Share your story of your past and present feathered kids and why you chose the breed.

With me it started a few years ago with a quaker I named Tiki. I found her on CL and when I met with the owners I found out her living conditions were horrible and she lived in an old rusty cage with sharp wires sticking out everywhere. I couldn't leave her there so she became part of my family. It took a couple of weeks to tame her and she learned to talk. She got spoiled with a new 300 dollar cage, toys, good healthy pellets and fresh fruits and veggies. We loved her to death and she would have stayed with us forever but sadly I came home from working one day and found out her cage had not been latched correctly and one of the dogs must have got her. The only thing that was left of our sweet little Tiki were feathers. We were heartbroken. R.I.P. Tiki


Tiki with the rest of my animals, Leo the cat, Cracker the white boxer, Lexie the brindle boxer.



We missed our little Tiki dearly and a few weeks later completely sure we would never have that cage latch problem again I was back on the hunt for another feathered family member. I was looking for a smaller parrot again and remembered when I was younger I worked at a pet store and became buddies with a nanday conure. So a week into my search I found a nanday named Zorro. Zorro ans I became best buds and he bonded with me the first day I had him. He started our as a fairly quiet bird. I didn't really mind his screeching much because it wasn't very often that he did it. He was a happy bird and spent quite a bit of time with me while I was home. A few months later we had started really getting into real estate investing and were starting to have people over at our house all the time. Zorro started getting very noisy over time with all the excitement and we started having to put him in the back room when we had company. When things started to settle down everything went back to normal except his screaming. I tried working with him and ignoring him to help his screeching but nothing was working. He would even screech in my ears all the time and always ended up in the back room if he got to noisy and after a while I just felt bad for him and thought if I could find someone who could give him a better life then I did then maybe he would be much happier. I debated on it for a while and was very picky on who he was going home with. I finally met a nice family who owned a small book store 5 minutes from my house. Today Zorro is famous and greets the customers as they come to the book store. His new family loves him and takes him to work every day! I still come to visit him every once in a while and he is as happy as ever.

Zorro



So conures were ruled out at this point. It was too quiet in my home without a bird so we went on a search for one that was a little more quiet then Zorro. I didn't mind the noise level of Tiki when we had her so I was searching for another quaker. I kept seeing indian ringnecks for sale in my area so I did my research ant thought this might be a type of bird that will fit in with us. About 2 months later we got an indian ringneck we named Turkey. She came from a family who had a 3 year old timnah grey and it would attack the baby. Theit grey started pulling out its feathers so they decided to find a new home for Turkey. We have had Turkey for a month now and we love her very much. I am happy to have her and hope she has a long and happy life with us.

Turkey







Your turn!

Our parrot mania started when some close friends of ours decided that they wanted a parrot and invited us to go with them to a local bird store. When we got there, we found that they had 3 month-old male and female Alexandrines that were clutchmates. 1 impulse buy later and we added the female and named her Dot; our friends got her brother and named him Viper. Sadly, 5 days after we brought her home, she died. Viper died less than a month later. We later found out that one other clutchmate also died...literally just fell over. Obviously, something wrong with the entire clutch.
Dot


It was odd that in less than a week, I had gotten so used to having Dot around. I was dealing with some medical issues, so secretly my husband did some searching and found another Alex available for adoption. He was 7 months old and named Baby. We drove 4 hrs one way and picked him up. He's since been renamed Max, and although we were sold a boy, we think we may have a girl. Max loved me for about 4 months then divorced me for my husband and son. Now he's my son's bird.

Max


We had been bitten by the Birdie Bug. After Viper died, our friends started looking for a macaw and eventually led us to our breeder, Wendy Craig. We went with them once when they visited their baby blue-throat and were introduced to red-front macaws. My husband was smitten. It took a couple weeks, but he finally decied that he wanted one and we went back to Wendy's to pick out one of the babies. We didn't really find one we loved and after a couple failed attempts, Jade (at the time called Gem) came out of the nursery and into the "day care". It was amazing at how quickly we felt comfortable around her. So, every other Saturday for the next 3 months, we drove the 3 hr round trip to spend time with Jade and get to know her before she came home with us at the end of January in 2010.

Jade


Last, but definitely not least, is my Ruby. While we were visiting Jade, Wendy had a little CAG who had a family but was just waiting to be old enough to go home with them. He was Dylan and was the cutest thing. He was an instigator and would get the other babies - all RFMs and BTMs - riled up. I wanted one! My wonderful husband again, kept checking with Wendy to find out when she had another baby available. One day when he called, she told him that she had one and was just about to call us. The baby had been "spoken for" but then it developed constricted toes and the new family only wanted a "perfect" bird. Their idiocy was our gain. She was still in the nursery when I met her the first time. She had just lost all 4 of her back toes. And on that day, Wendy also got her DNA test back so we knew we had Ruby and not Oscar. And for another 3 months, we made the trek to Weny's to see Ruby. We brought her home on 4th of July weekend last year. She is my lovely girl and loves me best. This isn't a great pic, but she's camera-shy.

Ruby


I keep thinking I want a budgie, but I know we're at our birdie limit so these 3 are likely the only birdies we'll ever have. Which is perfectly perfect.