Button & Ava

[nkrbkr]

Ava and the breeder’s African Grey have become friends. She said that he flirts with Ava. It’s so nice to see she’s happy while we’re away.

 

[LaManuka]

Ava and the breeder’s African Grey have become friends. She said that he flirts with Ava. It’s so nice to see she’s happy while we’re away.

Careful with those inter-species romances, @nkrbkr, they can get complicated!

 

[onamom]

Awww! So cute! I wish I could board birds. That would be like my dream job and I’d just play with them all day and spoil them rotten then send them home.

 

[TiredOldMan]

Awww! So cute! I wish I could board birds. That would be like my dream job and I’d just play with them all day and spoil them rotten then send them home.

Kind of like grandkids?

 

[DonnaBudgie]

My dream job is raising baby birds! I love the babies so much and have so much fun raising them, even the round the clock feedings. But I get so attached to them that I would have a hard time placing them in homes and I can't just keep them all. Budgies can be breeding machines once they start. That's how I ended up with 6 more budgies than I really want.

Right now we're building a 12x18 "bird shed" about 20 feet from the house, fully insulated, with heat, AC, and hot and cold running water so I can house the 8 budgies that aren't tame along with all my bird supplies, gardening supplies, etc plus a refrigerator and a small sitting area. The four males and four females will each have 48x18x32 flight cages. Every morning I'll go out and give them fresh food and water and put on their favorite music.
I'm thinking about breeding Englush Budgies for show but only if I have a good plan for homing extra birds. English budgies make excellent pets because they're so calm and easy to tame but they're not readily available in the US. I wouldn't sell them to pet stores- I'd only home them with people I vet myself. Maybe next Spring. I'll have plenty of space to build an aviary. I'd like to have an indoor/outdoor aviary set up. However, I DON'T want to add more birds to the homeless bird population and for that reason alone I probably won't do it.

 

[nkrbkr]

We came home to our birds a few days ago, and everyone is getting settled in to their normal routines again. As expected, both Button and Ava were overweight and overstimulated for a couple of days after coming home. I sent a bit of extra food in the pellet portions to make sure nobody was hungry while we were away.

Button usually gets himself sorted out in short order after coming home, and he did just that. I wasn’t sure what to expect with Ava, since it was her first time being boarded away from us. She was very excited to see us, and immediately started saying “up up?” She started preening and snuggling my husband right away. I was less certain about trying to interact with her, as her body language was telling me that she had some “thoughts” about me. I set a piece of almond on my knee, and told her she could come over when/if she felt like it. Well, she eventually did, ate the almond, sat on my knee for a moment while looking at me, then lunged and bit my hand. It hurt and bled, but I’m still amazed at how gentle she is, even when she’s trying to tell me off. I have a suspicion that she was punishing me, as I was the one to put her in her travel cage to go to the breeder’s house to be boarded.

I took things slow with Miss Ava over the last couple of days, and it seems she has forgiven me. She’s back to asking me to train, and even was very sweet last night, asking me to give her a long scritch before bedtime. I know who’s going to put her in her travel cage next time we go on a trip…not me.