Flock update

So the birds all seem to be doing great now that we're all settling in to the new house. I've been terribly distracted by moving and fighting with insurance companies and trying to find a long term full time job, so I'm not spending as much time really interacting with them as I think I should, but they seem to be mostly thriving nonetheless.

Scooter has remained charming, although he has reverted to a GCC level of bossiness now that he feels more secure. The "angry bird" biting has not reappeared, although I haven't been on any overnight trips since we moved. Instead he's just super-demanding and alternatively cuddly and into everything. He fell asleep in my hand last night, utterly adorable. Of course, if I'm holding him and I get too involved in the computer, I get a good sharp nip to remind me of my priorities, which unfortunately gets reinforced because if I'm really involved, well, it surprises me. So I'll probably never cure him of that unless I just plain never multitask. In general he seems healthy and happy and my only worry with him at the moment is that I'd love to get him a new cage. His vocabulary and speaking clarity continue to improve and sometimes he's a little scary!

Blanco is a lot more sedentary than I'd like him to be, but I guess that's a cockatiel thing. He just wants to sit on shoulders all the time and get his head scratched, he doesn't much play with his toys, and when he can't be on a shoulder he mostly sits around and preens. Or sings. He does sing quite often, which I take to mean that he's basically content. He sounds like a slightly rusty bellows in need of oil when he first starts up but then the song bursts out and it is a cheerful noise. He shows no signs of ambition to speak, whistle tunes, or do anything other than hang out and be sweet. Since he is so easy to be around, it would be easy to give him an unfair amount of attention. Still no idea what his past might have been -- he does hiss and threaten to bite if you threaten to grab him, but he's very into people, and that's really all we have to go on.

Scotty is Scotty. I sense he's a bit bored and I need to find a way to liven his life up. He voluntarily spends a lot of time in his cage, just as Blanco does. He likes to get his toys out of his stainless steel bucket and toss them around the cage, he loves his grapes and almonds, I just sense something is missing from his world. It may be that he misses having Bill share the office space -- he was always a bit aggressive with him, but there seemed to be a playful aspect to it, and maybe he misses that. Bill does occasionally come in and interact with him, but not daily as he used to. Scotty still offers me slightly used food often, usually preceding the offering with "Step up" (come closer so I can puke on you, I guess). He vocalizes cheerfully often, but screechily some of the time, and of the three birds he is the least resigned to having a robot in our midst. That said, a Roomba is great to have with the birds as it gets under the cages very nicely. Not an inexpensive toy, and I sure was skeptical when Bill wanted to get one, but I'm now sold on it. I just wish I could let it run in the room with the birds when I'm not there, but occasionally it startles Scotty when it bumps into a cage leg. I am trying to think of more games I can play with Scotty. He sits with me, he talks to me, he preens my hair, he explores my ear with his tongue and then tries to remove all my imperfections, but he really likes to do the stretchy thing and have me imitate it, so I sense he'd enjoy a training type interaction of some sort, although my attempts to teach him "high five" have been only somewhat successful.

So that's the flock update here. How's everyone else?

Things are crazy around my house as normal. I'm gone most of the time so josie has her hands full. We have a new rehome DYH ,Mumbles, he's a real nice calm amazon but has been neglected . Josie is making great progress with him and hope to find him a good home soom. Someone called and wants some OWA babies so i guess she;s going to give Rod and Reel a nest box.Our bantam chickens are layingnow so i guess we need to start slaughtering chickens and try to keep from being over run. the turkeys are growing and are more like dogs than birds, the laying hens are doing good and the 8 of them give us 7-8 eggs a day. garden is good and so are the fruit trees. Life is good , just need a break from fishing so i can enjoy it.

When does the season wind down for you? Does Jake get to go with?

If it's not fishing it's taking people hunting or working out of town. So I'm on the go all year. Josie is the rock that holds it all together. No poor Jakiepoo is at home and raises hell everytime i call (she knows my ring tone). I'm in Ala with the boat and fishing 2-3 day trips offshore, jake has been here a lot and my mother doesn't mind looking after her,but it's better she stays at home with Josie and i see her when i get by.

Well, I couldn't be any prouder of my Rory right now.
He came to work with me a few weeks back. For those who don't know I work with people who have disabilities, we had an 'Under The Sea' theme day and he was my Pirate Parrot.
Now, incredibly busy environment, lots of people, people yelling, him in his harness (which he doesn't always love), you get the picture.
Wanna know how he reacted? When he wasn't sitting silently on my shoulder, he was sitting on someone else preening them. He bit no one, barely made a sound (apart from a few contact calls) until after lunch, and wasn't slightly put off by being patted by uncoordinated hands and kissed all over by everyone. So proud. I can't believe how good he was. I thought he was quiet cause he was overwhelmed at one point, till I realised he was just silently preening the hell out of someone's hair. He was so content with so many people to love!!
Like I said, couldn't be prouder. I took his little table perch and travel cage so if it all got too much he could hide in the staff room. I tried it over lunch time, that's when we started hearing some very loud "hellooooooo!! Hello Rory! Step up! Hellooooooo!!! Good Boy! Kisses! Goooooooood Booooy!!! Sttteeeep Upp! Heyy! Shuup Upp!" So we decided to go rescue him from to clutches of being by himself hahaha!!
They want him back again



Meanwhile Tika has decided she loves one of our friends is her bestfriends whenever Vicki comes over she dances for her the entire time, but Vicki doesn't quite know birds yet and Tika is still a little precious with hands so Tika's eager to go to Vicki, Vicki offers a finger (not in the way Tika likes) and Tika tries to bite her. Leaves a confused birdy and a confused human.

Oh and the two of them combined seem to be hunting for nests anytime they're out lately. The latest find is behind the couch between the couch and the matress. [left]

Well, two months later I'll update y'all on my flock as well.

Changes abound here. My cockatiel's have changed around a little bit. My Cookie bird I got from Josie ended up not really loving me very much. Actually, she loves me, she just doesn't like to be touched. As it turned out, her brother Mack and I ended up forming a pretty strong bond, so Cookie is now my "pet breeder" 'tiel and Mack is my lover-tiel. He loves scritches on his orange cheek patches and neck and he excels at flying backwards and pooping on my shirt. He's quite the catch! Mack has just about got his flights all back in so I'm hoping he'll figure out how to do the "forward flight" thing pretty soon! He's already wrecked his entire tail once. I don't know if I can have a tailless cockatiel again! Cookie and Tilly are living happily together upstairs in the bird room right now. Playing on swings, chewing on... whatever they can get their beaks on, and in general just getting fat and sassy.

Sam is still Sam. He's the same crotchety old BFA he was when I brought him home. He whistles opera and talks a blue streak and I really do love him, even though he tries to attack just about anyone within beak distance. I introduced him to a girl a couple of weeks ago and he fell hard for her. As soon as i can get a nest box built for them, I'm bringing his girlfriend over here to live at our place and we're going to see if we can get some baby BFA's out of this affair. Hope springs eternal in the heart of the unemployed - right? (Sam will never have the option of flying. Having a flying attack-bird is simply insane as far as I'm concerned.)

Forté, my sweet little girl budgie, is so insanely sweet it makes my teeth hurt. She'd spend her entire day sitting on my shoulder nibbling on my ear if I'd let her. Mean old me, I wont let her though. She's molting her flights in now. I'll probably keep her flighted. I can't wait! She's sharing a cage with my newest baby budgie, Duncan. He's a double factor spangle, one I bred myself while working at the store. He's been a challenge for a few reasons, but he's coming along and will be a nice little bird in the end. I'll be keeping him to breed in a year when he's mature.

Caesar too is doing phenomenally well. She's grown in all the feathers she has available to grow in. I think she'd damaged the feather follicles on her legs so she wont grow feathers there, but she does have down on her legs. Consequently, when she's all feathered in she looks like she's wearing white bloomers. It's pretty cute! She'll never be fully feathered (like she was originally), but she still looks 10 x's better than she did when she came to us. She hasn't plucked in months and is showing every sign of being a happy and healthy bird - even her skin looks healthier - it really is amazing watching a bird turn around like that. She's pretty much fully flighted at this point even though she rarely flies. She knows she can and she does when she wants to, she just doesn't seem to feel a need to do it very often.

Allie is doing magnificent. She'll be turning a year old on 9/11. I'm planning her Bird-day party and I've told my relatives I've registered for her at several places online so they can send her gifts. We are just coming out of a very nippy phase that's lasted about 3-4 months. Between her and the birds at the store, I was fairly sure I was going to spend the rest of my days with bloody stumps instead of fingers, but alas, I was laid off at work and Allie has come out of her "phase" and I still have all my fingers intact, so I think I'm going to make it after all! Allie is molting her flight feathers in right now and is flying better each day. It's amazing to watch her turn into a bird in front of my very eyes. I'm loving watching her as she literally learns how to fly all over again.

Other than Duncan, my newest and youngest bird is Mickey - a turquoise GCC. I debated long and hard about getting him, but in the end, the fact that I loved him won out. He'll be five months old on Sept 1 and so far I haven't regretted for one moment bringing him into my chaotic house. He and Allie are like Thing 1 and Thing 2, they're always together - either preening, eating, jabbering, sitting on my shoulder, or most often causing some kind of mischief. Mickey is "kinda clipped." I allowed him to learn to fly VERY well before I started clipping him back. I really had a hard time with the decision whether or not to clip him, but in the end clipping won out. I was having a hard time with any kind of training with him being fully flighted, so partial clip it was. However, I did the clip to my own standards. He's not able to keep up with Allie now, but with a little help from me he's not far behind. Mickey and Allie have very opposite personalities. Mickey is mellow where Allie is nuts. She's bold, he's more timid. Allie loves and Mick loves to be loved. They've really bonded with each other, it's been crazy to see. The part that's been fun though is being able to be a part of the bond. I raised Mickey, so I know I bonded to him, and I was well bonded with Allie before I ever brought Mick home, so it was a matter of maintaining the relationships I'd already formed.

I was a little worried about maintaining a relationship with both of them - with ALL of my birds, actually. Would I be able to do it? So far I have - and it's taken less work with all of the birds than it takes to maintain a good relationship with one man! My birds are the sweetest things ever - I'd be proud to take them anywhere.

So that's pretty much it! My flocks updated.



Except for

One.


Last.


Thing......



I, um,

Well....

Ihaveanothercockatielontheway!!!

Great flock update. Congrats on the newest addition -when? Looking forward to pictures.

Nice to hear how everybody is doing! Sounds quite wonderful. I don't know how you keep up with that many TBH, I feel stretched thin with three!

Great update Vicki! I can't keep up with my two, I don't know how you do it with so many. I had someone at my bird club meeting last night offer me a GCC that seems to hate women. The bird was free! However, I have no spare cage and no spare space fo another at this time. It was hard to say no!

I don't know how I keep up with all of them, really. It just seems to work. Allie and Mickey are cageless right now - they don't even have a cage for day- time use. They pretty much have the run of the house but can usually be found in one of three places. I'd say they'll typically pop over and check on me every hour or so at a minimum, and that's ony if I'm sitting still someplace where they can't see me. Mick will usually come see me more often than Allie does... That's just the way he is.

Allie doesn't like Forté, so I'll see a lot of Allie when I have Forté out. Forté comes out when Duncan comes out, then stays out until she's ready to eat again. Usually she just sits on my shoulder snuggled up to my neck and sleeps. (Duncan is a bit of a story. I'll tell his tale another time.)

I've just started leaving Mack's cage open. He was without a tail and flights for a while so I didn't want him trying to fly out. Now almost all of those feathers have grown back in and I'm just waiting on him to learn how to use them! He flaps down from his cage a couple of times a day to come hang out and will sit there for hours. His time is limited only by the amount of poop I'm wiling to tolerate on my shoulder- cockatiels are prolific poopers!!!

Caesar is totally and completely Cal's bird. She tolerates me because I've been around so long, but she has no affection for me. But OHHHH how she LOVES Cal! And Cal finally admitted that he was glad I brought Caesar home that day. all that to say- I don't have much to do with Caesar.

Sam is the same way. Interaction is limited to talking, whistling, and feeding. I clean his cage and that's about it. He will step-up onto a stick, but I can't leave him out of his cage because he attacks the dogs, other birds, and all of the people in the house. It's rather unfortunate because I'd hoped for something better for him. Maybe having a girlfriend will be fulfilling.

Other than that, I have about 9 budgies and four 'tiels for breeding. That's about it.

It's actually a fairly manageable number for me at the moment. Not too many cages, not too many birds... It's really just about right. :-)

Regarding my new 'tiel... I'm hoping that one of the babies hatching will be what I want. I REALLY want a whiteface grey male pearl. A boy I can have as a pet and still breed a clutch or two with on occasion. I want that specific mutation because he'll have the genetic material I wasn't for breeding, but won't have the pearling when he gets older. He'll just be a WF grey, and I have to admit, I've been in love with Einstein since the day I saw him. I think he may be one of the most handsome 'Tiels I've ever seen. So I'm looking for a copy... But my bird will probably be a light grey rather than a dark grey... IF the bird I want even hatches. So cross your fingers for me everyone!!!

Reading all of the updates,
They are like little kids, aren't they