Hello Everyone!
I am glad I found a thread specifically for ARN's as it seems I was duped last year into thinking my ARN was an IRN!
![Big Grin :D](./images/smilies/4.gif)
Mango is a sweet heart bird, though he comes from a very sad & abusive past. We had lost our beautiful Jenday Conure (Stryker) last year, and were looking for a new feathered friend. We studied different birdsonalities among the breeds, and fell in love the IRN's. We searched the entire California region for an IRN baby, and finally found one! We drove over 2 hours to get Mango, when we arrived at the woman's house, she was outside with this little green bird. She spoke broken English, but was friendly enough and the bird was very sweet. Right away we noticed that something was wrong with his feathers, I think she realized we were concerned so she told us "Oh my friend who had to suddenly move left him with me, his feathers were like that when she left him here". She was also handling him very roughly, he would collapse down to the ground and she would just swoop him up and let him fall again. We decided we could not leave him there with her. So we took him! Paid $250 for him because, well that is what she was asking for this "Indian Ringneck who was young", it really did not matter at that point, I just wanted this sad little bird away from this horrible situation. We drove the 2 hours back home with this timid little green bird in the back seat.
We took him to the Avian vet in town who proceeded to tell us the following:
1) Mango was over 4 years old
2) Somebody had clipped his wings so very badly that it would be at least a year to get them back
3) Previous owners had him on a Safflower seed only diet, no fruits/veggies or seed assortment..just safflower seed!
4) and the most surprising..Mango was an African Ringneck!
Eh...while the news was heartbreaking and upsetting, we were happy to have him away from the wretched situation he was in. Now I know that I pretty much paid 3 times the amount I should have for an ARN, but who cares.
We have been working with Mango to get the basic commands and to stop being so timid, and along the way have learned a lot of valuable information about ARN's and IRN's and have fallen even more in love with these birds. We ended up getting Mango a friend from a well known breeder in the San Francisco area, a turquoise blue IRN named Kiwi. They do not like each other yet...lol but we are working on that!
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” - Mahatma Gandhi