- Feb 20, 2022
- 3,131
- 10,896
Hello!
I apologize; this is super long
Last week I visited a local parrot rescue with the intention of just starting to meet various species and get to know the volunteers, with a goal of adopting in a couple of months after I've finished some house painting and other small projects.
After chatting about my past animal experience and what I enjoy about interacting with different animals, they introduced me to a very handsome fellow who is absolutely terrified of everything. He won't be ready to adopt for a month or two, but when I showed up today I found they'd made a little sign that he's boarding and not available
He's an 18 month old African Ringneck (thank you all here who spotted that right away!) who was originally purchased by a family at 9 months old. He didn't flourish the way they hoped he would in their home, and seemed to visibly not enjoy how active their household was. He developed a yeast infection on his skin and began plucking. When he arrived at the rescue in December 2021, he was completely bald except for his head. He's been receiving treatment while there and is currently molting. So far (fingers crossed!) he's leaving his new feathers alone.
Since I saw him last week he has two new baby tail feathers According to the vet's exam, if he allows his feathers to grow in he'll have a full tail and full flight feathers - so far he hasn't damaged the underlying structures.
In observing his behavior and from his previous family's history, the rescue has noticed that he indeed seems to become stressed with high activity in his surroundings, and he does much better when his cage is smaller so that he can climb around the whole thing and so the bottom of the cage is above human waist/chest level.
Today I spent about four hours in the rescue, most of it just nearby his cage and respecting his body language toward me. If a customer wanted to get by me and I moved toward the cage, and he turned around, I moved away. I noticed last week that when people are looking at him he wants to be on his favorite perch, gets visibly anxious, and places his foot on the wall (his scared power stance is what I've called it in my head - he's tense and ready to run to the corner). My goal was to be in his awareness without staring at him and let him see me without feeling he needed to be on alert.
I spent 45 minutes or so in their meet-n-greet room, a bathroom set up for safe visits. I carried him in his cage and left him inside, and then sat on the floor and just talked. I read him posts from the I Love Amazons thread, and read aloud the text messages I was sending, and told him he was beautiful, and told him many times that I promise right now I will never just reach out my hand and grab him because he deserves choice and if he is always going to be scared of my hand that's ok, and so forth.
He was in his scared stance at first but started sneaking looks at me (I cheated and used my phone camera to see what he was doing without needing to look his direction). He cocked his head slightly a few times while I was talking. About 30 minutes in, I played a YouTube video of an African Ringneck making happy sounds, and he was visibly curious. He looked squarely at me and took a couple steps toward me on his favorite perch. I talked to him about Ringnecks and how pretty he is and he stayed pretty comfortable, seeming ok with me making eye contact (slower breathing than before, not moving away, maybe soft chirpie sounds with his beak but the Macaws outside were getting lunch so I couldn't tell if he made noise).
The volunteers there are super experienced with big birds and with social birds that are stressed, and they said they've had him out and he came close to stepping up - but in my gut I feel like I want to go very very slowly with this guy. Just watching him, I feel like he would be very prone to flooding and performing a behavior due to learned helplessness rather than choice.
He's not tame and he is likely going to remain a feather plucker, but I'm totally smitten with the guy. He might never be social, but I know my home is stable and free of human hustle and I'm looking forward to seeing how this unfolds.
(I'll edit to add a few photos from my phone)
I apologize; this is super long
Last week I visited a local parrot rescue with the intention of just starting to meet various species and get to know the volunteers, with a goal of adopting in a couple of months after I've finished some house painting and other small projects.
After chatting about my past animal experience and what I enjoy about interacting with different animals, they introduced me to a very handsome fellow who is absolutely terrified of everything. He won't be ready to adopt for a month or two, but when I showed up today I found they'd made a little sign that he's boarding and not available
He's an 18 month old African Ringneck (thank you all here who spotted that right away!) who was originally purchased by a family at 9 months old. He didn't flourish the way they hoped he would in their home, and seemed to visibly not enjoy how active their household was. He developed a yeast infection on his skin and began plucking. When he arrived at the rescue in December 2021, he was completely bald except for his head. He's been receiving treatment while there and is currently molting. So far (fingers crossed!) he's leaving his new feathers alone.
Since I saw him last week he has two new baby tail feathers
According to the vet's exam, if he allows his feathers to grow in he'll have a full tail and full flight feathers - so far he hasn't damaged the underlying structures.In observing his behavior and from his previous family's history, the rescue has noticed that he indeed seems to become stressed with high activity in his surroundings, and he does much better when his cage is smaller so that he can climb around the whole thing and so the bottom of the cage is above human waist/chest level.
Today I spent about four hours in the rescue, most of it just nearby his cage and respecting his body language toward me. If a customer wanted to get by me and I moved toward the cage, and he turned around, I moved away. I noticed last week that when people are looking at him he wants to be on his favorite perch, gets visibly anxious, and places his foot on the wall (his scared power stance is what I've called it in my head - he's tense and ready to run to the corner). My goal was to be in his awareness without staring at him and let him see me without feeling he needed to be on alert.
I spent 45 minutes or so in their meet-n-greet room, a bathroom set up for safe visits. I carried him in his cage and left him inside, and then sat on the floor and just talked. I read him posts from the I Love Amazons thread, and read aloud the text messages I was sending, and told him he was beautiful, and told him many times that I promise right now I will never just reach out my hand and grab him because he deserves choice and if he is always going to be scared of my hand that's ok, and so forth.
He was in his scared stance at first but started sneaking looks at me (I cheated and used my phone camera to see what he was doing without needing to look his direction). He cocked his head slightly a few times while I was talking. About 30 minutes in, I played a YouTube video of an African Ringneck making happy sounds, and he was visibly curious. He looked squarely at me and took a couple steps toward me on his favorite perch. I talked to him about Ringnecks and how pretty he is and he stayed pretty comfortable, seeming ok with me making eye contact (slower breathing than before, not moving away, maybe soft chirpie sounds with his beak but the Macaws outside were getting lunch so I couldn't tell if he made noise).
The volunteers there are super experienced with big birds and with social birds that are stressed, and they said they've had him out and he came close to stepping up - but in my gut I feel like I want to go very very slowly with this guy. Just watching him, I feel like he would be very prone to flooding and performing a behavior due to learned helplessness rather than choice.
He's not tame and he is likely going to remain a feather plucker, but I'm totally smitten with the guy. He might never be social, but I know my home is stable and free of human hustle and I'm looking forward to seeing how this unfolds.
(I'll edit to add a few photos from my phone)
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