Image by Hans from Pixabay
Raise your dominant hand if you know what August 13th is? If your left hand is up, you are correct—it’s International Left-Handers Day! In honor of southpaws, let’s take a fun, somewhat scientific, look at parrots’ and other animals’ left or right preferences, as well as some surprising ways left-handedness can affect the way we care for our birds.
Animal Instincts: Left or Right?
Humans aren’t the only ones with left or right-handedness preferences (or left-footed, right-footed, in the case of other animals). Studies show that a surprising number of species prefer to use one side of their body over the other. For example, left-handed chimpanzees are in the minority, because most chimpanzees, like people, are more likely to be right-handed.
Next time you ask a dog to “shake hands” pay attention to which paw they offer. One study shows that male dogs are slightly more inclined to be southpaws and females are more likely to be right-pawed. A study on cats on cats showed that female felines are significantly more likely to be right-pawed, while males are more inclined to be left-pawed.
Similarly, fish also show preferences in which direction they turn to evade a predator. And since we’re talking “handedness,” let’s include the animal with the most hands in the equation—octopuses! Octopuses Octopuses have a dominant arm to explore and manipulate objects in their environment. What about parrots?
Parrot Foot Preferences
Parrots, indeed, have a preference for which foot they use to hold food and foot toys, to step up, and more. And parrots tend to be…left footed! Offer your bird a Nutri-Berry or other favorite bite-size food, and see which foot they hold it in—chances are, it will be the left foot! Not every parrot is left-footed; there are some right-footed parrots—just like not all humans are right-handed, with an estimated 10% of people being left-handed.
What about left-handed caregivers; does being left-handed affect how we care for our birds? You might be surprised. Let’s take a look in the kitchen.
Something as simple as using a pair of scissors to open a bag of bird food can be challenging for lefties unless they have left-handed scissors, or have adapted to using “regular” scissors out of necessity due to the scarcity of lefty scissors in most settings.
Prepping sweet potato mash for your bird? It might be a little more frustrating if you’re left-handed. Vegetable peelers have a single sharp side that when held in the right hand allows for a smooth, comfortable motion when pulling the tool toward the body. However, when held in the left hand, the sharp side is positioned underneath, forcing left-handed users to push the peeler away, resulting in awkward, jerky motions. Of course, this can make lefties more accident-prone.
Most kitchen gadgets and appliances, such as can openers, microwaves, and blenders, are ergonomically designed for right-handed use. This means that the handles, grips, and controls are positioned to be comfortable and efficient for right-handed people but might prove awkward for left-handed users. Need to use measuring cups for cooking up something delightful for your bird?
If you’re preparing a special dish for your bird requiring a measuring cup, get used to metric measurements if you are left-handed. For lefties, measuring cups show the metric measurements, not the cups/ounces amounts. Instead of seeing “1/4 cup/ 2oz.” when you hold the measuring cup in your right hand, you’ll see 50 ml holding it in your left hand.
Of course, most lefties are perfectly willing to adapt to right-handed scissors, peeling sweet potatoes awkwardly, or twisting their hand around while using a measuring cup to get a glimpse of the cups/ounces amounts if that means feeding their birds healthy, fun meals. One bonus of being a lefty with the parrot? You can eat next to your bird without worrying about accidentally bumping that Nutri-Berry out of their left foot—a lefty and a lefty are good table buddies!