2Skittles4u Posted September 10, 2008 Share Posted September 10, 2008 Hi, my name is Linda and I am very happy to have come across this site. I've read a few posts and this seems like a nice friendly place to learn more about birds. I have four parrots, 2 Sun Conures (Skittles and Starburst), 1 Umbrella Cockatoo (Sugar), and a Congo African Grey (Phoenix). Starburst and Sugar (rescue) came to us as older birds and we don't have much of a history on either bird. Both have tons of baggage and I think we bit off more than we can chew with Sugar. He's 16 years old (or so we were told), hates men, plucks and likes to bite very very hard. We've had him since June of this year. He came to us with clipped wings so he doesn't fly yet. What's sad is that he doesn't even try to fly. On the good side he loves my daughter to death and loves to cuddle with her all the time, unfortunately she doesn't have "all the time" to cuddle with him as much as he'd like. Starburst is also a biter and a plucker. We don't have any clue to his age but we've had him for about 3 years and he's managed to pull too many of Skittles' feathers out of her. When he can't get to Skittles, he pulls his own feathers out. After having every test known to our vet run on him, the vet decided Starburst was psychotic after witnessing a "fit" that he threw in the vet's office. He's a strange little bird but we love him to death. We've learned to "read" his signs and it's been at least 6 months since anyone's been bitten by him. I think we're gaining ground in that department. I also moved his cage next to my desk and try to take him around the house with me everywhere to help him with his trust issues. It seems to be working, but he still plucks. Phoenix and Skittles are my little sweethearts. We got them as babies and they seem to be well balanced. Skittles is nearly 5 years old and likes to sleep in my shirt and is basically just another part of my body. She used to free fly outdoors but we had two mishaps that scared the tar out of me so now she just flies around the house. She loves to give kisses... tons and tons of kisses and she plays dead. She can be a clown, but mostly she's just very loving. Phoenix is about 2 1/2 years old and the real clown in the family. She's not real big on kisses but sure is up in my face when Skittles is giving the kisses... it's like she's trying to learn how to do it right, lol. She'll hang upside down from my hair and thinks that's a lot of fun. She hangs upside down from my hand too, shoot... she just hangs upside down all over the house, lol... maybe she thinks she's a bat? She'll hang upside down from a doorway and when someone walks by she'll say "I see you!" She also gets in these moods to wrestle and roll over on her back and start kicking madly. She gets a little "beaky" during these bouts of friskiness but is normally very gentle and rarely ever bites "too hard." Just recently she's learned how to open the cupboard doors in the kitchen and has found an entirely new world of "stuff" to rip apart (or shatter) to our horror! So we've arranged things so she has "stuff" to pull out without doing so much damage. It keeps her busy (and happy) while not costing us a small fortune. It doesn't help with the mess, that's still out of control, but we own a broom, lol. Our birds are rarely caged and all have free run of the house. The Conures are put in their own separate cages at night because of Starburst plucking Skittles and the fact that Skittles will fly into bed with me if she's flying around. Skittles used to sleep in bed with me when my husband worked graveyard shift, but now that he's swing shift I'm afraid he'll roll on her through the night. Starburst can't fly because of his collar and I don't want him walking around with the dogs loose in the morning... I feel I should monitor all the animals even though I don't believe the dogs would ever hurt them, they're still "animals" and I don't completely trust them. Phoenix and Sugar are allowed to sleep wherever they want at night. Sugar ALWAYS chooses the top of "his" cage (even though it's not officially his cage) and only comes down when my daughter is home. Phoenix usually sleeps on top of our TV but sometimes chooses the top of the aquarium or the top of the frig. When everyone in the house is gone (rarely), the dogs are put out and only Sugar is allowed to stay out of the cage. We do this for their safety, and since Sugar doesn't appear to move when we're gone, we don't see a problem with allowing him to stay out. Besides, we locked him up once and when we got home he had opened his cage and was just sitting there, lol. I hope this wasn't too long, I just thought I'd let you know who we all are. I'm looking forward to reading more, and learning everything I can to help my beautiful birds to have better and fuller lives! Linda Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mistyparrot Posted September 10, 2008 Share Posted September 10, 2008 Welcome Linda. What a wonderful family you have. Steve n Misty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danmcq Posted September 10, 2008 Share Posted September 10, 2008 Welcome Linda and the whole flock!! Wow, what a flock you have there. :-) It's wonderful that you rescued starburst and sugar. It sounds like they did indeed have a lot of baggage, but you and family have certainly handled it well and have come to know their quirks. Thanks for writing such a great introduction. It's always nice and informative to hear of others flocks and the antics that go on. Never a dull moment, is there? :-) Looking forward to hearing more and seeing some photos of your flock in action. We love photos!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abernathy Posted September 10, 2008 Share Posted September 10, 2008 Hi and welcome Linda and flock! Great intro! I have a sun conure also. He's the silliest bird ever to have hatched (in our opinion lol). Can't wait to hear more about your flock and yourself! And, of course see pictures of everyone when you have a chance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lyric Posted September 10, 2008 Share Posted September 10, 2008 Welcome to the forum Linda! Hope you'll like it here! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2Skittles4u Posted September 11, 2008 Author Share Posted September 11, 2008 Thank you for the welcome and I've noticed that people do put plenty of pictures of their birds up here so I thought I'd give it a try. Please stay with me here, I'm usually terrible at learning new things on the computer. I'll attempt to put up a pic of Phoenix when we first brought her home. She was underweight and sick so her formula and medicine were fed to her like this. She also had to be completely removed from her horrible ALL sunflower seed diet and taught what real food was all about. Now we can't stop her, lol. It's not letting me attempt another edit for the picture so I'll just try a new post. Maybe I'll get it next time. Post edited by: 2Skittles4u, at: 2008/09/11 03:31 Post edited by: 2Skittles4u, at: 2008/09/11 03:38<br><br>Post edited by: 2Skittles4u, at: 2008/09/11 03:45 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
judygram Posted September 11, 2008 Share Posted September 11, 2008 Hello Linda and welcome to the family, so glad you have decided to join us and we look forward to hearing more about you and Phoenix, even your other birds. I also have a sun conure, named Sunny and she was my first parrot and a true delight to have, she is my shoulder ornament, her favorite place to be when I am home. You sound like you have your hands full but it is so rewarding to know you are making a difference in your bird's lives especially the rescues. Please read thru the many threads for lots of useful information and do ask any and all questions you may have and we will help you in any way we can. Yes we do love pictures here so if you would share some of your flock with us we would be most grateful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2Skittles4u Posted September 11, 2008 Author Share Posted September 11, 2008 Okay, I'm trying the picture again. <br><br>Post edited by: 2Skittles4u, at: 2008/09/11 03:50 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lovemyGreys Posted September 11, 2008 Share Posted September 11, 2008 Hi Linda & Welcome to the forum A great introduction there. We look forward to hearing more from you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abernathy Posted September 11, 2008 Share Posted September 11, 2008 Phoenix is beautiful! Thanks for posting a picture of her Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danmcq Posted September 11, 2008 Share Posted September 11, 2008 Nice photo Linda! Very cute, thanks for posting it. :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cflanny Posted September 11, 2008 Share Posted September 11, 2008 Welcome here I saw all your videos you have a very beautiful flock, the one with them eating hamburgers was too cute Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kittykittykitty Posted September 14, 2008 Share Posted September 14, 2008 Welcome to all of you! And thank you for the great introduction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2Skittles4u Posted September 14, 2008 Author Share Posted September 14, 2008 Thank you everyone for the warm welcome! I think it's great some other members have Suns also. They really are a funny (silly) bird. I think Phoenix has adopted quite a few of Skittles' antics, and she does seem rather focused on Skittles a lot of the time, as if "learning." There's something about Phoenix's "look" and the way she watches things that really make the difference between (what I believe) to be intelligence and just spacing off. Phoenix just never stops amazing me. Cflanny: Thank you for watching the videos and compliments. Phoenix is such a camera hog, lol, as you could probably tell. I guess that would be my fault though since we have well over 200 videos of JUST HER. When she hears that camera turn on, she's flying into the "scene," I guess she thinks that her cue or something, lol. Thank you again, Linda Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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