The flock and I :)

[jade_my_one_love]

To start off I will tell you a little about the leader of the flock... Yupp. That's me! My mother and I ran a pet store for 2 years, the very reason I fell in love with birds. We got our first "big" bird, Jefe, the Black Headed Caique. He wasn't big in size, but in personality and heart he was. He had a nasty habit of biting, but once he warmed up to us, he was an absolute blast! I had never been around birds that weren't cockatiels or parakeets. He showed us just how interactive, loving, and entertaining birds really are. After we sold him, my heart was broken. But we progressed to getting bigger birds, and learning more and more from each and everyone of them. We had everything from Caiques, Amazons, African Greys, Conures, and Senegals.

One of the birds we received, came from a family that could no longer care for her, and had been in an abusive household. Her name was Jade, and she had a severe problem with fingers. No one could reach their finger to her without receiving a nasty bite. The only way any of us could handle her was to wear welding gloves, and the gloves scared her. For a long time no one could touch her.... untill we figured out her love-spot. Bubblegum. She has this fetish for popping bubbles, and thats when we finally broke through her icy layer. For awhile only my mom could handle her, and eventually me. No one wanted to buy her because of her biting problem, and soon not even my mom could handle her. She started biting my mom when she didn't let her "properly" pop a bubble. After that day, she became specifically my bird. It was also around this time that she started to really talk, "bubble" of course being one of her favorite words. Now we have closed the pet store, and brought her and our african grey home with us. Jade will now go to my mom [when she has food or I put Jade on her] and my stepfather. However they cannot do the things with her that I can, such as playing with her wings, toes, flipping her on her back, and scratching her head. At nighttime, if I do not spend at least 10 minutes saying goodnight to her, she is loud for a long time.

Zeena is another bird that we have had to rehabilitate. She started plucking, which African Grey's can be very prone to under stressful situations. Her legs were bare, her chest bare, and even her back was bare. The plucking didn't get better till we got her home. She's very sarcastic, and loves to mess around with us. She is so incredibly intelligent, and can put words together in a sentence she has NEVER heard, to make a real sentence to appropriately respond. One day my mom told her to fix her lunch, and she responded in a snotty voice, "I'm just a bird." She whistles for the dogs, makes a duck call, mimics Jade to make her mad, and calls my name when I'm in my room just to laugh at me when I come running out to see my mother asleep on the couch, and her staring at me. she loves to sing the 70's, and she prefers men. She has a very large vocabulary, we can't even keep up with what she says. She has a tendency to say something, and never saying it again.

Jades vocabulary consists of,
Bubble, Hi Guy! Night Night, Hiiii, Hi Babyyyy, knock knock, Kiss, I don't want that. I bite. No!, Mhm, Nuhh-uhh!, Yaaa!, and a soft whispering sentence, a blowing sound, she acts like shes chewing bubble gum whenever she see's food she wants, and kissing sounds. She also rambles alot, and somethings we can't quite understand yet.

Zeena's common vocab,
Helloooo! Cheyan! ZEENA shut up! Barking sound, Growling sound, answering machine beep, a variety of other beeps and whistles, whistles for dogs, has several different telephone rings that she answers herself with a short, "hello?", Shhh... Shut the d*mn bird up. Hey baby. Momma wanna cracker? [Funny, my friend taught her that once since everyone teaches birds "polly wanna cracker?" ]

These birds have very much become a part of my life, especially Jade, her and I are really attached, and I'm permanently bonded to her. I truly wouldn't know what I would do without my flock!

[Becco Lunatico]

Lovely post (:

[zazanomore]

I love hearing stories of people rescuing birds

Welcome to the site!

[jade_my_one_love]

Thank you both very much and thank you
We had a lot of rescue birds in the store, and I have learned a lot about birds, and even myself through rehabilitating these beautiful creatures. I would have to say out of all animals, birds are my favorite to interact with!!