You get home from work at night to a pile of feathers on the floor around your bird's cage. Every time you try to interact with your bird it tries to fly away. Or, just as bad, your bird is screaming at the top of its lungs and your neighbors are getting upset and threatening to call Animal Control.
Do these stories sound familiar? If you answered yes, your bird might benefit from bird calming medicine.
Pet birds tend to be anxious. After all, as prey animals, they're instinctively fearful of unfamiliar things and new experiences.
Other things can impact your bird's disposition as well. For instance, a bird that isn't getting the recommended 10 to 12 hours of sleep each night can become anxious. Nutrition plays a huge role in mood management. And, a bird that doesn't know how to entertain itself in healthy ways can become down in the dumps and develop an anxious habit.
Providing parrot wellness is one of the best things that you can do for your anxious bird, but that takes time. You can learn more about that in the video below. So, bird calming medicine can support your bird while you explore parrot wellness strategies.
Parrots put off certain body language that lets us know how they're feeling. An anxious parrot may tightened its feathers close to its body, extend out their necks, and had a wide-eyed appearance. Some birds may shiver, crouch, and even growl.
Anxious or fearful parrots may try to chase you off or lunge at you as a way to get you to back off and leave them alone. It's not that they're mean. it's that they've gone into fight or flight mode and sometimes the quickest way to get someone to leave them alone is to show aggression.
Some anxious parrots engage in what we call stereotypical behaviors. This might look like pacing back and forth on the perch, toe tapping, and even feather plucking. Somehow these repetitive behaviors reduce some of the bird's anxiety.
If your bird is anxious enough that you're looking for bird calming medicine it would be important to talk with your avian veterinarian first. A good avian veterinarian will look for a health, care history, and nutritional reasons behind your pets anxiety.
When looking for bird calming medicine first try to gauge the intensity of your bird's anxiety. For instance, if your bird is anxious several times a week versus just a few days a year, you understand the intensity is more severe. You can also rate the intensity of your bird's anxiety by how many issues trigger the anxiety. when you know the intensity of what you're dealing with then you'll recognize whether the medicine is combing your bird down or not.
Next, think about the strength of various bird calming medicines. Ideally, you would want to start off with the most gentle medicine. if you don't get the results you want with a gentle medicine try something that's a little stronger. Some cases will require more intensive calming medicine such as a prescription medicine.
Also know that, when it comes to over the counter medicines, you could separate the different products into herbal supplements versus amino acids. Amino acids are substances that are found in the brain that control different body systems. We believe that several of them support a stabilized mood.
Medicinal herbs have been used for centuries and they are a big part of many integrative health practices. Herbs that support a balanced mood are called adaptogen herbs. Chamomile is probably the most well-known adaptogenic herb but there are others as well.
Explorer bird calming medicines based on their intensity level.
Gentle Calming: Chamomile based products are the most gentle solution for parrot anxiety and are recommended for birds with low or infrequent anxiety. This might be a cage bound bird. Or, bird that shivers. TryLoose Chamomile to make a tea or serve up in a dish.
Moderate Calming: Stereotypical behaviors such as screaming or mild feather destructive behaviors respond well to daily doses ofUnRuffledRx Parrot Calming Formula andUnRuffledRx Bird Calming Tea.
The active ingredients in Parrot Calming Formula are two amino acids that support a calmer mood, L-Theanine and GABA. It is thought that when the body doesn't have enough of these amino acids it affects mood. Keep in mind that amino acid support is not addictive and that there is no evidence of overdosing. I say that because the recommended dosage on the bottle is the place to start. But, you can increase the dosage a little bit, up to double see, if you don't see the results that you want. remember, when you know how to measure how intense your bird's anxiety is, you'll also be able to tell when you found the sweet spot of how much medicine to give your bird.
The active ingredients in bird calming tea are several adaptogen herbs, like chamomile, lemon balm, lavender, and others. All of these herbs have healing properties but over and above that, they're very nutritious. One of the things we know about moderate and intense anxiety is that depression and anxiety can be traced back to nutritional deficits.
Over-the-counter bird calming medicines are not addictive. They may not get to the root cause of what is causing your bird's mood disorder, and in my opinion it is always best to combine bird calming medicines with parrot Wellness practices and behavior modification.
Intense Calming: Bird’s that intensively pluck or self-mutilate their bodies may require intensive, pharmaceuticals to cease self-injurious behaviors. However, there is a significant amount of research that demonstrates how self-injurious behaviors actually cause changes in the brain chemistry making them very difficult habits to break. We recommend combining a bird collar with calming medications when a bird has obsessive feather destructive behavior.
In conclusion, using a bird calming medicine can really help your pets mood. Think about how your bird demonstrates that it's anxious and measurable terms such as how frequently it gets anxious and how many different things trigger anxiety. When you know how severe your bird's anxiety is you’ll be able to tell whether the medicine is helping.
Diane Burroughs, LCSW is a licensed psychotherapist trained in ABA therapy techniques. She specializes in avian anxiety disorders and is certified in Nutrition For Mental Health.
Diane's products have been featured in the Journal of Avian Medicine and Surgery and at Exoticscon, a conference for exotic pet veterinarians.
With over 30 years experience, in a range of settings, she’s created thousands of successful behavior plans to help turn around challenging behavior.
Diane got parrot fever in the ‘90’s and founded BirdSupplies.com in 1998. Nowadays, BirdSupplies.com focuses solely on Science-backed Parrot Wellness with bird collars for feather plucking birds, nutritional supplements to support avian wellness, and a range of educational materials to support challenging bird behavior. Diane’s authored a number of books on supporting challenging behavior in birds.
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