Ratsratsrats
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So this is a little long. This is about my roommates/landlords treatment of her Amazon parrot and what my other roommate(daughter of my roommate/landlord) and I should do.
I want to start by saying she's not directly abusive and has good intentions, she's just.... Not the smartest person and is bad at listening to people's advice. She's also bad at understanding biology and biological needs. She values emotional well being over physical which has led to the death of at least two pet that I know of.
The parrots backstory is a bit sad. He came from a home, a parrot hoarder home. They got him as a chick, but raised him so incorrectly (either that or he had bad personality genetics[I'm not sure if personality is genetic in birds, I own rats and rabbits and their personalities are genetic]) that he is hyper aggressive. They hated him a lot and never let him out of his cage, never changed his water, and he never received fresh veggies growing up. My roommate was hired to help them take care of their birds. She ended up being such a good thing in his life that he bonded to her. She soon was gifted him and his cage as well as his next door cage mate that he seemed to like.
A year later his bird mate died due to various reasons, she didn't take him to the vet and at the time I believe it was because she didn't have the funds as our 4th roommate(no longer living with us) went to prison so she picked up his additional bills (but I also believe that she wouldn't have taken him to the vet anyway, she's hesitant about bring one of her cats who needs a vet to the vet right now).
So now we're onto my concern with the Amazon. She has good intentions and wants him to live a long life. She's at work all day and can't spend time with him 5 days of the week. He screams all day and I work from home. He hates me and her daughter.
We've told her and she says it's because he's bored and when we tell her how she can keep him busy by making or buying toys and puzzles she doesn't want to. I make him toys occasionally (though my toy making efforts are mostly spend on my rats and rabbits) and I give him toys. I put them in his cage running the risk of being bitten and maybe losing a finger.
She feeds him things he shouldn't eat because he likes them. Stuff like salted pretzels, ice cream, chocolate, mac N cheese, salty soups, etc. I tell her alternatives, but she doesn't listen to me because she thinks his happiness is more important than his health.
She also won't feed him a better food. She gives him a seed mix and he only eats the sunflower seeds. She complains about his chest feathers looking bad and I tell her it's because he's not getting enough nutrition in his diet and he would do better if switched to a main diet of pellets. Again she rejects my recommendation. She won't even consider getting vitamin water drops for him.
She doesn't clean his water or cage often enough. Sometimes I end up cleaning the cage. She's better than the previous owners in cleaning the cage, but she will often times go two months between cleaning his cage.
During the warmer month she takes him outside. He flies away so often and runs the risk of death. We live in Arizona and it's crawling with hawks, vultures, coyotes, kids with bb guns, and owls. I've told her it would be safer for her to build an aviary or clip his wings. She says flight is natural in birds and she want him to fly. So I recommend flight training and recall training. She doesn't want to do it.
She has him in the coldest room in the house and doesn't want to move him. She doesn't understand that he needs to be kept above 60° no matter how much I tell her. It gets to 50° in that room every night. In that same room she keeps the cats litter box so it's dusty in there all the time and he's inhaling the fumes from the urine.
She also burns incense often. I've told her it's bad for the bird, but she says she doesn't like the litter box smell and she says it's okay since she only does it every once in awhile. I told her that it's bad for his sensitive respiratory system no matter what. She still burns it anyway.
She keeps the door open all summer in his room running the risk of him flying away. She hasn't put a screen door on.
I feel like I'm forgetting to mention something, but you get the idea.
So I'm trying to figure out what my options are.
Something I was thinking about was making an anonymous call to animal control next time he flies away expressing my concern for his safety. I don't think they'd do anything though.
I was thinking of taking him to a rescue while she's at work on a day she leaves the door open. She'll find he's not home and say something like, "He chose the path he thought was right." Or something(she literally did this with a bearded dragon someone gave her, she let it run around the yard unsupervised and surprise surprise, it never came back and winter hit).
Another thing I thought of was having him PTS because he's so aggressive and place him back in his cage somewhere. Even though he's bonded with my roommate he still attacks her sometimes. I don't think anyone will want him and I don't think he'll have a good quality of life. Taking from some of my rat experience, rats with hormonal aggression will sometimes be PTS because their quality of life is low. The first step is to neuter them and see if it helps, but I know you can't do that with a bird.
I don't want to do something that she'll directly know is me because I need someplace to live. I don't have a backup place and I don't make enough to move anytime soon. My other roommate agrees with either taking him to a rescue or PTS.
Is there another option I'm missing? Are we in the wrong for wanting to do something behind her back? What do you all think? Me and her daughter have been struggling with this for awhile because we want the bird to be happy and healthy, but he's only happy some of the times with her and is unhealthy.
I'm sorry if reading this has upset many people. We've been upset about this too and we are trying to do something more about it.
I want to start by saying she's not directly abusive and has good intentions, she's just.... Not the smartest person and is bad at listening to people's advice. She's also bad at understanding biology and biological needs. She values emotional well being over physical which has led to the death of at least two pet that I know of.
The parrots backstory is a bit sad. He came from a home, a parrot hoarder home. They got him as a chick, but raised him so incorrectly (either that or he had bad personality genetics[I'm not sure if personality is genetic in birds, I own rats and rabbits and their personalities are genetic]) that he is hyper aggressive. They hated him a lot and never let him out of his cage, never changed his water, and he never received fresh veggies growing up. My roommate was hired to help them take care of their birds. She ended up being such a good thing in his life that he bonded to her. She soon was gifted him and his cage as well as his next door cage mate that he seemed to like.
A year later his bird mate died due to various reasons, she didn't take him to the vet and at the time I believe it was because she didn't have the funds as our 4th roommate(no longer living with us) went to prison so she picked up his additional bills (but I also believe that she wouldn't have taken him to the vet anyway, she's hesitant about bring one of her cats who needs a vet to the vet right now).
So now we're onto my concern with the Amazon. She has good intentions and wants him to live a long life. She's at work all day and can't spend time with him 5 days of the week. He screams all day and I work from home. He hates me and her daughter.
We've told her and she says it's because he's bored and when we tell her how she can keep him busy by making or buying toys and puzzles she doesn't want to. I make him toys occasionally (though my toy making efforts are mostly spend on my rats and rabbits) and I give him toys. I put them in his cage running the risk of being bitten and maybe losing a finger.
She feeds him things he shouldn't eat because he likes them. Stuff like salted pretzels, ice cream, chocolate, mac N cheese, salty soups, etc. I tell her alternatives, but she doesn't listen to me because she thinks his happiness is more important than his health.
She also won't feed him a better food. She gives him a seed mix and he only eats the sunflower seeds. She complains about his chest feathers looking bad and I tell her it's because he's not getting enough nutrition in his diet and he would do better if switched to a main diet of pellets. Again she rejects my recommendation. She won't even consider getting vitamin water drops for him.
She doesn't clean his water or cage often enough. Sometimes I end up cleaning the cage. She's better than the previous owners in cleaning the cage, but she will often times go two months between cleaning his cage.
During the warmer month she takes him outside. He flies away so often and runs the risk of death. We live in Arizona and it's crawling with hawks, vultures, coyotes, kids with bb guns, and owls. I've told her it would be safer for her to build an aviary or clip his wings. She says flight is natural in birds and she want him to fly. So I recommend flight training and recall training. She doesn't want to do it.
She has him in the coldest room in the house and doesn't want to move him. She doesn't understand that he needs to be kept above 60° no matter how much I tell her. It gets to 50° in that room every night. In that same room she keeps the cats litter box so it's dusty in there all the time and he's inhaling the fumes from the urine.
She also burns incense often. I've told her it's bad for the bird, but she says she doesn't like the litter box smell and she says it's okay since she only does it every once in awhile. I told her that it's bad for his sensitive respiratory system no matter what. She still burns it anyway.
She keeps the door open all summer in his room running the risk of him flying away. She hasn't put a screen door on.
I feel like I'm forgetting to mention something, but you get the idea.
So I'm trying to figure out what my options are.
Something I was thinking about was making an anonymous call to animal control next time he flies away expressing my concern for his safety. I don't think they'd do anything though.
I was thinking of taking him to a rescue while she's at work on a day she leaves the door open. She'll find he's not home and say something like, "He chose the path he thought was right." Or something(she literally did this with a bearded dragon someone gave her, she let it run around the yard unsupervised and surprise surprise, it never came back and winter hit).
Another thing I thought of was having him PTS because he's so aggressive and place him back in his cage somewhere. Even though he's bonded with my roommate he still attacks her sometimes. I don't think anyone will want him and I don't think he'll have a good quality of life. Taking from some of my rat experience, rats with hormonal aggression will sometimes be PTS because their quality of life is low. The first step is to neuter them and see if it helps, but I know you can't do that with a bird.
I don't want to do something that she'll directly know is me because I need someplace to live. I don't have a backup place and I don't make enough to move anytime soon. My other roommate agrees with either taking him to a rescue or PTS.
Is there another option I'm missing? Are we in the wrong for wanting to do something behind her back? What do you all think? Me and her daughter have been struggling with this for awhile because we want the bird to be happy and healthy, but he's only happy some of the times with her and is unhealthy.
I'm sorry if reading this has upset many people. We've been upset about this too and we are trying to do something more about it.
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