Since I was a little girl I loved playing with my grandmothers' ducks and chickens. It was a delight. My first birds were some pigeons rescued from an icy lake and some small little birds tortured by some kids. the love of my life, anyway, will always remain Kiki, a budgie that I had for 7 beautiful years and he still lives now, but at my sister-in-law's. And that's because I had to leave my home country, Romania, and start all over here in Canada. After 4 months I desperatelly needed to have a feathered companion. So I searched on the internet for particular breeders and I found one indian ringneck baby, 8 months old. I took him home in one freezing night in january, with the cage that he grew up in. Even though I know very well what to expect from an animal (i had, beside birds, cats, dogs, rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs) something didn't seem to be right with Pookey. He was very calm this second, and the next one, he became agitated and scared. Until 2 month ago, that was his predominant behaviour. He was very sad and soon I recognized that look in his eyes and those movements that he made. He was actually in pain. But the thing that caught my eye is that his feathers never grew up, he wasn't able to fly. Long story short this is how it went:The breeder told me that his feathers from the wings may be cut too short, but he will be fine. He never flew but kept trying, at home when he was out of his cage and because he never had the oportunity to learn how to fly and how to make a proper landing he kept hurting his wings and his tail. I never saw him bleeding because he was cleaning up his feathers and never allow me to stay too close from him. When I took him to the doctor I actually saw the wounds. I was terryfied. She told me that he may never recover. I analyzed the feathers from his cage and I suspected that they were cut by him with his own beak. After that, I actually saw him doing that. In order to calm the continuous pain that we knew he had, we gave him antibiotics and a pain killer. After a month he was changed, he was happier, he actually started to chirp (a thing that he barelly did before) and because I was feeding him twice a day with medicine, he became attached to me. Now I still can't touch him with my hands, but when my lips are close to his feathers and his beak he lets me kiss him without saying a word. When I took him to the doctor, she said that he was "a little bit chunky" and told me to feed him more pellets and less seeds. Now he is crazy about those pellets.
I can't believe how changed he is. I put my hand in the cage and he doesn't even blink. I take him out once a day and I keep talking to him and he cuddles on my shoulder close to my ear and listens to me and plays with my bangs. I have a lot of work to do with him anyway. For the first time, 1 month ago he stopped cutting his feathers and he actually has a tail right now, and 3 long feathers on each wing. He has a lot to recover but I am sure he is strong. I just can't wait to see what happens next. Oh, I forgot to mention that I don't know if he's a male or a female, but it doesn't really matter. I will try to put some old pictures with him and some new ones, so you can see the difference.
I just hope that everybody loves their birds no matter what (my sister suggested me to sell it, but noooooo way) and even though you may have to put a lot of work and soul in your relationship with your parrot, he will always pay you back.
Bye for now... Adina.