correlation does not equal causation

Very nicely put!

Was one of the first things I was taught when I studied practical sciences and it is a very useful thing to have been taught

 

[EllenD]

I sometimes have to laugh when I see an ad on Craigslist where someone is "re-homing" a parrot, and they make the extremely common statement of "She prefers women and must go to a home that has no men", or "He hates men, so he needs to go to a home with only a woman"...And then the first person the bird comes in-contact with of the gender that they supposedly "hate" and "cannot be around" becomes the bird's immediate best-friend in the world, lol...

99% of the time when parrot-owners make a statement that their bird "hates" a certain gender of people, the truth of the matter is that their bird has only ever been around 1 individual person of that gender, and the bird simply didn't like that person, so this for whatever reason automatically causes their owner to believe that their bird "hates all men" or "hates all women", when in-fact that isn't at all true, their bird simply "hates the one man or the one woman that they've ever had contact with"...And usually there is a very good reason that their bird hates that one, individual person, and that reason has absolutely nothing to do with that person's gender...

It must also be said that there is generally a good bit of denial of a bird's owner in-play when they make this type of blanket-statement about about their bird's "gender-preference"...A lot of the time this denial involves a significant-other, a child, or a friend of the bird's owner that has a history of treating their bird badly, sometimes even a long history of physically or psychologically abusing their bird, and they just don't want to admit to this, or they just can't see it themselves...so it's much easier for the bird's owner to simply believe that their bird must simply "hate all men" or "hate all women"...

The bottom-line is exactly what Wrench stated...Birds like who they like and they dislike who they dislike, just the same way we as people like who we like and dislike who we dislike. And there is always a reason why birds, people, dogs, etc. dislike a particular person. And it generally has nothing at all to do with their gender...

If a bird has a long history of being terribly abused by only men, or only women, over and over and over again, or being verbally assaulted/abused by only men, or by only women, then I'm sure that the bird certainly could develop a "fear" of men or women in-general...But it would have to be a pretty extensive history of the bird being abused repetitively, over time, by only people of that particular gender...And even then, if the bird is re-homed to someone of that gender and they are suddenly treated with nothing but love, kindness, attentiveness, etc. by that new person of that particular gender, in most cases that bird isn't going to steadfastly and consciously refuse to bond or grow-close to that person simply because they are a man or a woman...

Bottom-line...There is always a reason that a bird doesn't like a particular person, same as a dog not liking a particular person. Always a good reason, as they do not form "stereotypes"; we as human-beings are the only species that unfortunately does that...