Lee_Creature_Girl
New member
- Jun 5, 2012
- 7
- 0
- Parrots
- 2 female Goffins Cockatoos
Female Solomon Island Eclectus
Female Orange-Vested Senegal
Female Cape Parrot
Male Green Cheek Conure
Male Crimson-Bellied Conure
My name is Lee & I'm a retired RN (due to brain injury). I live in Kirkland Washington which is just outside Seattle. I'm married...for the 2nd & last time
I moved here from Denver to marry my husband whom I met online in a forum dedicated to current events & especially hot topics (controversial issues...politics, religion, you name it). We became friends together with a handful of other members from that board & would all chat socially together apart from the forum. After a few years, Rob & I started chatting privately. After another year or two, we moved to the phone. This was back in mid to late 1990's when long distance calling was much more expensive. Around 8 years after we first met online, our phone calls turned into daily occurences lasting hours & hours & hours & our phone bills climbed to over $700 a month a piece, we decided we should meet in person because air fare was cheaper than this.
I needed some relatively minor surgery six weeks before scheduled to fly to Seattle. There were complications. I nearly died. Spent a week or so in ICU. I remember little but there being a phone to my ear & vaguely knowing Rob was on the other end.
Despite open wounds packed with gauze & still being weak, I went ahead with the flight to Seattle. I spent two great weeks with Rob, met his wonderful parents & flew home. A month later, Rob flew to Denver, rented a moving van, loaded me up & I moved out on my two youngest sons (in their early 20's at the time) leaving the house to them to live in as long as they took care of it & paid the utilities until I knew what I wanted to do in the long term. Six months later Rob & I married in an outdoor ceremony at his folks' incredible Victorian home (a home they later donated to the city & it is now a museum, city offices in the basement & the main level rented out for weddings & so on.
Life's not perfect. It never is. But it's pretty darn good despite the problems of the last couple of years since my brain injury, fibromyalgia, mental deficits, my husband's employer losing their government contract this past January & my husband losing his job as a result & being unable to find work & the resulting financial crisis all these events have caused.
The thing that pains me the most is that I know I can no longer provide the care to my 7 parrots deserve. I've been able to keep up with hygiene & feeding, but I don't know how much longer I can do so. More than that, there just aren't enough hours in the day & I don't have the stamina any longer to provide the one-on-one play time & interaction each of them deserves. Especially since I have two cockatoos & just one of them needs me several hours a day & I want to give her that time.
I love all of them so much but of course, I do have my favorites. One of my goffins is at the top of the list followed by my Cape parrot & my little special-needs green cheek conure. But there is very little separation between my other goffins, my eclectus, senegal & crimson-bellied conure as far as how much I love them.
Still, I know both they & I would be better off if I were able to find wonderful, permanent homes for all but those top three parrots. Audrey, Hanna & Punkin. But that's not easy to do. I do have a home for Valentina, my ekkie. A friend is buying her & her double macaw cage which is a relief since I know this person well & know she will be loved & well cared for & that I can even check in on her from time to time. But finding suitable homes when my birds have been used to a unique environment where they have spent their lives with near total freedom in a huge parrot room, essentially an aviary setting, designed for them with jungle rope everywhere across the ceiling & lots of play gyms both hanging & rolling & tons of toys. Some never have their cage doors closed. Others, only at bed time.
They all get along fine except my other goffins, Angel, who is a semi-rescue & came to me terrified of other birds so she is only out (other than when she's with me in another room) with my other goffins & Cape when the other birds are in their cages for the night. She is comfortable with these two birds now but only as long as they keep their distance which they do. She's come a long way & is a total love bug with every human she's ever met. My other goffins, Audrey, is very shy & extremely bonded to me which is why she is the goffins I chose to keep. Plus the fact that my heart would be ripped out of my chest if I had to give her up. I also think Angel would absolutely blossom as an only bird.
I would be equally devastated to lose Hanna, my Cape or Punkin, my green cheek. I don't really want to give up Yoshi, my crimson-bellied conure but he is my youngest & has shared a cage with Punkin since his arrival but now needs his own cage & I just can't keep up with that many cages any more. Plus he is now seeking to interact with me & cuddle lots & lots & as I stated earlier, there aren't enough hours in the day & I no longer have the energy to both care for & meet the emotional needs of all 7 of my babies. Yoshi deserves a loving home where he can become the beautiful little cuddle bug he so desperately wants to be.
Nellie, my senegal, is a really difficult choice to give up. She is probably the most perfect pet bird that ever existed. Sweet, cuddle, funny, acrobatic, adoring of me. and that's the problem. She would love to live on my shoulder giving me kisses & climbing into my blouse to play peek-a-boo 24-7. I can't do anything in the bird room without her instantly flying to my shoulder. So I keep having to lock her in her cage to do the cleaning when she gets in my way or endangers herself vying for my attention or just keeping me from being able to interact with another bird who also needs some attention.
Of course, I have play gyms in other rooms & take my babies one at a time up to those areas to spend time with me alone. But I can't do that for each of seven birds as often as they want & deserve. So as much as I love this sweet, gentle, funny little girl, I think she would be better off with someone who can give her more time.
I chose to give up my Eclectus only because some of my birds are a bit fearful of her. Not because she's in the least aggressive or threatening. She's probably the gentlest female ekkie you could ever meet. I think it's more because she's a big RED bird with a big black beak & that somehow her appearance alone feels a bit overpowering & threatening.
Oh, I nearly forgot. I also have three grown sons (two of whom ended up moving out here from Denver to live near me), one grown daughter & one adorable grandson...plus two dogs, Murphy our golden doodle & Rocky our cavachon. And I have a greenhouse with 200+ orchid plants which is also a drain on my time & energy though I do love them (but not nearly as much as I love my birds).
I just realized how much I've written & I apologize for being so wordy. Anyway, that's me. One word of warning, because of the brain injury, my short term memory is severely impaired & I have great difficulty with getting distracted & following through on things (as well as word finding at times. So I hesitate to get involved in forums any more because I know I will more than likely forget to respond to people on a regular basis. Plus it takes me a long time to formulate my thoughts & type them out. So please don't take offense if I don't answer a question or respond to someone or if I take a very long time to do either. It's not personal. It's just my crappy brain these days.
One of the things I'm looking for, of course, is advise on finding good forever homes for those of my birds I need to re-home & maybe finding someone here who is interested in any of them. And then, of course, just sharing stories & info with other parrot owners.
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