Winter is hard on parrot breeder pairs. Our pairs are in cages in the back yard. A tropical paridise in summer, their life becomes cages wrapped in plastic and heat lamps for the winter. They love thier morning feedings and a chance to socialize briefly with me. They all talk to me in their own way.
Some let me pet them. Each one is special.

Not many babies hatch from December through February in our area except for Congos and Eclectus. Yesterday we brought a three week old Solomon Island baby in from the nest. A beautiful, fat, little male. This is the first baby we've had for four months. All of the fall babies shipped out before Christmas.

Next week the work begins. We raise all of the babies of a friend in town. She has 13 baby Congos in the nest that are between 1 day and 2 weeks old. Eight more may hatch this week. Time to shake off the laziness of winter and get in gear. Having that many babies in the house happens only once a year but it changes you're lifestyle dramatically. Debra is smiling...she does this every time new babies are in the house. She is the "momma" of the young flock. Later...Craig
- posted by J-Birds @ 6:54 AM |

 
About 5 years ago Debra and I began a journey...a year later we bought a baby parrot as a pet. We didn't handfeed it to save money as some people are want to do. Rather, we just wanted a bird as a pet and felt comfortable that with the help of a wonderful new friend, Grace, that we could manage to stay ahead of the learning curve and successfully raise the bird to maturity.

Little did we know that our little male Solomon Island Eclectus, Kiwi, would lead us down a path that has had so many pleasant twists and turns. Kiwi now heads a flock of 5 pet parrots including Prophet, a Military Macaw, Olivia the Congo African Grey, an intelligent and amusing, chubby ball of skin that used to be feathers. More on Olivia in a later post. Oh yes, back to the flock...Odi, an adopted male Congo who loves attention but rarely allows anyone to hold him. And little Surgio the cockatiel that is the house mascot.

All of these guys have latched onto us for one reason or another as we handraised and sold so many weaned babies to happy owners around the country. Which is the purpose of this "blog". We now have so many friends that we have made and shared our babies with that it is becoming difficult to keep in touch. They have learned from us, we have learned from them. Hopefully this blog will provide a quiet place to share the many stories we have heard and the stories yet to be told.

More later....Craig

- posted by J-Birds @ 8:36 PM |