Common/Exotic birds/pets

I didn't know if this fit better in Pets or as wildlife but here goes (It is a matter of perspective). Just an interesting (to me) observation. Walking through a mall recently to kill time waiting for one hour glasses to be made (again) I perused a pet shop and noticed 3 large blue on the back and sulphur yellow on the belly MACAWS. These are expensive exotic pets here abouts. A few years back my wife worked in San Diego, CA on a point of land sticking out in the ocean. There were flocks of wild macaws living there and they frequently perched on a building just outside her window and made such a ruckus they were a distraction beyond their beautiful blue and gold feathers. We also were just inside the extreme northern limits of the range for the Mexican red headed parrot and there were frequently flocks of those flying around the house. They were pretty obnoxious to listen to but fun to watch chasing crows out of the palm trees.

We had a "pet" parrot for a few years. It was a double yellow headed amazon parrot (not a Norweigan Blue) that we got via other than normal channels. It seems there was a fire in a pet shop in Pomona, CA and some of the stock got lose. A few parrots took up residence in some really tall pine trees on few acres my mom owned. Her second husband used to shoot at the crows with his pellet gun as they "messed" on the cars and everything else a lot. So, at evening twilight a crow was sitting in a tree by his shop and he shot it. It went tumbling to the ground and when he went to administer the coup de gras, he was just sickened by the sight of a wounded parrot. Seems the parrot was doing a pretty good crow imitation and in silohette his colors went unnoticed. I got a call and drove 125 miles to get the parrot and did my best first aid. His wing healed but he never was able to fly good enough to gain much altitude. If he started about 6 ft off the ground he couldn't clear a 6 ft fence after flying 30-50 ft.

Unfortunately, this meant he was not going to be released back into the wild where he previously did OK for 4-5 years. So we popped down to Tijuana and got an ENORMOUS parrot cage and screened in our front porch. We kept him for years and gave him to a bird fancier who had a parrot that fell in love with ours while keeping him for us when we were gone for a couple weeks. Her bird would literaly throw fits when separated from ours.

We had many interesting experiences with this bird who one of my college chums nicknamed RODAN after seing it crack open left over chicken bones and eat the marrow.

We would leave his cage open all day and he had the run of the porch and would come into the kitchen when we left the connecting window open. At breakfast he would come right up and take my peanut butter toast. In self defense I used to tear off a good sized piece for him. He would take it and retreat a couple feet back across the table, stand on one foot, and eat with the other. Meanwhile I tried to eat mine because if he finished first he would come for mine. He didn't like guys! Every guy I know who tried to handle him got bit. He would coo and neck with women and girls, pulling strands of hair between his beak gently to preen them. I bought him parrot feed with red peppers in it. He never touched the peppers, didn't care for the sunflower seeds, but ate all the peanuts-in-the-shell in the mix and we bought him more. He got named Peanut for obvious reasons. If a guy handed him a peanut, sometimes he would take it but often would throw it down with great force. If a gal gave him a peanut he would gently take it and crack it open and eat it.

It was a mixed blessing. I wanted to be able to rehabilitate him and release him in the wild but when that failed we gave him a decent life for several years and then placed him in a loving home with another bird he liked. I successfuly rehabilitated a horned owl but that is another story for another time If anyone wants to hear it.

Pat

I enjoyed the story pat, and can relate. We have a whole sun room full of rejects. 6 assorted conures, 2 lories, and a umbrella cockatoo. Most have problems such as crippled feet, missing beaks and such. We would like to find them good homes but would miss their antics. Our property is also full of pound puppies with no room for cats. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img] I dont believe in caged birds anymore but some just cant go back to the wild.

Cricket, Missing beaks, that takes me back. Some lowlife types saw the beaks off pelicans and leave them to starve in the wild. Some are rescued and cared for. I even saw where one had a prosthetic beak made of FRP/GRP (whatever you call what some folks call fiberglass.) I haven't done caged birds, except for rehab purposes, since the late 60's when a cocatiel we had comitted suicide. It wasn't pining for the fiords but one morning we found it with its head wedged in the bars of the bottom of its cage, stone dead, its metabolic processes, extinct. (Excuse the Monty Python, I am an incurable fan).

I raised some racing homers as a grade schooler and dabbled in falconry. I once asked the owner of the neighbor hay grain and milling company to check with her customers regarding a nesting pair of Kestrels. Never heard a word about the sparrow hawks but got a call about an animal control officer who had a horned owl in his vehicle with one wing clipped.

Seems it was found on someones back porch and the lady threw a box over it and called the animal control folks. I called them and asked if they had MY OWL. They said what kind of owl could I be talking about (cagey sorts). I said it was a Pacific Horned Owl with one clipped wing. They say, "yeah?, whch wing?" They aren't an easy mark. I flip a mental coin and say right wing. They say to come get my owl, so I did. I had to pay 65 cents for the 65 cents/day they charged for feeding it chicken necks. On a diet of chicken necks the bird would have gone into convulsions and died within a short period. I took it home and having no cage turned it lose in the kitchen. When my wife returned home she went into the kitchen to get a glass of water and kept hearing clicking sounds (owl talons on linoleum). Eventually she noticed the owl and got real curious about what was up. I got the owl into a temp cage while building a larger one. I bought some "feeder" mice and rats, some Purina Rat Chow, and built a breeding cage for the rats. As rats breed like rodents, I had a sustainable food source going pretty quickly without having to buy many feeder animals. I tried to avoid contact with the bird as my goal was release into the wild after its flight feathers grew back in. I did learn to "speak" owl pretty good and when I came in from classes I would call to "Spooky" and get a reply.

Feeding was interesting but not for the squeamish. Toss a live adult rat into the cage with the owl and the dumb rat as likely as not would climb up the cage and go out on the owls perch. Owl would lift up one leg and with good speed reach out and grab the rat by thte skull, crushing its talons into the brain. Rat expired in a fraction of a second, it looked like electrocution. Then the owl rips it up a bit and swallows it nearly whole. The owls stomach is a wonder. It ties up the feet, claws, larger bones, etc, in a backage wrapped up in the pelt and spits it out.

One time a Great Horned Owl (they get over 6 ft in span) payed a nocturnal visit to Spooky. Its hooting echoed through the neighborhood waking my wife and who knows how many others. I had to get up and go outside and move Spooky under cover before the Great Horned Owl would leave. They will rake a person with their talons so I was alert. Another "incident" we called the great escape. The rats made a prison break and dug a hole next to their cage. They would come up to get foor through the bars but hang out in the hole in the ground. I didn't see them out in the open much. My wife had a Ruger Bearcat, a cute little .22 single actio six shooter that I loaded with 5mm round ball ammo and went rat hunting every day after school till the rodent mennace was elliminated and the world was once again a safe place for women and children.

After several months the feathers grew out and spring came to the Laguna Mountains east of San Diego so we packed a picnic lunch and took Spooky for a ride. We found a place with only about 75-80% snow coverage left and lots of rodent tracks in the snow. We released Spooky who walked abot 6 ft then took off. We ate lunch then went for a walk in the woods. I called out to Spooky in my best Pacific Horned Owl dialect and got a faint reply. We homed in on the replys and found Spooky about 15 ft up in a tree on a short dead limb looking like a scene out of a Disney flick. I had to crawl up an adjacent tree to get a good shot with my 35mm camera. And that was that. I never doubted the owl chances to "make it".


Pat