Better to buy 1 year old parrots vs just fledged one?

[EllenD]

Yeah, my next question was going to be "How many breeders actually follow this law, how do they enforce it, and would you even know if they were hand-feeding the babies or not?" I'm going to assume that you must have to have some kind of a "breeder's license" or something in order to breed birds...I doubt they actually do regular "checks" or anything thought, so it would certainly be easy enough for breeder's to totally ignore this law, pull the babies and hand-raise/hand-feed them, and just keep them past the age of weaning so it appears that they were parent-raised/parent-fed but "tamed" by the breeder...I can't see that law being enforced very well...well, at least not in the US, lol. There's no way in hell that a law like that would ever be followed here, as unfortunately a good percentage of breeders here are not responsible in any way in the first place. The act of selling unweaned baby parrots to new owners who have no experience even owning a bird let alone hand-feeding a baby bird is becoming extremely common, and the age that breeders are selling the unweaned babies is getting younger and younger...like 4 weeks old is pretty common. It's really upsetting and is only resulting in a lot of dead parrots and heartbroken people. But even when people are warned to not buy an unweaned baby parrot, they still do it regardless of the risk, because they usually save $100 or so on the price of the parrot. It's sad.

 

[LordTriggs]

you're right Ellen, even with more common pets like cats and dogs people still break simple rules that are in place to protect the animal. All you can really do is try to find good breeders through people who already have bought from them or know them already

and of course, ask questions! I often go for the asking stupid questions route, like saying "I've heard you bond better if you hand-feed them yourself. Is this true?" If they respond yes, then you back away. I find it better to ask these sorts of questions feigning ignorance as the poor breeders who know what they're doing is wrong wont lie to you!

 

[ChristaNL]

It is very hard to stamp out the fairy-tales - as if a ballanced, propperly weaned bird would be less instead of more ( a great companion).

I just had a discussion about the everlasting "a swan can break your arm with just one swing of his wing" --> complete and utter nonsense of course (bird bones being hollow and somewhat more brittle than the very solid human one).
But almost every child here "knows" this one!

So it will be some time before people realise it is not a good idea to "try to raise your own bird" and "shape it any way you want".
The last one being just as nonsensical as the swan-story: parrots are still governed by their instincts, hormones etc, etc. first and upbringing second!



Bonding is something you can force on them (for a short childhood time at least) or you can earn it!
(what makes you more proud of yourself?)