The title of this post may be a bit misleading and for that, I apologize. A lot of time in the animal care field you see it more often than not where people care about animals so much they just want to take them all home. Sometimes they do and sometimes they just do not have the means to be able to fully allow each bird in their care to flourish and thrive in the way they deserve. Now this is in no way a post shaming those people, and I hope the comments will also follow suit in that.
There are a lot of factors that go into owning pets, birds specifically.
Time: Having the time to interact with them one on one, to craft up foraging toys and food items to keep them busy, time to get them out for at least a few hours of the day so they can stretch their wings, time to keep yourself up to date with bird husbandry and the constantly expanding world of bird care.
Funding: Money to buy them the proper cage size, perching and toys they deserve, money to take them to annual vet visits as well as the emergency ones.
Patience: The patience to work alongside them to overcome the behaviors that aren’t ideal, patience to understand that this creature is small in comparison to us and we need to teach them we aren’t here to harm them.
Of course there are more factors that go into owning a live animal but those are the top three. Sometimes, when we just care too much we take on so many responsibilities without realizing that maybe there are drawbacks to owning more than you can care for properly. For some people that limit is 1, for others it can be 5 or 6, and for some it’s none at all. I personally am the only employee that does not own a pet of any kind at home. Which is weird coming from the assistant manager, right? In all actuality it’s because I realize that there are multiple factors in my life that would prevent me from giving any creature the best care that I could possibly provide. I am happy to come in and spread the love I have available to the store pets, and when my friends need to go on vacation I will always happily kidnap their birds for the week and give them all the time in the world.
Tangent aside, that is why I enjoy working here so much. I get to satiate my need to feel important and care for these beautiful birds daily but I also don’t have to stress about my own personal finances and time spent. Even being a volunteer can give you the best of both worlds if you don’t feel like a bird would work in your home but you love them to death anyways.
That, in my opinion, is the importance of putting the bird first. To realize that maybe your limit has been reached even if it’s 1 or 10, that maybe you’d like to invest in the care of the few instead of having many.
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