Survey
Results
Summary from The African ARK Vol. 9 # 2
Complete Survey Results may be found in the African ARK Vol. 9 # 3
Survey
Results: How Long Do African
Parrots Live?
Charlene
Beane
Our survey on parrot lifespans received very little
response. Was it because we didn't
publish it in the newsletter but had it only on the website?
Was it too long? Were the questions too complex?
Was there just better stuff to do in the summer than fill out an online
questionnaire?
Only two Poicephalus owners responded.
The remainder of the respondents own African grey parrots.
Of those who knew their parrots' weights, the weights ranged from 402
grams to 470 grams.
The youngest Congo African grey in our survey is 3-year-old
Mindy, who lives with Stacey Wiggins in Oxford, England, but was hatched and
handfed in Wales.
Tarzan is of indeterminate age because he is an import. Evenso, he is the pet of Joanne Gilden, Maryland, who
describes him as "...the owner and King of the Gilden's household."
Franki is 23 years old and has a wonderful life with
Barbara Laguna in California. Barbara
has had Franki since March 1, 1979. He
had a brush with psittacosis in 1986 and an infection of the small intestine in
1993, but he is otherwise healthy.
There are quite a lot of
greys in this early 20s age range, and I own one myself.
Typically, by the time a bird is in its 20s, it has had a few owners and
has the history and vocabulary to prove it.
If birds live a relatively long time, they have to be extremely adaptable
because most of them move from home to home.
Some owners are better than others.
Some are well informed and feed good diets; some don't.
Some are people of means who live near good avian vets; some don't.
Whatever the support system, the bird has to adapt and survive.
This survey was designed by Lorraine Karl whose curiosity
about old birds was piqued with the acquisition of Jack, a wild-caught African
grey thought to be in his 30s.
The next age plateau is the mid to late 40s.
Rosco Gray lives
with Gloria Ridgway in Washington. Rosco
was imported as a baby in 1956. "He
was acquired from quarantine while his eyes were still black, and he lived with
the same man for 35 years. On that
man's death, he was relegated to a garage where he lived on a diet of wild bird
seed and water for eight years."
Gloria got this bird on September 15, 2001.
"On arrival, he had protein shedding, blindness in one eye, two
cataracts in the other, and an inability to absorb nutrients from food.
His calcium levels were at 4.3.
All of this was the effect of longterm chronic malnutrition.
He was not expected to survive six months, but he is doing well.
Another old-timer is Mildred, a 48-year-old imported
breeder owned by Neil Martin in the U.K. Apparently
Mildred has the best of both worlds with a three-foot cube cage inside the
aviary and a two-foot cube on the outside.
When people think that parrots live as long or longer than
humans, they tend to envision them as forever young.
This is not realistic. Parrots
age like anybody else. They get
heart problems, cataracts, arthritis and all the other problems that make us
cranky as years go by.
We have a lot more to learn about old birds.
The last 20 years have brought enormous advances in avian medicine.
The next step will be for us to gain some understanding of the health
care needs of geriatric parrots.
© 2002 African Parrot Society
Last updated: September 15, 2002