Are You Sure You Want That Bird?
Being an animal lover I always wanted to be surrounded by lots of furry and feathery things. Besides having dogs ALL of my life and cats a good portion of my life, I decided about 18 years ago I needed MORE. Okay – DUH!! I thought it was time to add feathery things now. Yes, even with the three cats I had at the time.
I started off small – a parakeet for each of my two kids. My son got a blue Parakeet, which was named Gemini and my daughter picked a greenish/yellowish parakeet and named it Sprite – clever –hehe. All was going well for about a year, until I walked back into that pet shop one day and there was a very handsome Gray cockatiel, who proceeded to climb right up on me when I went over to talk to it. My new “Smokey” (didn’t wait until I was out of the store to name it ) didn’t seem to mind the car ride home in that little box at all. He loved his new surroundings and being home with people that really enjoyed him and fussed over him. He was only 13 weeks old and was just so incredibly beautiful – such bright yellows and orange cheeks! You could pet him and kiss him and squish him (gently, of course!). He was quite smart too! I was able to teach him to whistle part of “Some Enchanted Evening” and he became quite well known for that.
I decided months later that he needed a friend. He was friendly with the parakeets, but let’s face it – they were DIFFERENT from him. He was the happiest little birdie when I came home one day with Dusty. A very beautiful FEMALE pearl cockatiel. They became inseparable from the get-go. Love at first site, there was no stopping them. It became clear that I needed to get a nesting box, as his version of Some Enchanted Evening became more fervent every day. Little did I know that song would actually MEAN something to him hehe.
I got the “penthouse” of nesting boxes and they wasted no time in setting up their little boudoir once I attached it to their cage. Long story short, they raised six clutches over the next several years. I LOVED hand-raising cockatiels. Those little babies are just so prehistoric looking, you can not help but fall in love with them. I let Smokey and Dusty take care of the babies for the first two weeks and then I took them away to finish up hand-feeding for then next 6 weeks and acclimating them to people. The 2 am and 4am feedings were the best – NOT! Most of the babies were given to my friends. A few babies I sold back to the pet shop only because I knew the owner was VERY fussy about who he sold ANY pets to. I knew they would have good homes.
During this time of raising cockatiel babies, my daughter fell in love with a Peach Front Conure (a/k/a 
Peaches) and I found a gorgeous Lesser Sulphur Crested Cockatoo (Zachary) from the same darn pet store. A BIG bird!! I read up on cockatoos and KNEW I could give him a great home and teach him all kinds of words and tricks. Zachary is now 13 years old and not sociable at all, says maybe only 8 words and the only tricks he knows consists of a decibel that is truly deafening. He literally freaks when my daughter comes to visit (yes, that’s correct - she doesn’t live here any more but her bird, Peaches, does). I have to move him and his cage to a completely different room when she comes over. I can not have him out of his cage when she comes in because he will actually fly after her and try to attack her. He is extremely jealous of her. 
Over the next few years, while Smokey and Dusty were raising their families, there were a couple babies I absolutely could not part with. Okay, there were EIGHT babies I could not part with. My living room and dining room became my own little aviary. I do believe I was the only one who actually enjoyed listening to 12 birds all chattering at once. Smokey still loved me too and he used to fly over to me and sit on me for hours. But you could just tell that Smokey and Dusty we true “life mates” if ever you saw that type of thing in birds. They were SO happy together.
As time went on, it was not without some heartache along the way. I lost three birds to cancer. One of them was Dusty, the Mommy of all the babies. She had a tumor the size of big fat nickel removed from her chest cavity the first time. The vet had never seen anything like it and actually paid for lab fees to have it analyzed. Turned out it was a rare type of cancer that almost never shows up in the Avian world. Dusty survived and was fine after a couple of weeks of recovery. There was no more breeding after this though and I tried to make sure she ate healthy and was happy. Unfortunately, only a year later the cancer returned and took her one day while she was sleeping in the nest box I left on for them to sleep in. She was only 12. My Smokey was so upset. His wife of a little more than 11 years was gone – the love of his life. After that he hardly even wanted to come out of the cage any more. I would leave the door open and he would just stay in anyway. I took the nest box off because he wouldn’t even go in there to sleep any more. My heart broke for him. I never saw a depressed bird before and it is not something I really want to see again.
In the 14 years I had the cockatiels, three merely fell off their perches and were instantly dead. I never understood that and did not have the money for a necropsy, so I am just assuming they had a heart attack or stroke. I don’t know, but it was very distressing. Two others died at different times when I was away on vacation and another died of natural causes. I found my Smokey when I came home from this past New Year’s Eve party. He was on the floor of the cage when I came in. I was sick when I found him. It was a terrible thing to start the New Year off with and I felt to badly I wasn’t home when it happened. He was 17 and I know he was happy but he was really never the same after Dusty died 5 years ago. He was really the best. I wish I had not forgotten to say good night to him that last night before I left for the party.
So now, after 17 years of birds, I am left with Peaches, who would just as soon bite you as look at you, and Zachary. Oh Zachary. The incorrigible Zachary. I don’t know what I am to do. As much as I read about owning a cockatoo, there really just is not enough to read. You truly can not possibly understand what it is like to own a parrot. They need so much of your time and A LOT of patience. They are usually only one person birds and frankly, I do not think they should be in a home that has small children. I have been bitten three times with that big beak and it is extremely painful, never mind bloody. If he wanted to bite me hard enough, I know he could either sever part of my finger or at least break it. I don’t think I would want that around a young child for sure.
Zachary has about 50 years left in his life. I have 20, if I’m lucky. Sooooooooo, that means I will have to leave him in my Will to a family member – my kids said they would be happy to SPLIT him. Yeah, right. I am smart enough to know what they mean by “split”!! Very funny kids. So that is another thing to consider before buying one of the beautiful, large birds -your time frame. They will, more than likely, outlive you, so make sure you have arrangements in your Will after your demise. You want to make sure he will be taken care of by someone who is not afraid of big birds or big beaks. They need to understand their body language and what their eyes are saying. You NEED to put careful thought into that.
I feel lucky that I had all those years with my beautiful birds (and more to come with the two I have). But I miss the “noise” and I miss having a flock of birds flying around my house when something spooks them all at once. (well, okay, I don’t really miss that part). So now, I am down to two birds, one of which will definitely have the last laugh. The point of this whole thing, is you really need to talk to people that own a parrot and you need to read every article you can find about them. They change your life almost as much as having kids. All I can say, is after you do all of your research and have made a decision to actually own one, you are either going to have a genius on your hands or one that will make every day a challenge. Either way, you have they can be a joy to watch, to pet, to teach, and most of all to love with all your heart.
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