Well, It's been long enough and now it's time to introduce my new babies!
My long anticipated Cookie-Monster has finally arrived from Josie in Florida! She's absolutely the doll I knew she would be. She already knows her name and is the sweetest, friendliest thing I knew existed. Now... if I could just find my toenail clippers and grow her some wing feathers, she'd be perfect! LOL! Josie and I decided that for Cookie's safety as a 'tiel in a house full of Amazons, she would be best clipped after she fledged. So we're all waiting on those pretty yellow and white feathers to grow back now.
This is Cookie - with her messy food-face and everything! The orange color you'll notice right above her cere is an identification mark. It makes it easier for me to tell her apart from her brother, Mack, when I'm at a distance. You'll see why in a minute!
Isn't she just an angel?
Next is her brother, Mack. Mack doesn't know it yet, but his goal in life is to be a daddy. He already pretty much does whatever he wants anyway... he's got attitude to spare. He's a nice bird, but not sweet like Cookie is... Which is fine. I don't need "sweet" to woo the ladies and fertilize eggs!!
The picture is a little blurry, but here's Mack:
Last of the three Florida birds is Tilly. Tilly is a year old whiteface pied hen. Personally, I think she's stunningly beautiful, but your opinion may vary. Right now she's paired up with a whitefaced pied from the store and has (at last count) laid two eggs! I can't wait to see how many she ultimately lays and how many hatch! I'm VERY excited!! She's a very sweet hen (especially for a breeder hen) and should give me some some SUPER sweet (not to mention LOVELY) babies.
And this is my beautiful Mommy-to-be, Tilly, and her husband - Daddy-to-be.
(Tilly is on the left.)
Here's another one of Tilly:
And finally, here's the latest picture of the baby, Pippen. I've been raising him since before his eyes opened. We've been through H - E - double hockey sticks together, but he seems to be doing great now. He's on the small side for a 'tiel, weighing in at only around 70 grams right now, but he's STILL not weaned and showing absolutely no interest in solid food. I've about decided I'll still be feeding him when I'm hand feeding his babies! But whatever... I'm not pushing it. Whenever I try to cut back on his feeds he starts dropping weight, so I'll just keep feeding him until his grown-up self kicks in. I'm sure it will sometime. He's my fully flighted baby. It's been great fun watching him learn how to use his wings! The first few times he flew, it really seemed to be an accident... and he flew up, Up, UP ... then couldn't get back down! He just sat up on top of the fireplace and chirped until I got the ladder and climbed up and rescued him. I don't do much of that anymore. I figured that if he ends up landing somewhere high, he can sit there himself or figure out how to fly down. That's how he's going to learn. As a result, he's sat in some strange places for a very long time! Watching him learn to land has been another fun thing to see! He gets started flying and can't quite figure out how to stop... it's kind-of like watching a kid on a bicycle for the first few times! He takes off and I can tell where he wants to go (he only has a few places where he likes to land), but he can't quite get all of the pieces in place to make his landing "stick." So he circles around the room four or five times, slowly zeroing in on his landing site before he gets his tail, legs, wings, and air speed all adjusted the way he wants them so he can land! His landings are getting much better now - they've been a mess for quite a while though! haha! He "crashed" into the large mirror in my living room about three times before he figured out it didn't go anywhere, now he avoids it quite nicely. None of the crashes were at all hard. He ended up on the floor after all of them but he didn't suffer any apparent trauma from the collision. I'd read they would learn about mirrors and windows if left alone but hadn't experienced it myself - now I can testify to it. So far, I'm still his favorite person and my head is still his favorite landing strip. Oh Joy.
Anyway, here he is on the computer with Allie:
And here he is hiding from Allie behind the computer:
He may just be a plain-jane cockatiel, but he's my baby and I love him to pieces! I still can't believe he's grown up from this in such a short amount of time... (He's the littlest one - top, middle)
Allie, Caesar and Sam are still doing great. I caught Caesar feeding Pippin a week or so ago, so now I'm having to keep an eye on that! (oh my!) It was sweet though, it really was!!! Allie and Caesar are getting to be pretty tight and Sam still bites anyone who wants to touch him. I guess that's just going to be his way.
Well, that's it for now. I just really needed to update everyone on the life of my fiddos! And now it's time to feed Pippin... AGAIN! LOL! After that it's bedtime for all of us here.... Hope all is well with you out there too!!!
Subject: Time to introduce my new babies! 
Sat May 12, 2012 11:49 pm
