hi, my vet. told me that birds can not small are taster is this true.?

Answer 1

Untrue. Birds actually can smell and taste better than many people believe. They just have a different sense of smell and taste than humans and some other animals.

"Smell and Taste Play Important Role in Birds. For years ornithologists thought that birds had little or no sense of smell. It was hotly debated and many experiments were conducted to prove or disprove whether they could smell or not. The matter is still not settled, but modern data indicates that all birds have and use their sense of smell...

It has long been known that vultures, seabirds, and Kiwis have a strong sense of smell, but scientists generally regarded most other birds, especially the small land birds, as having no sense of smell at all. Recent studies have proven that even finches and sparrows have a sense of smell not unlike that of rats and mice. Experiments with Mallards have shown that when the female is ready to mate it releases pheromones in the oils that it uses to clean its feathers. Male Mallards become sexually active when they smell this odor. When the male sense of smell is impaired, sexual responses are severely reduced.

Rather surprising, but perhaps should be expected, experiments have shown that the European Starling can smell certain plants that contain chemicals that can disinfect its nest of parasites, thus increasing successful fledging of young. The theory that a mother bird would reject its nest and young if handled by humans has long ago been disproved. If a bird is repulsed by the smell of humans it would be in real trouble. Humans and their smell are everywhere...

Unlike those of mammals, taste buds in birds are not found on the tongue, which is a hard bony tool, but in the soft tissues inside the mouth. Food passes quickly through the mouth so there is little time to evaluate the taste of what is picked up, but the birds receive enough information to identify the taste.

While most birds avoid salty or mineral water, finches, pigeons and several other species seek out saltlicks and mineral springs. Finches and other birds that do not get needed minerals from the food they eat regularly pick up minerals from roadside gravel and other sources The sense of taste at that time is most important.

One clue to the differences of taste between birds and mammals concern chili peppers and other spices. Birds relish hot spices and get considerable nourishment from them. On the other hand, spices repel most mammals. Recently squirrel-proof wild birdseed has come on the market. It is liberally mixed with chili pepper bits. After a few visits to the feeder the squirrels will not return, but the birds are even more attracted than before. Another promising product is on the market, a spray that makes grass taste bad to ducks and geese. This should reduce the complaints from golf course and city park managers. Other sprays repel birds from fruit trees and bushes."

http://www.visitreno.com/raave/dobirdssmell.html

Answer 2

No, that is NOT true. Birds can both taste and smell.

Taste: while they have few taste receptors (300-400 compared to our 9000), they can indeed taste.

Smell: they can indeed smell, but not very well. They do have olfactory nerves, which are the nerves used for smelling.

However, vision is really the most relied upon sense when it comes to food since they see in ultraviolet light. They can often tell more about their food by looking at it. That is why, when introducing new foods to your parrot, you have to keep putting the same food in his/her dish for a week or longer so they learn to visually recognize it.

You'll never see a bird sticking it's cere (nostrils) in the air to catch a whiff of the yummy hotdog stand down the corner. :-)

FYI. The Kia parrot, from New Zealand, has the best sense of smell of most parrots.

Hope this helps!

Answer 3

Birds can smell, but it isn't a very strong sense.

If you are talking about parrots in particular, I found it interesting that while they do have taste buds, they are not located on the tongue. They are at the back of the mouth. So texture does play an important role when they touch the food with their tongues, and taste is important to them too.

Also, parrots don't have as many taste buds as some birds, such as ducks. And they have no where near as many as we have.

Answer 4

Yes cats are the main contributor to the decline in most of our garden Songbirds and Sparrows ,Starlings etc. I have the problem every year with the same cat! it even climbs into the ivy where both Thrushes and Blackbirds nest robs the nest of eggs and young, I watched it one take a young Blackbird from the nest play with it for a while, the parents were going crazy I went to rescue it knowing that it would be a waste of time and the Cat just bit it's head and swung it leaving the body of the bird lying then just ran off. I have tried to prevent this happening for a number of years but this Cat seems to be h*ll bent on killing birds.

Answer 5

Birds can taste and smell though they have less taste buds then most animals which is why you can feed them spicy food (that you yourself eat), peppers and put Cheyenne pepper in bird seed to stop squirrels from eating it(Ive done this) as for smell I think they can smell not as well as we can or a dog and I feel this way because when my husband smokes(outside) and tries to hold ANY of our birds none will "step up" onto his hands. They also react this way to my friend Pam when she smokes..So not only does smoking stink to us it stinks to my birds too... :-)

Answer 6

Parrots have a poor sense of smell and taste but can do both. My parrot prefers strong flavours like chillies which are in his seed mixture, he also like very sweet flavours like ripe fruit. He loves toast in the morning and goes crazy for it when he smells the toaster on in the kitchen.
I believe that parrots can also smell hormones and that is the way the differentiate males from females. Mine will allow almost all men to touch her but she will attack women if they try to touch her.

Answer 7

Your vet is accurate. Unlike mammals who have a great sense of smell, birds do not. When I used to breed parakeets, I would switch the babies around so that each mother had 4 babies in her nest box which were all the same size! This didn't bother them in the least because they couldn't smell that they were not their original chicks!

Answer 8

I have always heard that their sense of smell is not well developed. It's difficult to imagine that they develop such strong food preferences based only on texture though. I have to assume there is some sense of taste involved.

Answer 9

Margecutt is exactly right. Take your bird to another vet, obviously this one never took a course in Avian, LOL!!