A big milestone for Kiwi!

[Kiwibird]

So, I think a lot of you know by now we have a sweet little rescue BFA, Kiwi. We adopted him out of a terrible situation, and it's certainly been a 5 year adventure with him. He has never been a particularly cuddly bird, so we kind of just left the physical contact at him stepping up and haven't pressed him to accept petting or cuddles ( he likes to flirt from across the room).

Anyways, this morning we had him on the couch, and much to our surprise he snuck up behind my husbands head and started preening his hair and ear! It was just so cute, and the very first time he has shown that kind of affection. He only did it for about a minute, then scooted off and started preening. It was just so nice to see him finally having that level of trust he would come right up to one of us like that! Hopefully he realized he didn't get eaten, so he will start being a little more contact-friendly on a more regular basis. He looks soooo soft, and it's very difficult not to grab him and give him a good petting and cuddle

 

[SandyBee]

Aww, congrats.
I hope for all of you that he starts to enjoy this interaction!!

 

[oled]

Congratulation, good work..just keep on

 

[Kiwibird]

I hope he's learning to be more affectionate too. I grew up with (well adjusted) large parrots, and *thought* I had more than enough experience to take on an older, neglected bird. My husband had 0 experience (except having played a little with my parents birds), but he was willing to follow my lead. We had no idea just how much of a challenge Kiwi would be when we adopted him, and it's been a very difficult process with him. It's such a big relief to see he's finally started warming up to us in the past year or so and seems were moving past his major behavioral hurdles (we adopted him 5 years ago). I'm not sure how many other zon owners out there adopted their bird or if you had as much trouble as we did, but him feeling comfortable enough to preen on my husband is like a mini-miracle :09:

 

[SandyBee]

I am happy for you,
I adopted an older amazon, but I got lucky. He is a total cuddle bug for me.
But it started exactly that way he started preening me and it lead to everything else.

 

[Kiwibird]

Awwww, I wish Kiwi was more of a cuddle bug to match his deceiving looks lol. He's super adorable and looks like he should just be snuggled up next to you, but he has much more of a "rebellious teenager" attitude towards those things.

 

[Remy]

Congratulations! In my experience, many rescued animals become cuddle bugs eventually.