graushill
10-15-2006, 07:40 AM
Hello everyone!
I wanted to share a small success story from my flock with you all. For those who don't know us, Nemo is one of my adopted lovies, a former breeder bird that lived for most of his life in a garage aviary with what, I guess from his behaviour when he came to us, was very little to no contact with humans. A friend of mine got him as a partner for her lovie, Pontus, who had just lost his partner and was inconsolable. To make a long story short, I ended up taking care of my friend's lovies, at first temporarily and now permanently, and they've been with me on and off for about two years.
Like I said, Nemo when he came to us was as a wild a lovie as I had ever seen. He'd never been inside a house, much less inside a cage and as for my husband and me, well, we terrified him. He was so distressed with the huge change in his life the first month or two after moving in with us that I often feared he would die of a broken heart or something. Little by little though, things started to settle down and we soon discovered that underneath the terrified exterior was a very gentle and calm soul and I couldn't help but fall in love with him. He plucked himself nearly bald the first winter he was with us and has since then hasn't really let his feathers grow back totally. In many ways, I think he's been my baptism by fire where birds are concerned.
Although he has settled down, I would never call him tame. We've made some small progresses over the years: he learned to step up, he will allow us to get close to the cage and sing to him (he loves music :)) if we keep our hands firmly behind our backs and out of sight, and when the lights are turned off so that he can't actually see my hands doing it, he enjoys a head scratch as much as the next lovie. But on his own, he would never, never get close to my hands. That is until last week, when we had what to me was the biggest breakthrough we've had so far: he came up to me and took food from my hand :). Sure, it was boiled egg, his favourite food in the whole world next to sunflower seeds, and sure it was more snatching the piece of egg and running away than really eating from my fingers, but still he came up to me on his own and he took the egg from my clearly visible fingers :). And he did it at least four times.
I can imagine that for those of you who have very tame birds or who had similar breakthroughs with your lovies after only a few weeks with them, this will not seem like much of a success, not after it took two years to get to this point. But to me, it was a priceless moment and more of a confirmation that the advice that they give at this board about how important it is to let your lovie learn to trust you at his own pace is very true!
Have a nice weekend!
Gloria
I wanted to share a small success story from my flock with you all. For those who don't know us, Nemo is one of my adopted lovies, a former breeder bird that lived for most of his life in a garage aviary with what, I guess from his behaviour when he came to us, was very little to no contact with humans. A friend of mine got him as a partner for her lovie, Pontus, who had just lost his partner and was inconsolable. To make a long story short, I ended up taking care of my friend's lovies, at first temporarily and now permanently, and they've been with me on and off for about two years.
Like I said, Nemo when he came to us was as a wild a lovie as I had ever seen. He'd never been inside a house, much less inside a cage and as for my husband and me, well, we terrified him. He was so distressed with the huge change in his life the first month or two after moving in with us that I often feared he would die of a broken heart or something. Little by little though, things started to settle down and we soon discovered that underneath the terrified exterior was a very gentle and calm soul and I couldn't help but fall in love with him. He plucked himself nearly bald the first winter he was with us and has since then hasn't really let his feathers grow back totally. In many ways, I think he's been my baptism by fire where birds are concerned.
Although he has settled down, I would never call him tame. We've made some small progresses over the years: he learned to step up, he will allow us to get close to the cage and sing to him (he loves music :)) if we keep our hands firmly behind our backs and out of sight, and when the lights are turned off so that he can't actually see my hands doing it, he enjoys a head scratch as much as the next lovie. But on his own, he would never, never get close to my hands. That is until last week, when we had what to me was the biggest breakthrough we've had so far: he came up to me and took food from my hand :). Sure, it was boiled egg, his favourite food in the whole world next to sunflower seeds, and sure it was more snatching the piece of egg and running away than really eating from my fingers, but still he came up to me on his own and he took the egg from my clearly visible fingers :). And he did it at least four times.
I can imagine that for those of you who have very tame birds or who had similar breakthroughs with your lovies after only a few weeks with them, this will not seem like much of a success, not after it took two years to get to this point. But to me, it was a priceless moment and more of a confirmation that the advice that they give at this board about how important it is to let your lovie learn to trust you at his own pace is very true!
Have a nice weekend!
Gloria