Should I Add Another Bird To My Flock?

photo of Koko & Ed

Recently I was left a comment under and article I have posted here by good freind and African Grey expert, Maggie Wright; asking about whether this man should help a 10 year old female, African Grey by taking her home to live with him, his wife and a 1 year old African Grey.

Evidently, the owner of the 10 year old Grey now has children that "take all her time" so she is not able to spend any time with parrot anymore. The Grey is now plucking and the owner looking to place her in a new home.

The Gentleman that is interested in this 10 year old Grey tells me that his wife is already complaining that their own Grey takes all of his time and asks if he would just be asking for trouble to bring this other Grey into his home.

Here was my reply to him:

If you do as Maggie suggests in this article, then there should be no problems. My two Greys have their own cages and are across the room from each other. They are let out of their cages on to the play tree or to be out with either my husband or I at separate times until we get another Tree built. Fortunately, my husband spends his time with Koko and I spend my time with Nick so they both get to be alone with the person they love the most and they don't have to share us with each other very often at all.

If your wife resents your current Grey then it may not be a great idea to bring in this poor girl that is going to be stressed enough going into a new home after living with this family for 10 years already.

IF your wife wants to help out and is willing to spend some quality time with either your baby Grey or the new Grey then I say "sure", go for it. Everyone in the household should be in agreement and commited to love and care for this other Grey in need.

Greys (or parrots of any kind) demand and deserve as much time out of the cage and with YOU then many people feel they have time for.

It may better to help this lady re-home her bird by having her locate and contact a bird sancturay or rescue organization near by. If she needs help, please have her contact me and I can put her in touch with a network to help find this Grey a perfect home.

There are many parrots out there at the moment with a need for a knowledgable and loving home due to thier current owners losing jobs and or homes. The sanctuaries are over-flowing. However, they need to be alerted to these birds in need and may be able to find them a wonderful forever home if they know the bird exists out there and is in need.

What About Nick?

Nicodemus or Nick as he is affectionately called is my wonderful almost 14 year old friend and partner. Nick has been with me since he was about 4 weeks old. I was an experienced hand feeder of many parrots and with the help of Phoebe Linden (via reading her wonderful works on abundance weaning)I sucessfully raised a wonderful parrot as naturally as possible in a domestic environment.

Sadly, when Nick was a little over a year old, I had to go to work outside the home and even with my husband home all day to help keep him company and take him to his tree and back a few times a day, Nick began pulling out his tail feathers, flight feathers and chest feathers. About 6 years ago, I had sustained a neck injury while employed at a mixed animal veterinary practice and had a three level cervical spine fusion. Nick was so thrilled to have me home full-time again. He slowly stopped plucking and now pretty much full featherd he thrives on me working on my laptop in the living room with him and Koko most of the day and going out for fresh air and sunshine on the deck as the weather permits.

Nick is very in tune with me and my emotions. He will bug me terribly by asking me "Are you happy?" until I answer in a cheery tone, "Yeah!" He will not accept any less then enthusiasm in my answer to him. He KNOWS when I am faking it too! lol But seriously, it is pretty much impossible not be happy around him and even if I am in a bad mood or in more pain then I like to deal with he makes me happy by being the wonderful intelligent, caring creature he is.

Nick helps me the dogs by telling them "Quiet" or "Enough". He knows and calls them by their names (though they rarely pay too much attention to him). If someone is coming up our gravel drive, Nick will be the first to "bark" and get the dogs going in alerting us to their presence.

Want to share stories about your parrots? Please send me any stories and or photos of your birds and I will post them here to share with the world. :-)

A Koko Update

Koko is so different from Nick, both large Congo African Greys, Nick being 13 years old and Koko about 8 years old. Koko was DNA tested to be a hen (female) we just guess that Nick is male due to his size and behavior.

Nick has been getting organic baby food from a spoon as a special "nite nite" treat once a week or so for his entire life with me. He always digs his beak in and grabs a huge mouthful like there will be no more. Koko is so dainty and feminine in her little tastes. It take her forever to fill her crop where Nick is full and bulging in seconds!

Nick has always been a quiet and easy going kind of guy. Koko is all about Koko! lol As mentioned in an earlier post, Koko uses her name in every sentence she speaks. She craves attention and has been known to throw temper tantrums when she does not get what she wants...

She will throw her special treat cup around the bottom of her cage and finally out the door and on the floor. She will crawl on top of her cage while leaning way forward and flap her wings. I believe she was once fully flighted as she has tried to jump off her cage and our large "Tree" in the living room; only to Thud and skid across the floor. She will then shake herself off and proceed to march over to where ever you and demand: "Koko UP" or "Koko go Love" as she loweres her head for special skritches.

I see a few pin feathers here and there and a few on the upper part of her wings are going to be red. She will be gorgeous for sure!

Koko loves to play and forage around on the bottom of her cage. She enjoys watching the dogs play and is not phases in the least if one or two of the dogs come and say "hi" with their little wet noses either. Just last night she was on my chest while I was in the recliner trying to read. I also had two Bostons curled up one at my side and one between my legs. Everyone was very content and not concerned about the other.

Nick will hang out with the dogs but is always watching them and is somewhat "jumpy" around them, never really trusting them. Nick is content to play and whistle and forage in his cage or sit on his tree all day long never asking for attention but always ready to lower his head and get skritches or scratchies when I do approach him and ask him if he would like some.

Anyway, just wanted to share what is new with our new special Congo girl...

KoKo Update

Just a quick little update on Koko Love.

KoKo was once very loved and possibly lived with a sick and elderly person. She has the worst sounding cough imitation I have ever heard and does a lot of loud sighing and moaning.

She continues to be a sweet girl for me but is madly in love with my husband. I had to be gone for a couple of days last weekend and left Koko, Nick and my husband to fend for themselves. When I got home, Koko had plucked all the feathers AND down except those on her wings and tail, she has a bare chest and back now, poor thing. I had assumed she would be happy in my husband's care since she is so crazy about him but with him being disabled, he was only able to come out and feed her three times a day and spend a few minutes with her out on his shoulder or chest while he sat on the couch. I am in the same room with her every day and all day and she and Nick and I just hang out together a lot. She obviously missed me in that respect and even with Nick's company across the room from her and the radio on, she felt abandoned by me and maybe neglected. I feel so bad for her, it was just too soon for me to be leaving her alone over night yet...

She eats well and plays with some toys. She adored the toy that Tracy made for and flew down here to California with in her carrier. She has totally destroyed and pulled everything off the ring now and seems to miss it. Hopefully Tracy will be feeling well enough again soon to make us some more!

KoKo Love

Meet our Koko Love.

Koko loves her name, she uses it in most of her sentences. Koko want some, Koko is a pretty bird, Koko UP, etc. She also adds the word "Love" to her name about 95% of the time. Koko Love want love, Koko Love want some, Koko love wanna go out...

Koko is a little love sponge and can't seem to get enough attention after being so neglected for so long. She allows me to have her step up and sometimes she deems me privileged enough to be able to give her some head scratches but when my husband walks into the living room, she will go into the baby bird begging posture and flutter her wings, whistle, sing, bark, meow and say UP until he comes over and gets her. He can give her head scratches, back rubs, kisses and little hugs. Koko thinks the sun rises and sets on my husband.

We have only had Koko for about three and half weeks now and she comes up with things that are always surprising us and making us smile. About the third day she was here, she let out this big heavy sigh sound with an Ahhhhhhh at the end of it like she was just totally exhausted or bored to tears! That same evening when I was holding her she began to make loud yawning sounds and then when on my husband's shoulder, she made the yawning noise again and then said "Koko Love Sleepy". So we put her to bed.

My husband is disabled and has been bed-ridden for the most part for the last 4 years. Bringing Koko into our home has forced him to come out and see her at least once a day and usually twice. You see, we also have a gorgeous Grey named Nick that is totally bonded to me and has bitten my husband on more then a few occasions. While my husband wanted very much to be friends with Nick, for the most part Nick will have nothing to with him unless I am gone and he wants to go to his tree (We have a large manzinita tree we built about 18 years ago in our living room.) or back to his cage from the tree. Then he will allow my husband to come get him and let Nick ride on his arm back to where ever it is he wanted to go. That's it! No head scratches! LOL So, when Koko came to live with us my husband was in shock that a parrot wanted his attention and affection. Tracy Conant Owner of Pampered Avian Rescue was so right about us being the perfect home for Koko!

When Tracy emailed me and said that she thought we should talk about how to get Koko to me I about fell off my chair! We had never discussed us getting Koko since they did not normally ship parrots. However, when Tracy and I had started talking about her work in Parrot Service animals and my husband's disabilities she began to pray about whether Koko should come live with us or was there a better home for her yet to come. Tracy told me that when she prayed about it that she had a peace and joy wash over her and she KNEW we Koko's forever home!

Little Miss Koko Love

Introducing Koko...

Koko came into our lives on August 2nd, 2008. She is believed to be about 8 years old and was surrendered to Pampered Parrots Avain Rescue in Airway Heights, Washington.

Koko had been living with owners and co-directors of Pampered Parrots Avian Rescue - Tracy and Bret Conant for about two months. Before being surrendered to Pampered Parrots, Koko had been neglected and left in her cage without much attention or time out to play and explore. That kind of life is like rotting in prison for Grey so Koko proceeded to pluck her self.

Tracy and Brent spent a lot of time with her, especially Brent as even though Koko loves everyone, she ADORES men! What looks like red lipstick on Koko in her picture is strawberries. She had just eaten garden fresh strawberries shortly before she decided to share them with Bret; whom she was madly in love with.

We were not looking for a parrot to join our family of one large Congo African Grey male named Nick, 5 Boston Terriers, a barn cat and several Japanese Koi and a few gold fish. It was all God's idea. One morning as I was feeding and talking to Nick I had said how we really could care for and love one more bird. I had no intention of looking at baby parrots, we had lived and gone that route in the past as well as adopting and taming a few wild caught parrots in our days gone by. It would have to be a special bird, one that NEEDED us and the love, attention and good care we had to offer. Then I was distracted by life and work and did not even think that thought again. About two or three days later, I got an email from my dear friend, Maggie Wright she was circulating about a CAG in Utah that had been in rescue, cage bound for two years. Usually I just re-circulate and cross post these emails to my other bird crazy friends but this time, something struck me. Was I to be Tipper's new home? I felt like God was whispering to me and I needed to find out more and put in an application for Tipper.

I then learned that Phoebe Linden, Gay Bradshaw, Kathy White and a few others were all working together to find Tipper a new, forever home. I emailed my application to Lisa, owner of Utah Critter Sanctuary and then called her on the phone to talk about Tipper. Lisa was very hesitant to let Tipper go to anyone out of Utah so it was not meant to be that he come live us.

Meanwhile, I had been corresponding with Tracy Conant at Pampered Parrots. I had seen the picture of Koko on Petfinders but Tracy had told me earlier that they did not ship birds. I had stayed in touch with Tracy about her work in being a parrot service animal advocate and we corresponded back and forth for a week or two. I had shared with her about my husband being disabled and pretty much bed-ridden. He loves the animals living with us but has always been disappointed that Nick would not let him pet him. We talked about the nature of parrots and how she had a service parrot of her own and how she had help place a few and told me of the fantastic ways these birds kept people from anxiety attacks or PTSS flash-backs. One day she emailed me and out of the blue said, "I think we need to talk on the phone about how to get Koko to you" I was in a state of shock. We had never discussed Koko coming to live with us... She then told me that she had been praying about it and believed that not only would Koko benefit by living with us but that my husband would benefit from having her in his life since she was such a flirt and sweetheart with men.

So, Koko came to us a little over a week ago and I will keep you updated on how she adjusts and how our lives are effected by her sweet presence.

Check back soon....