[locustous]

Don't know his history. He is clearly old. He doesn't mind other birds, but he loves and takes great delight in people. Just who he is.

Sure, there's history there. But I don't see it as "damage". He is clearly quite happy when he is with his people.

His other great delight is figuring out how to open his palace in the morning to get out early. Every time he manages it he struts around for quite a while looking like he just won the Superbowl.

[bayesian_horse]

I'm not saying these birds can't be happy. Some certainly aren't resocializeable, and there's nothing wrong with keeping them as happy as possible regardless.

One of the most objective criterion for animal welfare is how much of their natural behavior they can fulfill. People don't talk like birds, don't act like birds. Only parrots of pretty much the same species can fulfill some things. I'm not even talking about mating and all the behavior around that, more like everything else.

[locustous]

> I'm not saying these birds can't be happy

That's pretty much the only criteria I'm really interested in.

All our birds have other birds of the same species with them, which they all do enjoy I can confirm. Well, generally :). When one is being obnoxious to others they can flee to their people.