By Rosemary Low

The hand-rearing of parrots is a topic of great concern to me. This is because this method profoundly affects the health, physical and psychological, of the parrot for the rest of its life. It is not a task to be undertaken believing that this is just another method of producing parrots.

Breeders who hand-raise birds can be divided into two categories: those who rear a few birds at home and those who do so for commercial reasons. In this article I would like to give some advice to the relatively inexperienced.

First of all, do not hand-rear parrots for the sole purpose of producing birds for the pet trade. The act of hand-rearing a parrot, and failing to socialise it with its own kind thereafter, changes its personality and its behaviour - for the worse. Hand-rearing per se is not necessarily harmful. But it will have a negative impact on a parrot’s life experiences if it never has the chance to interact with its own species and to learn the behaviour and vocalisations which are denied it by hand-rearing, followed by isolation.

Buy Now!