Meyers Parrot: Great Parrot for Active Households
The Meyers Parrot gets great reviews from their owners! Described as friendly, loving, steady and calm, people who have them say they’re great all-around birds for active households.
Poicephalus meyeri is related to the Senegal Parrot. However, the big difference between these two birds is, Senegals love their owners. Meyers parrots love everybody, and will readily go to strangers for some attention. They are playful and silly, whether laying on their backs waving their feet in the air, or dangling from a toy. Few birds besides the Caiques have such great reviews from people. They are sweet, tidy and fairly quiet, making them excellent apartment birds. What they lack in talking ability, they more than make up for in beauty and personality.
Like the Senegal parrot, Meyers parrots can go through a period of phobic behavior, where an instant dislike will be taken to the darndest things; a shoe, a cup, a color. Birds demonstrating this trait as they’re growing up need special attention and help to get through this phase.
One interesting observation of Meyer parents and their chicks, the parents tutor the young, basically giving them singing lessons before fledging. This is an important step for socialization with the flock in later life, and suggests a more complex language than previously thought.
The nominate species, Poicephalus meyeri meyeri, has yellow on the head and a turquoise belly which blazes in sunlight. Their color has been compared to a brilliant blue topaz in the sun. There are six subspecies, which can be divided into two groups, birds with yellow on the head and birds lacking yellow. Belly colors range from green or greenish blue to the brilliant turquoise. Males can be told from females by horizontal black bars on their fronts.
Birds with yellow sport jaunty little yellow berets. Yellow heads or no, they all have natty yellow patches at the wrist area of the wing, which are very noticeable. All of the subspecies have a dark, charcoal gray or brown head and back, a black beak and orange iris.
Meyers parrots are only second to Senegals when it comes to numbers in captivity. They were exported by the thousands before the laws tightened up. Thus, they are readily available to the pet trade, but there has been homogenization of the subspecies, resulting in a sort of “Heinz 57†variety of captive parrot. Very little effort was put into identifying and pairing the various subspecies; to aviculturists, they were all Meyers parrots. In ignoring the subspecies, they undid what a million years of evolution created, and it is likely that there are no true strains of subs in aviaries today. Highly sought after for their willingness to breed in captivity, and their superb characteristics as companion birds, it didn’t matter that the genetic waters were muddied.
The six varieties of Meyers parrot are found in central and eastern Africa, and many of their ranges overlap. In the wild, some interbreeding doubtless occurs, but here are the six listed, and their general characteristics.
Poicephalus meyeri meyeri has a turquoise belly and a yellow cap.
Poicephalus meyeri saturatus has a green belly and a yellow cap.
Poicephalus meyeri transvaalensis has a greenish belly and a yellow cap. “Greenish†is pretty subjective, this may not be an actual subspecies.
Poicephalus meyeri matchiei has a bright blue belly and a yellow cap.
Poicephalus meyeri damarensis has a turquoise belly and no yellow on the head.
Poicephalus meyeri reichenowi also has a turquoise belly and lacks yellow on the head.
The Meyers occupies a huge territory spreading across the center of Africa. Its range only reaches a coastal area in the Northeast, being mainly restricted to the inland portions of the continent. At 8 ½ inches, it is smaller than many companion birds, but it is robust like an Amazon, which gives it a more “parroty†feel than the slender birds of similar size, like the cockatiel. In fact, the name ‘Poicephalus,’ means “made of head,†a reference to the proportion of the head to the body in these birds. We are fortunate that these big headed birds aren’t also “made of noise.â€
Meyers parrots in the wild have adapted to a number of various woodland habitats. They can be found in moist or dry woodlands, forest edges near savannahs, watercourses, and farmland. Their diet consists of fruits, seeds, berries, and cultivated crops.
Common in the wild, they are not considered threatened. Their vast range (six million square kilometers!) and large population has earned them the “of least concern†status with CITES. They are protected from legal export, but the large numbers that were harvested before protection has ensured that there are plenty of them to go around in the pet trade.
Feral Meyers aren’t as widely distributed as some other birds like the Quaker parakeet, but they have been introduced to Cape Province in South Africa, where they’ve become established as a breeding species.
The Meyer parrot is named for Dr. Bernhard Meyer, a German physician and ornithologist (1767-1863)
Very few parrot species have the number of websites like the Meyers parrot. There are dozens of sites dedicated to these companion birds, and every owner has stories to tell.
After reviewing some of these sites, the number one piece of advice given is, these birds need to be clipped well! One story told of a Meyers named Jbird, who flew the coop one Saturday afternoon and turned up three miles away. The owner was very, very happy to be reunited with his bird; fortunately, the people who found it were bird people who had cockatoos and conures themselves.
Owners have pictures of their Meyers parrots exploring their environment, bathing in the sink, teasing the neighbor’s dog. There are a number of videos on Youtube starring these cute little jokers. If you search for Meyers parrot in the search function, be sure to watch the video of a Meyers parrot teasing a caged African Grey, it’s pretty funny. The Meyers is careful to stay out of toe-biting range!
One aspect of the Meyers personality is its ability to entertain itself for hours at a time. Therefore, plenty of toys should be provided for their pleasure. “Hand toys†are often waved and wrestled with as the bird rolls around on its back, but they love hanging toys, swinging and clacking them together, especially with an audience watching. They love cuddling and snuggling, and are always interested in traveling about the house with you to explore new turf.
Meyers can be kept in cockatiel sized cages, but you should keep in mind that they are more robust than cockatiels, so cages with thinner bars should not be considered. They might not stand up to a Meyers rambunctious roughhousing. Their beaks are much more powerful than that of a cockatiel. Remember, they’re made of head! And beak!
There are few health issues that need to be considered before purchasing a Meyers parrot. However, they are susceptible to a few bad ones, such as Psittacine Beak and Feather Disease, Pacheco’s Disease, Avian Polyoma virus, West Nile virus and bird flu. Indeed, the closely related Cape Parrot, Poicephalus robustus, is currently under pressure from PBFD in the wild, which is hampering recovery efforts. Rather than release captive bred birds into the wild to bolster populations, bird houses designed for these parrots have been put up; the theory being the more available nesting sites there are, the more birds will be able to reproduce.
Happily, the Meyers parrot is really easy to care for. It has no special dietary requirements, readily accepting fresh fruit, vegetables, pellets and variety of seeds and nuts. However, African parrots metabolize calcium in a specific way, so periods of exposure to sunlight or an artificial full spectrum light will help them metabolize it naturally, rather than loading them up with supplements. Like all birds, keeping a clean environment, fresh food and water is paramount to keeping disease at bay. There are vaccines today that can protect birds from PBFD and polyoma virus. However, a bird should first be tested for a positive result, as the vaccines can have undesirable side effects. And, chewers that they are, being made of head, beware galvanized steel cages. Many birds wind up with zinc toxicity from galvanized steel.
In conclusion, the Meyers parrot is a hardy, robust bird of medium-small size. It may be small, but its popularity is huge. In the wild, it delights bird watchers and photographers on photo safari. It is featured on several African postage stamps, a testament to its popularity. In captivity, it delights owners and visitors alike, and has a very large fan base online, with numerous websites, videos and articles dedicated to its endearing and copacetic nature. If you are considering acquiring a companion bird; if space and noise is a problem, this might just be the ideal bird for you!
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