opal-and-co - Tumblr blog

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THATS WHAT IM FUCKING SAYING like people out here making jam sandwiches and shit for the foxes??? What?????? Theyre not children, theyre wild animals eating unprocessed meat all the time 😭 preferably DONT feed the wild animals at ALL but at least the raw meat people have some sort of leg up on the people giving them bizarre treats

Todays FB fox group drama: someone is attacking people for feeding raw meat to foxes and insisting that raw meat is dangerous and will kill them. Cause everyone knowns when a fox catches a rabbit or pigeon they always cook it in the oven before chowing down!

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY from my creature and her blue slushies for roommates

It is my birthday and I wish for birb pictures

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My sister’s husky has a fantastic costume this year

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My sweet sassy boy Minty very suddenly passed away just over a week ago today and I want to say a million things, but mostly I just want to share him with as many people as I can. He was very silly from the second I brought him home, up until he was last with us.

This video was taken not too long after I brought my parakeets home, and I thought it was entirely too precious that this darling baby bird was...spinning. For fun. He grew out of this behavior, much like an adolescent might stop spinning for the hell of it even though it was the funniest thing ever when they were 6.

Adding some additional info under the read more. Nothing heavy, just some stuff I'd like to share in memory of my little guy.

Parakeets are a common "first pet" for kids, or seen as easy, especially with their throwaway price tag in pet stores. When you bring home a parakeet (or any parrot really), you're bringing home a 10+ year commitment to an animal that isn't even largely considered domesticated. These amazing little animals are known for their charismatic personalities and charming tricks. They can talk! They'll do all kinds of things! They'll be your best friend! While true sometimes, Minty never really wanted to be friends with me in the two years I knew him. Cornflower (the blue blob behind him in the video) does not care to be friends with me and probably never will. They vastly preferred each others company, as well as the company of my cockatiel who, while isn't a parakeet, is another bird like them. All my birds like me and my partner well enough that we know we're part of their "flock," but my parakeets will never ask for snuggles or head scritches. I'm almost certain they will never learn to speak simply because they don't want to. They don't want to sit on my shoulder and be my best buddy. That's okay. They're not domesticated animals like a dog or a cat who might be actively interested in a person's company. Parakeets are small and delicate and complex. They are messy and they bite and they scream and these are not behaviors you can train away. Small birds with high metabolisms poop every 5-8 minutes. That's a lot of mess, even if it's not all in one go!

So when you look at my darling Minty, or when you look at any other funny parrot video or picture online, please remember that is nearly a wild animal that should be enjoying the company of its own kind. I ask you kindly not to purchase birds from pet stores and seek to rescue whenever possible if you truly think your home is right for a parrot. I ask you to know that your bird may never do the things the birds online do, and you need to be okay with that. Your bird will bite and scream and make a mess, and you need to be okay with that. If you know someone considering bringing a bird home, please gently try to inform them of the ugly that comes along with that.

At this point, this is word soup and I thank you for reading this far. I am not a beakon of all bird knowledge, but I think myself knowledgeable enough that my DMs are open for questions, and if I don't feel comfortable answering something, I can find you a resource.

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@kittyisawolf

On the reptile Facebook group I am fucking crying 😭😭😭😭😭 she’s a BEAUTIFUL MODEL

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How would you rate peafowl in terms of intelligence, in general or socially? Any of your animals outstanding in that regard and where does Bug fall on the scale?

Honestly they have a huge range of intelligence and personality. They're GENERALLY smarter than chickens, not as smart as crows. They do have complex social hierarchies and rules, though, and violating the rules has consequences for social standing. Rude boys, for example, do not get the girls.

They also have long memories for some things- for example if you frighten or anger or hurt them, they remember that and they will likely not trust you again, if they don't outright try to chase you off. My dad once made a swipe at a nosy hen and she never forgot. She threatened to fight him every time she saw him after that. LOTS of people report that their birds can be caught 1 time by a bird net pole, and forever after they will bolt if they see it (and we have the same experience here, and I don't even have to have caught them personally if they even SEE me catch 1 bird with it, that's it. This is why I move them into a coop and turn off the lights to pick them up). I know people who have tried to solve berserker males problems by hitting their birds with brooms or sticks or spraying them with a hose, and what they find is that this makes it a thousand times worse because the male's understanding of the situation is only confirmed- you ARE a rival and you DO want to fight him. And since you (the intelligent human being who understands birds and money and probably a) like this bird and/or b) spent a lot of money on this bird) are unwilling to purposely cause severe injury or death to him, he will always hold a grudge and always think he has a chance to beat you.

They do have some amount of social learning, at least from my observations. When I taught Eris to use word buttons to ask for specific treats, Artemis learned without actually ever being taught. With 12 buttons on the board at the time, she removed the "treat" button and guarded it so she could tap it instead of Eris. More commonly, if one bird thinks a treat or other potential food item is yucky, they will start shaking their head no and clacking their beak the way they do when they taste something they hate, as if they took a bite and it tasted bad- but WITHOUT having actually touched the item. This triggers all the nearby birds to have a look, and they all start shaking their heads and clacking their beaks. Once one of them figures out how to do something - like get up onto the pigeon perch in the rafters they're not supposed to be on - the others will watch and learn how to do it, and start doing it, too. I just recently had to put an extra lock on the barn pen door, because I caught Wendy pulling our emergency latch release for dumbasses that lock themselves into the pen on accident, and the others were Watching to learn. Eris had to be moved out of that pen because she also learned how to let herself out of the pen that way.

Then you have birds like Callisto. Who will come over when you call for treats, and despite that the treat gets held right in front of her or dropped close by her, panics and can't find it to save her life, and you find yourself standing between her and the others to give Callisto enough time to look at the ground for the treat.

Or stan who, every morning, gets let out of the coop and walks calmly over to the fenced door between pens to be let out into the pen. Except the door is open.

So. It's a scale. it's a scale that slides between "mocking me with word buttons I taught her" and "repeatedly waits at an open to be let out"

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Today’s birds are these finches

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Pigeon Trio

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Cape Coral Snake (Aspidelaps l. lubricus), family Elapidae, South Africa

Venomous.

photograph by Robert Wedderburn

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Today’s bird is Fire escape

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Happy Father's Day to the world's greatest dad!

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OK i guess i will continue to macrodose birds

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A frustrating part of the mainstream vegan “love all animals and protect the environment” mindset is the fact that things need to die in real-life ecology all the time but deer hunting season makes icky feelings and carp culls aren’t cottagecore

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So I had my laces repeatedly undone by an oversized pigeon today.

While I was retying one shoe, they undid the other. And then proceeded to jump onto the bench to untie the ones I was retying.