Ultimate Fighting Birds

I’m not talking about cock fighting!

An emergency call came in last night, and I almost thought it was a joke when they said, “my rooster attacked my parrot”. They assured me it wasn’t a joke, and I dutifully waited for them to arrive.

In came a Senegal. Eyes flashing, adrenaline running, and I just looked at him and thought… this guy enjoyed it. As it ended up, their pet rooster does spend some time in a pen in the house. The Senegal was out in a nearby room, jumped down from its owner, walked over to the pen and went at it.

The Senegal was bloody, but it was all chicken blood. The chicken beat the Senegal with its’ wings and bruised the parrots shoulder, but the Senegal bit the chickens’ comb in multiple places. Anti inflammatories helped the parrot. They didn’t bring the chicken in, but it’s doing fine.

I thought this incident was interesting, even a little humorous, but it also brought to mind the real tragedies I’ve seen.

We all know parrots are prey animals.

We all know dogs, cats, and ferrets will kill birds.

We all know birds can injure each other, even to their death.

I also know some people let their parrots and cats play or parrots and dogs play. But I always worry when I hear this. So many parrots die from dog attacks and the owners say, “They’ve always been such good friends.” I just want to scream. Dogs are descendants of wolves, and parrots are prey.

Cats and ferrets try and chew the head off. Birds attack other birds at their eyes, beaks wings and toes.

We want people to get along. We want creatures to get along. But please take this seriously. The larger, slower parrots ‘stand up’ to predators because it is their best chance of survival. The smaller faster ones will fly if they can. And some parrots will attack other species to reduce competition (food, affection, space).

People have taken these animals out of the wild, and we are responsible for keeping them safe.

Kay Duffin, DVM
Academy Pet Hospital
6000 Academy Rd NE
Albuquerque, NM
(505) 822-0255

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