Just this past week, I was called about a Female Eclectus for sale, cage and all, for 200 dollars. The owner said she was a plucker, but the plucking only started within the past month. I immediately said yes, that I would take her. I've wanted a parrot on the larger side for my own for a while and thought this was a perfect opportunity to have the chance to bond with one. Especially with a bird as beautiful as the Ekkie.
Now, I drove four hours to reach the residence of the seller, and I grew more and more excited every mile. We (I had my fiance Wendy along with me for the trip, because it'll be her baby too!) pull up to the house, and the first thing I notice is a ton of toys in the yard and I'm already putting the pieces together as to why this bird is plucking. I walk up to the door, and I was greeted by two small boys. Their mother walks up, and greets us and opens the door more to reveal the room, and the cage.
The cage was a large, handmade, rusty, kind of makeshift. It had physical damage along with it, as if somebody and dropped the side of it on a set of stairs. They had removed a few of the bars on the cage to put on some sort of makeshift nest. It was like a chicken nest hung with a bunch of wire with duct tape on the other openings with a pine chip nest at the bottom.
The children were out of this world. Mickey (The new name for my Ekkie) found that the nest was the only safe place in the house. She became territorial and aggressive over me trying to help her out of the cage. As I was getting her out, the children were all over me, inside and out of the cage, spraying Mickey with water, throwing sticks they found outside at her. It's very obvious that this was not the environment for her to be in. After about an hour of trying my best to get her even anywhere outside of the nest without the kids torturing her, I finally got her into my traveling cage. I left the old cage behind, and we took her to an aviary to get a quick grooming and to get her nostril unclogged from the pine dust. Bought her a brand new open-top cage, took her home, and let her rest the night.
It's now halfway into the second day we've had her. She's learned how to say Wendy's name, and how to make kiss noises. She's still a hassle on getting out of her cage, but she's just fine after.
She doesn't know how to step up, and does not like sticks that move. She's partial to only my right hand, and does not enjoy my left. She plucked her entire front and back, but has left her tail and wing feathers.
I'm very prepared to help her along her recovery, and plan to try my best to bond with her. I hope to share the process and progress of that recovery with everyone here.
Greetings from Jarad, Wendy, and Mickey!
