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Anonymous
Is it a good idea to socialize birds, as a pet shop worker? I mean, getting them to become just neutral to humans would probably be good enough. Far as I know most parrot-type birds are friendly to just one person, or two on the outside. It'd suck for the future owner to have a bird that's pining for a pet shop worker who's long since resigned.
>>181364 Also, this method sucks for the bird(s). Like completely. Budgies will get depressed almost to the point of not eating if separated from their mates yet knowing they're still alive. But if they're not mated pairs, _then_ by all means separate them -- this breaks the flocking thing where they learn to be timid of (or even hostile toward) humans from other members of the flock... taming birds that see themselves as being members in a flock of other birds is like diluting an ocean of piss one bucket of vinegar at a time.
So yeah. How about instead of trying to play with birds that really would rather not be handled (some birds never want to be handled or even just touched, even if they were super kissy around people), just chat with them? Get them used to having people around. Unlike cats and dogs and cows and such, parrots aren't domesticated, on the species level, and so won't regard people as neutral or anything from birth, so one shouldn't expect just any bird to gleefully hop on your finger and give your face a pinch massage.
Regardless of what happens, the new owners are going to have to tame the new bird, first thing. I wouldn't think there's much that you could do to ease the process, short of printing out a booklet or something about "how to deal with your new feathered friend" or such.
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