what I am...
ANOTHER NEWBIE!
Hey, my name is Allison.
I have a 3 yo dusky pionus parrot (Kei) and 3 budgies (Sunshine, Maggio, and Miracle).
I got my first bird 5 years ago. It was a little blue budgie, I named Skylar. He came from a pet shop, which I now would never do.
A few months later, I thought that Skylar was lonly (I used to watch the budgies at a petstore play and groom each other and felt like he was missing out on something). So I got Sunshine (from another pet shop, because he was on sale
) and did not even know about quaranteening so I just put them together right away (This story sounds horrible now that I know better.)
Skylar died from an expected accidental poisoning on my part (air freshiner). After his death was the first time I actually thought about bringing Sunshine into the vet. The vet was very nice. He told me a little more about birds and Sunshine got tested for the first time (this was probabally a year or more after I got him). Sunshine got a clean bill of health and that's when the vet told me about the dangers of normal household products (aerosole, teflon, etc.).
After that I started researching birds online (in 2004) and found out how smart and challenging birds can be. I decided that I wanted a larger bird so I started looking at species. At first, before I did much research, I thought I wanted a cockatoo.
but after coming accross the mytoos site, it kind of scared me away from that idea (and I'm glad it did). Then I thought I wanted a conure, until I came accross a species that I had never heard of before. Pionus. In the book I was reading it made it seem like Pionus are the most wonderful species around. I just had to have one! The problem was, there were not many pis around where I live. I had been searching off and on for a few months when I came upon an ad in the newspaper for a baby white cap pionus. I went and met with the woman who was not a breeder but hand fed baby birds for her "friend" I'm guessing it was a large scale breeder that ships their birds all over the country to be raised. Well, everything was going great I was a member of a pionus forum and they were all rooting for me while I was waiting for the baby (I named Kyba) to be weaned. It was the weekend I was suposed to pick him up, and the woman was not returning my phone calls. A few more days went by and she was still not calling me back. Finally she called me back (like 5 days later) and told me that the baby had gotten it's leg caught on one of it's toys and died. I was very sad because I had gotten very attatched to the little guy.
They people on the pionus forums found several ads for pionus. One sparked my intrest right away. It was an ad for a 9 month old Dusky pionus for $375. That is a great deal, but I now know how lucky I am that Kei wasn't ill (or it wasn't a scam) at that price (duskies are usually $600+). The only problem was that I had to drive down to Arkansas to get him (I'm in Minnesota, so that's a long drive). When I got down there he was on a horrible diet (cockatiel seed), smelled like cigarettes, and had most of his primary and secondary feathers clipped. I had driven all that way so I took him anyway. (I am so lucky). So I got him home, quarantined him, and got him tested. He was fine, other than his poor feather quality due to his diet. So I switched him to pellets, and started giving him fresh foods (even though he barely touches it) and all was well. It was just me, Kei, and Sunshine for a while, then I started working at a parrot rescue once a week. After working there for several months I decided to ad another budgie to the flock. I ended up adding two, Maggio and Miracle. That was back in Febuary and now I'm about to foster and maybe adopt a White Cap pionus from the rescue!
The white cap is not tame and is pretty reserved. She used to have a mate but a few months ago, he got a toe bite and went into the vets to get it amputated. He didn't do well under anesthesia and, sadly, didn't make it. Now, the other WC is very sad and just not doing well in that environment (she is shy so she would do better in a quiet environment). The rescue is great and did everything they could to find her a home, but were unable to due to the fact that she is not tame. So I steped up (
) and volunteered to foster her, and if she gets along with Kei, possibly adopt her.
So I might be picking her up on Saturday!
That was a huge post so I will give you what you really want...
Pictures!!!
11-05-2007, 07:05 PM
I bet you'll never guess... 
Welcome to PC Allison.
were beautiful!
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