Lin
09-21-2011, 04:41 PM
So I've been reading most of what the searching (the forum and the web) helped me find these days, but after all the generic info left me frustrated I'm finally registered so I can give you the whole story and see if I can get some more specific help on the new addition to the family. Thanks in advance for bearing with me as I give you the long story, I really really need to share this with someone who has a clue!
We have had Tikku, a Fisher's for half a year now, from third hand. We were told that she was male, but for some reason we've been calling her a she - just please don't mistake the pronoun for the truth, we have no clue in reality, everything is assumptions. So is her age. We again assume from her history that she must be 1 1/2 to 2 years old, but yuh. She was handed down from person to person, lost a mate she was bonded to about a year ago and was very sick and unhappy when she landed in our house. She's now a very happy and healthy (though she still won't eat anything but seeds) bird, smart, active and playful, very scared of hands still, and very vocal if you don't pay attention to her for longer than an hour (my partner works at home). That last one is our fault of course, but she's had such a hard life that we figured half a year of pampering and affection is something she deserved. Her cage is very big (pet store called it a 4-bird cage), but she doesn't have outings. (She won't come out on her own at all, an open cage door is a scary thing still, and we haven't yet had the time to work on that -she's been with us too short a time).
In the balcony underneath our house is one of those horror story pet-stores, and Tikku chats with all the birds there. Two weeks ago she was chatting especially excited and flustered with them, and we found out there were two new Fisher's there. One of the two looked a bit sick and small even for the 1 1/2 months old that we were told it was, and was missing half of one of it's toes. After realizing that the owner would do nothing for it, we eh.. couldn't help ourselves, made an agreement with the owner and took her to our vet. The doc concluded that she (we're told by the pet store owner it's a female but yuh) has no diseases but suffers from severe malnutrition. With a month long treatment feeding plan, a bag of vitamins, egg food and some sort of probiotic meds, Kikuyu is now home (it's a week later and the doc okayed it under the circumstances, they're both getting retested in a month anyway).
Kikuyu spent the last 5 days or so with a friend while we were waiting for test results. She has her own (smaller) cage for now, and when I brought her in today... well, will it sound weird if I say that the two looked like they recognized each other? We assume it's because they had chatted before. The young one is still scared of us (heavy breathing and all), but showed no such fear when their cages were just half a meter away from each other. They both looked curious and were stuck as close to each other as they could and talked back and forth for a couple of hours. By that I mean they had a screeching competition, the piercing screaming was so loud my ears felt like bleeding. Our Tikku did a lot of what we call "the duck dance", which we so far had assumed was mating activity (she lowers her body like a duck laying an egg, fluffs her feathers and keeps her wings semi open, all the time dancing around, but not aggressively - we assume). The lil one did some minor wing flapping but later on we saw her nodding alot, even bowing, which we so far knew from Tikku to be an expression of mating or affection or even submission. (Please correct my assumptions if they're wrong!)
They're now both covered and asleep, some meters away from each other, but I am freaked out and panicking over everything. The noise level will have to go down in a couple of days or my poor guy will never be able to work - not to mention he'll need a shrink. And our apartment is so small that the 2 cage arrangement is something that will have to be changed in a couple of months tops, because we have to keep the TV on the floor at the moment. I can't get them to meet in outings, and I can't afford a third cage, the medical bills are high enough as it is. But I really can't give up on this little one and I know that Tikku will have a happier life with a friend of her own, as my partner won't be working at home for ever. And no, I don't care if they're less bonded to us or learn less tricks, as long as they're happy.
And here ends the saga of Tikku and Kiku. I'll be grateful to anyone with any tips, advice, warnings, whatnot. But I'm already grateful that this forum exists and I could vent. Me and my partner have spent the last two hours shell-shocked with the realization that this situation is upon us (yes, I know we caused it but *cough* we couldn't help ourselves). I desperately needed to rant. Thanks for putting up with me. :)
We have had Tikku, a Fisher's for half a year now, from third hand. We were told that she was male, but for some reason we've been calling her a she - just please don't mistake the pronoun for the truth, we have no clue in reality, everything is assumptions. So is her age. We again assume from her history that she must be 1 1/2 to 2 years old, but yuh. She was handed down from person to person, lost a mate she was bonded to about a year ago and was very sick and unhappy when she landed in our house. She's now a very happy and healthy (though she still won't eat anything but seeds) bird, smart, active and playful, very scared of hands still, and very vocal if you don't pay attention to her for longer than an hour (my partner works at home). That last one is our fault of course, but she's had such a hard life that we figured half a year of pampering and affection is something she deserved. Her cage is very big (pet store called it a 4-bird cage), but she doesn't have outings. (She won't come out on her own at all, an open cage door is a scary thing still, and we haven't yet had the time to work on that -she's been with us too short a time).
In the balcony underneath our house is one of those horror story pet-stores, and Tikku chats with all the birds there. Two weeks ago she was chatting especially excited and flustered with them, and we found out there were two new Fisher's there. One of the two looked a bit sick and small even for the 1 1/2 months old that we were told it was, and was missing half of one of it's toes. After realizing that the owner would do nothing for it, we eh.. couldn't help ourselves, made an agreement with the owner and took her to our vet. The doc concluded that she (we're told by the pet store owner it's a female but yuh) has no diseases but suffers from severe malnutrition. With a month long treatment feeding plan, a bag of vitamins, egg food and some sort of probiotic meds, Kikuyu is now home (it's a week later and the doc okayed it under the circumstances, they're both getting retested in a month anyway).
Kikuyu spent the last 5 days or so with a friend while we were waiting for test results. She has her own (smaller) cage for now, and when I brought her in today... well, will it sound weird if I say that the two looked like they recognized each other? We assume it's because they had chatted before. The young one is still scared of us (heavy breathing and all), but showed no such fear when their cages were just half a meter away from each other. They both looked curious and were stuck as close to each other as they could and talked back and forth for a couple of hours. By that I mean they had a screeching competition, the piercing screaming was so loud my ears felt like bleeding. Our Tikku did a lot of what we call "the duck dance", which we so far had assumed was mating activity (she lowers her body like a duck laying an egg, fluffs her feathers and keeps her wings semi open, all the time dancing around, but not aggressively - we assume). The lil one did some minor wing flapping but later on we saw her nodding alot, even bowing, which we so far knew from Tikku to be an expression of mating or affection or even submission. (Please correct my assumptions if they're wrong!)
They're now both covered and asleep, some meters away from each other, but I am freaked out and panicking over everything. The noise level will have to go down in a couple of days or my poor guy will never be able to work - not to mention he'll need a shrink. And our apartment is so small that the 2 cage arrangement is something that will have to be changed in a couple of months tops, because we have to keep the TV on the floor at the moment. I can't get them to meet in outings, and I can't afford a third cage, the medical bills are high enough as it is. But I really can't give up on this little one and I know that Tikku will have a happier life with a friend of her own, as my partner won't be working at home for ever. And no, I don't care if they're less bonded to us or learn less tricks, as long as they're happy.
And here ends the saga of Tikku and Kiku. I'll be grateful to anyone with any tips, advice, warnings, whatnot. But I'm already grateful that this forum exists and I could vent. Me and my partner have spent the last two hours shell-shocked with the realization that this situation is upon us (yes, I know we caused it but *cough* we couldn't help ourselves). I desperately needed to rant. Thanks for putting up with me. :)