Unusual? (added new pic)

[marie83]

Oh my goodness, how ridiculously adorable lol. I was just showing my boyfriend which picture I had put up when your last post showed up. I nearly cried laughing, she is soo funny but she is sooo sweet too.

PS my boyfriend has decided he wants a turquoise cinnamon now....

[hooligan]

I love Cinnamon Turquoise. I jus think the soft colors are really special. We were talking about getting a second bird and I had been wanting a Turquoise, but after seeing Ollie's colors I might be going with a Yellow-Sided!

[marie83]

Aw bless, sounds like we will be swapping birds almost then!

Tbh I got my heart set on a quaker as my next bird but who knows... It will be a while before I'm in a position to take on another.

A few more pics of Ollie on here if your interested, I don't feel his pictures usually do his colours justice though.
http://s1259.photobucket.com/albums/ii553/Binky83/

[hooligan]

Yeah, those colors are very pretty. I like the idea of having one bird with a muted palette, and one with vibrant color. So, I'm definitely thinking a yellow-sided or a pineapple now. He may be prettier in real life, but he still look amazing in those pictures.

We're decided on whether or not to move in the next week, so how soon we get a new bird would be based on that decision.

[marie83]

Aw well hopefully you are not waiting too long, fingers crossed.

Tbh I was actually looking for a quaker when we came across Ollie. The only breeder we could find for quakers was an absolute mess, literally the second we left I was on the phone reporting them.

I had already had a conure in the past but I didn't really know what a green cheek was, so I had no colour preferences, until we went to visit.

We had the entire of two clutches, excluding the ones left with their parents, to choose from as we were the first people to see them and there were several colours to choose from. My partner favoured the blues but Ollie kind of chose me really, I had no intentions of buying a bird that very day as I was quite fussy about how my future parrot was raised but I ended up leaving with an empty wallet as we put a deposit straight down because I was so impressed with the breeder. 2 weeks later when we collected him he was the only one to come straight over and on arriving home he settled straight in.

Looking back now I would probably only go for a bird close to its natural colours unless it was a rescue bird as I no longer wish to support the whole breeding for looks thing now I know more about what it usually involves.

[terri]

Aw bless, sounds like we will be swapping birds almost then!

Tbh I got my heart set on a quaker as my next bird but who knows... It will be a while before I'm in a position to take on another.

A few more pics of Ollie on here if your interested, I don't feel his pictures usually do his colours justice though.
http://s1259.photobucket.com/albums/ii553/Binky83/

Very cute whose George?

[marie83]

Very cute whose George?

George was my peach fronted conure, we got him somewhere between the age of 6 months and 1 year old from someone who claimed her daughter was allergic to him, the woman had only had him two weeks and I don't know the reason his previous home gave him up. He had very good manners and had obviously been well trained but other than that he was pretty neglected. He was fed on sunflowers and the odd crisp the child chucked in his cage and the cage was so small I wouldn't have kept a budgie in with no toys or anything.
He was a really cheeky character, the first day I had him in the kitchen as it was the only place I could keep him away from my others, when I went to put the kettle on he said ''Don't do that''
He had a good and clear vocabulary for such a young bird, never bit anyone once in the time we had him and always stepped up first time. He learned to play and enjoy his life again very quickly but be warned if you left a carrier bag where he could get it because he would go and roll upside down on it. Although he was the best behaved parrot I've ever had he didn't like to be physically touched one bit and he really knew how to scream at dusk and dawn but he would sit there laughing to himself as the light faded.

Unfortunately we lost him early at 6 years old to an unfortunate accident with a toy. He got his beak stuck whilst I was at work and I found him hanging and very weak. We rushed him to the vets as he was so stuck I couldn't even free him. He seemed to pick up a bit but died shortly afterwards. I blamed myself for his death for a very long time, if I had checked his toys daily rather than weekly... Of course what ifs would never bring him back so I decided to learn my lesson and move on. Toys in the cage are given a quick check daily when I spot clean and checked thoroughly when I give the weekly full clean.

[terri]

Im glad you shared your story .Im so sorry about George He sounds like he was a neat little guy. [hearing more than once about those bells]

[marie83]

Thanks Terri, he was and I still miss him even now.

The bells the bells, yes I think that they are one of the most dangerous parrot toys tbh alongside ropes and the chains that hang the toys, although it was the chain that has a weak weld in this case, the bell itself was solid. Any toy can be dangerous though sadly and our pets shouldn't be deprived of playtime but there are some items that mine can only have under supervision now like the boing.

Alot of the bells do seem to be so badly made, I went into the parrot section of one of our local petshops about 3 months ago and spent a long time examining every toy what had a bell- each and every single one had a split that was easily manipulated by a light pressure with my finger on the ring that holds the clapper on.....

Actually I seem to spend alot of time modifying new parrot toys, removing split rings, little hooks where the end forms 95% of a circle, those silly s shaped hooks, replacing bad chains etc.

[cmaygar]

Does anybody elses birds actually hold their wing or tail feathers with their foot whilst preening the others? Ollie is the first bird I've ever had who does this, it looks so funny with him stood on 1 foot whilst holding the feathers with his other foot, it's almost like his holding the feathers out his way in order to reach the others.

My two GCCs do this quite often with the wing and tail feathers. My amazon and caique also do this when they are preening their wing feathers. I haven't seen them do this with their tail feathers probably because they have very short tail feathers!