My life with parrots

My Life With Parrots

I was a small child at the end of the Second world war when my father brought home a Amazon whose owner did not return from the war, this parrot had spent quite a lot of the war years in the Sergeants Mess, he was about 25yrs old when my Father brought him home, and had quite a large vocabulary.

He was not as we know 'hand tame' all you could do was to scratch his head through the bars, I can remember not being very impressed by this 'large' bird in a cage, and could not understand what it said, I can still hear my Mother saying to my Father ' we will have to get rid of that bird I cannot have that language in this house', as it had been living in the Sergeants Mess it said a lot of 'choice words' as I got older I begun to understand this bird, he had words for when an aeroplane came over, thinking it to be the enemy, he had is own way of asking for things, like 'shut that bl---dy door' and different versions of 'go away'.

We had this bird for 25 yrs, my Mother died in the April, and the bird lost the use of his legs in the summer of the same year, not having the vets like we have today, nothing could be done, so he was put to sleep, he must have been over 50 years old.

I was married then and decided when the children were at school I would get a job and save up for another parrot, this time (1968) I would have a African Grey, so when the time came, off to the pet shop I went and bought a African Grey, wild caught in Africa, for £26, that included a cage. His name was Percy.

As you can imagine it was really wild, and not being that brave or experienced in handling wild parrots, it did stay in the cage for some time, but eventually it did come out of the cage, and after a few scary moments he was quite good, in the end he would not leave his cage, if frightened he flew of the cage, but he would make straight back to it. He was a brilliant talker, sounding just like me! As every Grey owner will know, the stories of their talking can fill a book, also noises of phones, doorbell, dogs barking, vacuum cleaners, it goes on for ever, but dispute the fact you could not handle him, he was a 'dear'.

I had this Grey for nearly 30 years, 3 years before he died, in July 1997, he became unwell, I had to find a Avian Vet, which I was lucky in doing so, he discovered he had caught Psittacosis, the vet said he could have caught it from Pigeons, he loved going in the garden in his cage, well after 3 years of treatment his kidneys finally gave out and one morning I found him dead.

After all that time with a parrot in the house it was not the same, I can still remember the quietness, the emptiness where the cage had stood, I was then living on my own, I still had two cats, but they are never there when you want them, so it took a long time to get over that.

But as one does get over these things I thought life without a parrot is not 'normal', so January 1998 I got a hand reared Senegal, he was 'the greatest', so tame, so cuddly, so friendly, I loved him 'to bits' called him Peanut, I was convinced he was a boy, and the start of a great life began, well after 18months he became unwell, I took him to the Avian Vet, to discover he had Zinc Poisoning, well the vet tried to cure him, kept him happy for over 6 months, but two years to the day I got him (Jan 2000) he died in my hand, had a post mortom, and found out 'he' was a 'she'.

The cage he was in I had analysed, it contained 34% zinc, although some might say this is not a high percent, the fact this cage was large, and the way the 'little' Senegal got around this cage was by sliding down the bars holding on with his beak I am convinced he ingested the zinc that way, I did a lot of publishing about Zinc, had articles on the Internet, letters in Parrot Magazines, made as many people aware as possible about the dangers of Zinc in cages and toys, and am now very pleased to say that almost all parrot cages and toys are now marked Zinc or Toxic free.

So here was I again, alone with no parrot, I had been living on my own for about 15 years on and off, but had never felt lonely always had family and plenty of friends but this time I really felt the meaning of loneliness. I then went back to all the books to find myself another parrot, so after a lot of reading and research, I decided on a Pionus, medium size, not very noisy, not as long living as a Grey (as one gets older you have to think of the life span of both bird and owner) the search started, as these are not a very common breed it took a long time, but I was so lucky to find a breeder of them living near me, and his pair had just laid 2 eggs, this was May 24th. I was able to go and see the babies from quite early, unfortunately one died.

The great day finally arrived, it was the 20th August 2000, I had bought a Kings (non Toxic Zinc free) cage, stainless steel clips for all the plastic and acrylic toys, and went and got him, and I called him Widget.

As you can imagine with the past luck I have had with parrots this one was almost wrapped in cotton wool, he has the best food, all fruit and vegetables are fresh, no aerosols, candles, incense sticks, the kitchen door is closed when cooking, I iron in another room, I do not allow smoking in the house, no dogs in the same room as him, he has 12 hours sleep a night, can you wonder his first word were 'mummy loves you' that was all he heard. He now says a lot more, not as clear as my Grey, but 'only a mother understands'.

I hope to have a long friendship and companionship with Widget.

Ann & Widget

Footnote: Ann has actively promoted the use of Toxic and Zinc free cages. Due to her articles and publicity most cage manufacturers and distributers now offer a wide selection of Zinc free cages. We have no doubt, this has saved the lives of many parrots.