Hello everyone!
I'm Dee and I'm from Belgium. I live together with my boyfriend and we have 5 dogs, 4 cats, a ferret and a King Parrot. I tried some parrot forums in my own country but there is not much going on there so I searched for a bigger forum and that's how I ended up here.
The story of how we got our King Parrot.
I work as a volunteer in a wildlife rehabilitation center but we do not only take care of wildlife, sometimes pets come into the center as well. Sometimes people find a ferret, parrot, rabbit,... in their backyard and then they bring it to us and sometimes pets are confiscated and taken to the center. In September we were called to a house for a temporary confiscation. A man couldn't take care of himself anymore and obviously couldn't take care of his many parrots and other small birds anymore.
So that's how a large number of birds came to the center. Among them was a beautiful King Parrot. I loved him right from the start but there was still a chance that the owner would want him and the other parrots back. He would have to pay quite some money though, if he wanted them back because he would have to pay for all the costs the center made while the birds were there. For example, every bird was examined by a vet.
Apparently the King Parrot was living in a ridiculously small cage full of poo. His owner was smoking a lot in the room where his cage was. After he was taken to the center, he started to loose a lot of feathers. He was seen by a vet and he concluded that it was most likely due to stress. And indeed, when he was used to his aviary, he stopped losing feathers and started regrowing them. But he didn't seem happy in the aviary so we moved him to the care room in the wildlife center. He got his own large cage in between the pidgeons, hedgehogs and squirrels and he seemed to be enjoying the humans that were around. He was still very scared if someone would really try to make contact.
And finally, 3 weeks ago, the owner decided to sign a statement that said that he did not want his birds back. And we decided that we would love to adopt him. So 2 weeks ago I took him home and we named him Finn
And now Finn is getting used to us and we're all getting used to Finn. His previous owner also had cats and dogs and apparently Finn loves cats and dogs. We had to teach our cats and dogs to leave him alone and now it's going really well. At first he was really scared of hands coming into his cage but now he takes seeds from our hands. He whistles a lot and sometimes he tries to imitate sounds. Now we're trying to get him to step up our arm or hands but it's not going to be easy but I guess we have to be very patient with him as we don't exactly know what he has been through. But we're happy with him and as far as I can tell, I think he's happy with us too I'll try to add a picture below...
The only thing that is strange about him is that he has these blue feathers on his belly. I've been looking a lot for information on king parrots but never seen a picture of one looking like this. Has anyone an explanation?
I'm Dee and I'm from Belgium. I live together with my boyfriend and we have 5 dogs, 4 cats, a ferret and a King Parrot. I tried some parrot forums in my own country but there is not much going on there so I searched for a bigger forum and that's how I ended up here.
The story of how we got our King Parrot.
I work as a volunteer in a wildlife rehabilitation center but we do not only take care of wildlife, sometimes pets come into the center as well. Sometimes people find a ferret, parrot, rabbit,... in their backyard and then they bring it to us and sometimes pets are confiscated and taken to the center. In September we were called to a house for a temporary confiscation. A man couldn't take care of himself anymore and obviously couldn't take care of his many parrots and other small birds anymore.
So that's how a large number of birds came to the center. Among them was a beautiful King Parrot. I loved him right from the start but there was still a chance that the owner would want him and the other parrots back. He would have to pay quite some money though, if he wanted them back because he would have to pay for all the costs the center made while the birds were there. For example, every bird was examined by a vet.
Apparently the King Parrot was living in a ridiculously small cage full of poo. His owner was smoking a lot in the room where his cage was. After he was taken to the center, he started to loose a lot of feathers. He was seen by a vet and he concluded that it was most likely due to stress. And indeed, when he was used to his aviary, he stopped losing feathers and started regrowing them. But he didn't seem happy in the aviary so we moved him to the care room in the wildlife center. He got his own large cage in between the pidgeons, hedgehogs and squirrels and he seemed to be enjoying the humans that were around. He was still very scared if someone would really try to make contact.
And finally, 3 weeks ago, the owner decided to sign a statement that said that he did not want his birds back. And we decided that we would love to adopt him. So 2 weeks ago I took him home and we named him Finn
And now Finn is getting used to us and we're all getting used to Finn. His previous owner also had cats and dogs and apparently Finn loves cats and dogs. We had to teach our cats and dogs to leave him alone and now it's going really well. At first he was really scared of hands coming into his cage but now he takes seeds from our hands. He whistles a lot and sometimes he tries to imitate sounds. Now we're trying to get him to step up our arm or hands but it's not going to be easy but I guess we have to be very patient with him as we don't exactly know what he has been through. But we're happy with him and as far as I can tell, I think he's happy with us too I'll try to add a picture below...
The only thing that is strange about him is that he has these blue feathers on his belly. I've been looking a lot for information on king parrots but never seen a picture of one looking like this. Has anyone an explanation?
