What I Learned From Raising Two Different Personalities of Birds

In the end, we are also animals.

Photo by Honey Yanibel Minaya Cruz on Unsplash

I have two beautiful pet birds but raised differently. They are Indian Ring Necks, one blue and the other is green. I had the blue one first before I have the green one a year later, and I found something very interesting that we all can relate to.

THEIR DIFFERENCES

After six months, living with the two Indian Ring Necks and treating them equally, I noticed something about their behavior. Here is what is different:

The way they interact in the house.

Another way of saying is how they behave in my house. Sure, their personalities are different, but I can somehow see how they live their life:

Peekaboo

Image source from the author.

Peekaboo is full of life. She would gladly chirp, fly anywhere inside the house, and ‘talk’ to my family and me. She would allow us to stroke her feathers, and she would happily chirp repeatedly.

She is also always curious about the furniture in the house, flying or even walking slowly at them and gently tapping them with their beaks before trying to bite them down (including my sandals on the floor).

When it comes to eating, while we are having a meal or snack, she would always perch on our shoulders whenever we are about to eat something as we put it inside our mouth, she was eating my plain yogurt the other day! The other day, I gave her a biscuit to eat. When she took it, she realized that it’s too hard to bite down so she took the food to her water bowl, dipped it into the water, and then eat it. I never even taught her to do that.

However, she has not much sense of tidiness. When she eats by herself, she is messy. All the food we ever fed her as she holds it with her claws, it spreads everywhere in her surrounding area. Leaving me to clean it up all the time.

Her feathers are also not the neatest or tidiest as well. I saw ruffling and fluffing them, but it was rarely as tidy as Greeny’s (which I will explain later).

All in all, Peekaboo is an energetic and carefree little bird. A complete extrovert. Always curious, always want to know anything new, and always ‘engaging’ any conversations we have with her by chirping in reply.

Greeny

Image source from the author.

Greeny, on the other hand, is a complete opposite. He is mainly silent and wouldn’t explore the house as much as Peekaboo does.

He preferred to perch on a stool to ruffle and fluff his feathers. He doesn’t like to fly freely rather flying where he finds it more comfortable. And he didn’t like it if we stroke his feathers yet.

He is also not interested to eat whatever we were about to eat unless he is hungry, and rarely chirps (Although it’s debatable since he is living with us for six months already). We talked to him several times to make him feel comfortable, though we only managed to get him to chirp twice to us.

However, he is neat when he is eating. Whatever food we gave him in his claws, he would pick it carefully before eating it, leaving less mess.

Additionally, his feathers are always the neatest. His feather is shiny, and it seems fluffed all the time. As the result, his feathers looked clean.

In short, Greeny is an introvert. He rarely engages with us or his surroundings. Another word we can call him is a good little boy, sitting quietly as if his mama tells him so (I don’t by the way).

The Take?

Now don’t get me wrong, I love Greeny the same. He may not be used to us that’s all, however, cited from Lafeber Company:

The Indian ring-necked parakeet is not a shy bird, and does best with an owner who appreciates an outgoing companion that is not afraid to demand what it wants! Indian ring-necks can also be quite talkative.

Sure, different birds have different personalities, but by nature, they are very sociable.

I raised Peekaboo to be more exploring however she wants in the house, whereas the previous owner of Greeny raised him to be in a more captive. In other words, I raised Peekaboo to be more independent.

So what can we learn from here?

It’s fair to say that this also applies to companies. When we trust our employees to do their work however they want, they will be more creative. This is something that is rarely taught in school sadly, with all the criteria placed upon every subject.

When we place them in cages, letting others feed them, they will only be dependent on others to do their work. They won’t think as much as independent people and will always rely on others, leading them to be lazy. Not curious enough, not exploring enough, and not even innovative. If they don’t think, it will be dangerous for the company’s creativity level, and soon enough, competitors will catch up with you.

However, the more we let them do how they want it to be, the more innovative they will be to finish the task. They will ask a lot, want to learn, and curious about everything, and most of all, be more independent. This is why most successful entrepreneurs such as Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and many others would drop out of college. It’s because the school system and rules just don’t suit them. That’s why they were so very innovative.

So my suggestion on how to treat our employees is: to entrust them. Give them a sense of trust that you acknowledge your employees to create value, that’s when you can see motivation in them as well.

I hope you learn something from this article and I will see you in the next one.

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