- Apr 25, 2011
- 241
- 4
- 194
Lol, little sister could be a brother. But we will see if an egg or a crow comes first. How do your indoor parrots take to the chickens inside Nambroth ?
Derperella, the (weird) Faverolles, & Friends
- Thread starter Nambroth
- Start date
- Thread starter
- #3,132
I can't wait for the new roo! 
Cochins are the BEST!
Cochins are the BEST!- Thread starter
- #3,135
Cochins are quickly becoming a favorite! These chicks are so well behaved. They are silly and have chick antics, but aren't bullies to one another the way all my other chicks have been at this age. Instead of jumping on each other, these two do the "death state". This seems to resolve all conflict!
Pyxis, what a cute conure! And yes! I do have parrots. I actually have had parrots since I was 5 years old so I've nearly always had parrots in my life. Over the years I have worked with them both personally and professionally for a little while!
This is Khu (foreground). She is a bronze-winged pionus! Like all of my parrots, she was a rescue. I won't get too political in my post, however, she came from Petsmart's Preferred Birds program. With the larger parrots, they generally buy them from breeders, take them to their Flordia facility and then distribute them to the stores that want them. I am happy to say that they have really cut back on the larger and more needy parrots over the years, but when I worked at Petsmart as a lead/specialist, they released a list of "special needs" birds they had at the facility that were not suitable for sale to the public. There were a lot of sad stories on that list, most of them had to do with the fact that birds were brought to the facility and then not given the proper socialization and interaction that many parrots so need. As a parrot person, I'm sure you know that most parrots are like toddlers... especially so for the very emotionally needy cockatoos and some of the macaws! The list was full of cockatoos that were 'broken' because of what I consider the greed of the company. Anyhow, Khu had sat at that facility for over a year. The first year of her life, where learning social behaviors is vital to behaviors and lifelong mannerisms. Very much like people, it would be like depriving a human infant and toddler of contact with people or even other animals for the first few years of its life. It really messes up these intelligent animals!
So Khu has some problems. She gets seperation anxiety very easily, and part of her coping mechanism has always been to chew her feathers. Not pull them out, but chew them. Think of it like a nervous habit.
Khu looks very dull unless you get her in the right light. She is very colorful. The underside of each feather is bright turquoise!
She is very smart, and acts more like a person than a parrot. Khu is very much a child to me!
Here is Gorbash. He is a maximillian's pionus. We don't know much about his history... someone who was trying to breed him was getting rid of him because he wouldn't breed for him. Well, we brought him home and discovered that he is mostly blind! That might be part of it. He is directionally handicapped... he has polyps on his irises that make it hard for him to see in most directions. He can see well enough to get around but he sort of has tunnel vision.
Because of his handicap, and because he is a parrot, we need to be very slow and thoughtful around him. He gets very territorial about his personal space, but only randomly. So you could be loving on him at one moment, and the next he could be drawing blood! It takes a long time to learn their body language. It is very, very subtle. I know him well enough to know exactly when to pet him and exactly when he wants to be left alone. The way he tells me is by moving his feathers less than 1/8" in a certain way on his cheeks! You have to be super observant about parrots.
I also have three cockatiels.
One cockatiel I have had for many years. Her name is Zephyr. She is, strangely, the smartest bird I have and is very aloof, like a cat. At the same time, she's sweet, but has a lot of thinking to do in general.
She was adopted with no tail. Someone had pulled it out! People are so unkind. Her tail did grow back, though, since only the feathers were pulled. She's considered a "cinnamon" or "fawn" colored cockatiel.
Then, sadly... two years ago a friend of mine passed away. She had two cockatiels, literally, her entire life, and wanted them to go someplace safe and to someone she knew. She willed them to me and I adopted them.
This is Poppyseed. We call her "Gramma Poppyseed"! She is around 20 years old. As you can see, she is missing some feathers. When she was a young Poppyseed, she had bonded with a lovebird, but sadly the lovebird died. I guess Poppyseed was so sad over this that she pulled her feathers and did so for a few years... to where some of them will not grow back. We love her anyway! She has goofy arthritis feet and other medical problems but we keep on top of it so she has the best life she can.
Then there is Das. Das was my friend's other bird. He is very much a BOY! He loves to sing and show off for me, and if he could he would live on my chest forever. He tries to sing into my nostrils, because... hey! That is a great place to sing. Very good acoustics.
When I say sing, I should probably specify that he is not singing a lovely tune. He is just making a cockatiel beepbeep noise!
Here is a video of Das, "singing" to me!
More videos here, if you want them!
Pyxis, what a cute conure! And yes! I do have parrots. I actually have had parrots since I was 5 years old so I've nearly always had parrots in my life. Over the years I have worked with them both personally and professionally for a little while!
This is Khu (foreground). She is a bronze-winged pionus! Like all of my parrots, she was a rescue. I won't get too political in my post, however, she came from Petsmart's Preferred Birds program. With the larger parrots, they generally buy them from breeders, take them to their Flordia facility and then distribute them to the stores that want them. I am happy to say that they have really cut back on the larger and more needy parrots over the years, but when I worked at Petsmart as a lead/specialist, they released a list of "special needs" birds they had at the facility that were not suitable for sale to the public. There were a lot of sad stories on that list, most of them had to do with the fact that birds were brought to the facility and then not given the proper socialization and interaction that many parrots so need. As a parrot person, I'm sure you know that most parrots are like toddlers... especially so for the very emotionally needy cockatoos and some of the macaws! The list was full of cockatoos that were 'broken' because of what I consider the greed of the company. Anyhow, Khu had sat at that facility for over a year. The first year of her life, where learning social behaviors is vital to behaviors and lifelong mannerisms. Very much like people, it would be like depriving a human infant and toddler of contact with people or even other animals for the first few years of its life. It really messes up these intelligent animals!
So Khu has some problems. She gets seperation anxiety very easily, and part of her coping mechanism has always been to chew her feathers. Not pull them out, but chew them. Think of it like a nervous habit.
Khu looks very dull unless you get her in the right light. She is very colorful. The underside of each feather is bright turquoise!
She is very smart, and acts more like a person than a parrot. Khu is very much a child to me!
Here is Gorbash. He is a maximillian's pionus. We don't know much about his history... someone who was trying to breed him was getting rid of him because he wouldn't breed for him. Well, we brought him home and discovered that he is mostly blind! That might be part of it. He is directionally handicapped... he has polyps on his irises that make it hard for him to see in most directions. He can see well enough to get around but he sort of has tunnel vision.
Because of his handicap, and because he is a parrot, we need to be very slow and thoughtful around him. He gets very territorial about his personal space, but only randomly. So you could be loving on him at one moment, and the next he could be drawing blood! It takes a long time to learn their body language. It is very, very subtle. I know him well enough to know exactly when to pet him and exactly when he wants to be left alone. The way he tells me is by moving his feathers less than 1/8" in a certain way on his cheeks! You have to be super observant about parrots.
I also have three cockatiels.
One cockatiel I have had for many years. Her name is Zephyr. She is, strangely, the smartest bird I have and is very aloof, like a cat. At the same time, she's sweet, but has a lot of thinking to do in general.
She was adopted with no tail. Someone had pulled it out! People are so unkind. Her tail did grow back, though, since only the feathers were pulled. She's considered a "cinnamon" or "fawn" colored cockatiel.
Then, sadly... two years ago a friend of mine passed away. She had two cockatiels, literally, her entire life, and wanted them to go someplace safe and to someone she knew. She willed them to me and I adopted them.
This is Poppyseed. We call her "Gramma Poppyseed"! She is around 20 years old. As you can see, she is missing some feathers. When she was a young Poppyseed, she had bonded with a lovebird, but sadly the lovebird died. I guess Poppyseed was so sad over this that she pulled her feathers and did so for a few years... to where some of them will not grow back. We love her anyway! She has goofy arthritis feet and other medical problems but we keep on top of it so she has the best life she can.
Then there is Das. Das was my friend's other bird. He is very much a BOY! He loves to sing and show off for me, and if he could he would live on my chest forever. He tries to sing into my nostrils, because... hey! That is a great place to sing. Very good acoustics.
When I say sing, I should probably specify that he is not singing a lovely tune. He is just making a cockatiel beepbeep noise!
Here is a video of Das, "singing" to me!
More videos here, if you want them!
They are all so beautiful! Das reminds me so much of my tiels.
I started with a pair of budgies when I was very young and I kind of just progressed from there. My first 'bigger' bird was a cockatiel, and he was just about as old as your Poppyseed. I rescued him from a neighbor who could no longer take care of him due to her arthritis and who left his cage in a drafty spot on the floor and let her grandchildren throw toys at his cage. I caught one of them doing it once and yelled at him - he was not impressed. So I took Crest home. He had fatty liver disease because he had only ever been fed seeds, so I knew I wouldn't have him long. I was also told he was mean and nasty and would bite me all up...he never bit me. I just respected him. He did not like hands near him (I'm convinced that he suffered some sort of other abuse that left him terrified of them) so I let him step up onto my arm instead. The only time he wanted you to touch him was when he wanted his head scratched, and he would do the little head bow to tell you that's what he wanted. All you had to do was respect him, as you would any other intelligent being, and he was very sweet. Although he was a very one person bird, and never bonded to anyone but me. I only had him a few months, because his disease and old age caught up to him, but I like the think I gave him a very good end of his life.
After him, I had Shika, and I could write a book about that bird. I was going to, too - Jon Katz came to my school, and the English teachers picked the two best writers out of each grade to do a special writing program with him. My teacher chose me, so I went and wrote about birds and animals and Shika. He was going to publish each of our stories in a book, and was going to come back the next year to get more material, but then he had a battle with depression and never ended up coming back. To make a long story short, Shika was the sweetest bird I ever owned, and his life ended as I was ignored at an emergency vet clinic for hours as the saw dogs and cats ahead of me because my pet was 'just a bird.' Seriously, that's what the woman at our local vet clinic said to my father, right in front of me, while we were asking to have him cremated. "Are you sure you want to spend that much money on her pet? It's just a bird."
And then I got Lark, and he was purchased from a store that specializes in nothing but birds. So I thought they would have known how to take care of him. No. Turns out, they had him shipped in from North Carolina when he was a baby. I don't even know if he was hand fed like they said he was. They also thought it was funny to chase him around with a towel until he flipped over onto his back (a parrot's last defense mechanism) because they thought it was 'cute.' And he was terrified of hands, so I have no idea what else they did to him. He would bite on sight of a hand, or arm, or anything, coming near him because he was so scared. It took a long time of working with him, and a lot of blood and tears, but now he's a happy, well adjusted bird who no longer bites. If I really get on his nerves, he might tap me with his beak, but that's it. He's now a total clown and loves to talk to most people (he doesn't like strange men at first) but he's also mostly a one person bird. He's six years old now, and, hopefully, I'll have him for twenty more happy years.
Sorry to write so much, but I can never resist talking about my birds to someone else who owns them and gets that they're not 'just birds,' lol. I also like to tell these stories because it helps educate people about birds - there's no such thing as a mean bird, they're not disposable, easy pets, and you have to treat them with respect. It flabbergasts me how many people don't know these thing.
I started with a pair of budgies when I was very young and I kind of just progressed from there. My first 'bigger' bird was a cockatiel, and he was just about as old as your Poppyseed. I rescued him from a neighbor who could no longer take care of him due to her arthritis and who left his cage in a drafty spot on the floor and let her grandchildren throw toys at his cage. I caught one of them doing it once and yelled at him - he was not impressed. So I took Crest home. He had fatty liver disease because he had only ever been fed seeds, so I knew I wouldn't have him long. I was also told he was mean and nasty and would bite me all up...he never bit me. I just respected him. He did not like hands near him (I'm convinced that he suffered some sort of other abuse that left him terrified of them) so I let him step up onto my arm instead. The only time he wanted you to touch him was when he wanted his head scratched, and he would do the little head bow to tell you that's what he wanted. All you had to do was respect him, as you would any other intelligent being, and he was very sweet. Although he was a very one person bird, and never bonded to anyone but me. I only had him a few months, because his disease and old age caught up to him, but I like the think I gave him a very good end of his life.
After him, I had Shika, and I could write a book about that bird. I was going to, too - Jon Katz came to my school, and the English teachers picked the two best writers out of each grade to do a special writing program with him. My teacher chose me, so I went and wrote about birds and animals and Shika. He was going to publish each of our stories in a book, and was going to come back the next year to get more material, but then he had a battle with depression and never ended up coming back. To make a long story short, Shika was the sweetest bird I ever owned, and his life ended as I was ignored at an emergency vet clinic for hours as the saw dogs and cats ahead of me because my pet was 'just a bird.' Seriously, that's what the woman at our local vet clinic said to my father, right in front of me, while we were asking to have him cremated. "Are you sure you want to spend that much money on her pet? It's just a bird."
And then I got Lark, and he was purchased from a store that specializes in nothing but birds. So I thought they would have known how to take care of him. No. Turns out, they had him shipped in from North Carolina when he was a baby. I don't even know if he was hand fed like they said he was. They also thought it was funny to chase him around with a towel until he flipped over onto his back (a parrot's last defense mechanism) because they thought it was 'cute.' And he was terrified of hands, so I have no idea what else they did to him. He would bite on sight of a hand, or arm, or anything, coming near him because he was so scared. It took a long time of working with him, and a lot of blood and tears, but now he's a happy, well adjusted bird who no longer bites. If I really get on his nerves, he might tap me with his beak, but that's it. He's now a total clown and loves to talk to most people (he doesn't like strange men at first) but he's also mostly a one person bird. He's six years old now, and, hopefully, I'll have him for twenty more happy years.
Sorry to write so much, but I can never resist talking about my birds to someone else who owns them and gets that they're not 'just birds,' lol. I also like to tell these stories because it helps educate people about birds - there's no such thing as a mean bird, they're not disposable, easy pets, and you have to treat them with respect. It flabbergasts me how many people don't know these thing.
Last edited:
this is so cool. I've lurked on here for a long time but had to chime in. I have African greys. I've had Laurie my rescued grey for more than 15 years now. He's at least 35. We don't know his birthdate, only his import date from his legband, he was brought into the united states at the very end of the period of time when it was legal to import wild caught parrots. So, who knows what his real history is. My mom was a long time parrot owner and breeder and was contacted by the local parrot rescue. They asked her if she'd take a hand at rehabilitating an african grey of unknown age who was plucked bald as a broiler chicken, screamed, bit, and swore. She said sure, and we brought laurie home. He was in a tiny cage with no toys, had no feathers on his body except his tail and head, and was seriously overweight from being fed a diet of exclusively corn, peanuts, and birdseed. I was still at home and did all my schoolwork in his quarantine room. The two of us bonded, and the rest is, as they say, history. I helped Mom rehab him, and although he still screams sometimes, and still picks his feathers sometimes (he actually shears them off) but he's a fabulous bird. Intelligent, interactive, social. sometimes he gets really feathered and then, who knows why, removes all his chest feathers. I've never figured out the trigger. I love him just the way he is though! I had a second grey that was given to me when a friend could no longer keep her because the dust from her feathers was seriously aggravating her lung condition. Dewey was a hoot. Very very very verbal, and very attached to my husband. Sadly a couple months ago when I uncovered them in the morning she was dead. I think she had a stroke or a heart attack. Very sad because she was only 11 and apparently in the peak of health. We still miss her terribly.
Love the pionus pictures. My mom's last bird was a bronze wing. He answered to the name of merlin but we more often called him "dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde" huge mood swings, and very minor body language changes to herald them. You did eventually pick up on it, but he could go from wanting his head scritched to taking off your finger in no time flat. And he was the kind of parrot that liked to hang on and grrrriiiinnnnndddd. It was actually more funny than anything once you got used to it and could get your fingers out of harms way. He was a great bird. Beautiful in the sunlight, loved to take baths. When my mom became chronically ill she re-homed him with a well known zooligist and pionus breeder in north carolina, where he will live out the rest of his life with the best of care.
Love the pionus pictures. My mom's last bird was a bronze wing. He answered to the name of merlin but we more often called him "dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde" huge mood swings, and very minor body language changes to herald them. You did eventually pick up on it, but he could go from wanting his head scritched to taking off your finger in no time flat. And he was the kind of parrot that liked to hang on and grrrriiiinnnnndddd. It was actually more funny than anything once you got used to it and could get your fingers out of harms way. He was a great bird. Beautiful in the sunlight, loved to take baths. When my mom became chronically ill she re-homed him with a well known zooligist and pionus breeder in north carolina, where he will live out the rest of his life with the best of care.
I would take them, it is just that I luv in Missouri.
- Thread starter
- #3,139
I'm not sure I understand.. you would take who?
My favourite chicken out of our flock, she is a very kind hen, she doesn't bite or pick at you or the other chickens and she is a lap chicken for sure! Here she is after a nice snack of boiled eggs, seeds, and yogurt mixed up.
Similar threads
New posts New threads Active threads
-
Latest posts
-
-
biosecurity for chickens questions- Latest: thecatumbrella
-
-
-
-
Latest threads
-
How to help feather loss and rash on chest?
- Started by Chickies321
- Replies: 0
-
-
-
-
-
-
Threads with more replies in the last 15 days
-
-
Question of the Day - Thursday, August 14th, 2025- Started by casportpony
- Replies: 75
-
-
Ended BYC Poultry Caption Contest 08-08-25 Pic by Molpet- Started by TwoCrows
- Replies: 62
-
-
