Persuasive writing: Why I believe pet birds should be kept inside.

Kia ora guys! Today I'm going to be sharing with you my first finished persuasive writing piece for 2019. It's about why I believe pet birds should be kept inside. The text is highlighted in specific colors to show the progressions my class has been working towards.

Red- Independently revise my work for clarity

Pink- Use suitable words for the text

Yellow- Use literally features that fit the text

Green- Support ideas with increasing detail and elaboration

Hi there! Today I’m going to be talking to you about why I believe pet birds should be kept indoors with their owners. I hope you take in what I have to say, and enjoy!

The first point I am going to bring up is that birds are extremely smart, & need countless hours of interaction a day. 

Birds are so smart it’s not even funny, most small and large parrots are smarter than dogs, and smaller birds like budgies, or cockatiels are more intelligent than cats.

If you buy a bird it should be bought as a companion, not as something to look at, birds need exercise and even if they are not tame, and shudder away from you when you put your hand near their cage, they do wish for attention and hours of fun everyday, they just don’t know if they should trust you or not, considering we are the giants and all. 

Birds need to be challenged, and their smart and funny nature shouldn’t be put to waste.

My next point is the fact that ALL birds are TeRiBlE in cold weather.

Birds are bad at adjusting to new climates, so especially in a place like New Zealand, where you can have like, every season in one singular day.

But what about in summer? You may ask, well well well, summertime can be even worse for your little birdy friends. Why do you think wild finches and fantails don’t live long? Birds have very long life expectancies, with budgies having 15 years, finches and canaries having 7 years, and larger parrots can have a life expectancy of 30-90 years!

In the summer most birds will die of heat, to cool down a bird that lives outside, you have two options, freeze bottles and put it on the floor of your cage, or give them a bird bath, that will later have the birds die of sudden temperature change.

Then another common way pet birds die in the summertime is of ticks, ticks are very hard to notice on birds, but a tick will easily burrow down into the bird, and start eating at it.

If birds get too much vitamin D from sunlight, it can be fatal, so unless you have a blanket over the birds cage, cutting them off from the world around them, your bird will live a very short and unhealthy life.

Speaking of unhealthy, my last point is about outdoor cages and aviaries, and how unhealthy they are for your birds.

When your birds are outside, you cannot monitor the amount of time your birds spend gnawing on the cage bars, both metal and wooden bars are very unhealthy for birds to chew on, and should immediately be stopped, this habit, however, takes a lot of time and dedication to stop.  

Outdoor cages & aviaries are much too small, In the wild your birds fly hundreds of Km’s a day! In order for your bird to get anywhere near the amount of recommended exercise is for them to be out, interacting with and following you around. 

Outdoor bird cages and aviaries easily get very messy and gross, they are hard to clean, and when they are outside they are often neglected and most of the time only cleaned out every week, some people even leave it and do it every month, even every 2!

In conclusion you can clearly see I am very passionate about keeping pet birds inside and engaged with you. There is a very inspirational person by the name of Marlene Mc'cohen who owns many parrots and birds, and is starting up a rescue for domestic birds. She advocates the # “Engaged not caged!” which I very much agree with. 

Hopefully I have convinced you that having a pet bird inside is much better than having one outdoors, thanks for listening, bye!