FoodBanter.com - View Single Post - Question for Karen Winter and other Episcopalians

Glorfindel

wrote:

<massive snip>

Thanks,btw. You know about animals, you care about
them as individuals, and you have a fine grasp of
both animal-related ethics and the bull-pucky
animal abusers present to justify themselves.

But, onward....

> You have a bird that sees its
> caretaker as its mate. The caretaker takes the bird out of its cage
> daily, at the very least. Since most uncaged birds have their flight
> wings clipped to avoid injury from walls and windows, (Flight is
> another instinct we must prevent in pet birds.), the bird hops around
> and usually winds up on the arm, head, leg or shoe of its human
> companion. Birds seek physical contact of all kinds with their
> caregiver. Sometimes, this contact turns sexual based on the mood of
> the bird. It is an unconscious impulse of the bird and I don't think
> they should be "punished" for it by being stuffed back into a cage.
> It's not as if you can train a bird or any other living being not to
> have sexual impulses.

This particular 'tiel was 16-years old and had a deformed wing.
When he was given to me, he couldn't fly at all, just flutter
to the floor. I gave him various kinds of physical therapy,
and he did get to the point where he could fly reasonably
well, but never normally. It was a question, but I ended up
not clipping his wings. He spent all day with his cage open,
going into his "sleep cage" in the spare bathroom at dusk.
He was free to move around as he wanted. He spent most of
the time I was home on my shoulder or on the cafe curtain
rod, looking out the window. He had healthy veggies or
starchy foods on his saucer with us at breakfast and at
dinner, walking around on the table while we ate. That
was usually when he decided to do his sexual thing on
the hand on the table at the time, after I'd feed him a
bite of something from his own plate, like a dark green
leaf or a bit of couscous. I think he saw it as a mate-like
gesture of food-sharing.

He was really a sweetheart.

<snip>