Tony - how are your boys??

[Debra]

We haven't heard about Salsa, Zaffers, Maynard, nor Jack in such a long time that I was wondering if you had any stories about them. We don't know much about Jack and Maynard as you hardly talk about them. Tell us a story or two please.

[plax]

Hi Debra. I'm sorry for the delayed response - I had actually missed your thread here. Thankfully, Wendy pointed me to it this morning.

I've posted about Maynard and his challenges in life before. I've mentioned that he had a stroke in 2011. Here's one excerpt concerning Maynard that I posted to Mare's thread about Amigo's medical crisis in September:


Now with Maynard's stroke, he could no longer stand or hold food in his foot (or climb, obviously) for many months afterwards. I made his cage into a hospital facility for him by removing the grate and installing his perches at floor level. He rapidly lost 100+ grams and wouldn't eat or drink much at all during the first week. He then began taking barely enough food to survive and greater amounts of water. Within the following 6 months there were times that Maynard would again refuse food and drop way down on weight. He'd thus ruin progress on the small amounts of weight that he'd recovered. Fortunately I was able to get him on track with food again each of those times, usually within a week or two.

Maynard's will was so strong as far as re-learning to use his feet to hold food and climb that he persisted to try over and over and ultimately re-wired himself neurologically. He's currently able to do most of the things that he could do before his stroke, with the exception of flying. He was an ace flyer but for whatever reason he has had no interest in attempting flight since his stroke.

Maynard has experienced some incredibly tough turns of fate during his life... the first being that he, like jack, was unfortunately plucked from his life in the wild during the early 1980s :(. The next major negative development for him was his personality reversal in 2005 that resulted in his permanently negative and vicious attitude toward poor Jack :(. And then arguably Maynard's worst experience was his stroke in 2011:(. But despite each catastrophe he has endured, he continues to be a strong-willed and tenacious parrot who loves to SCREAM to the world each day, as if to say "I am the magnificent Maynard, and you're not!" :)

And I posted the following about Jack in another thread:


My B&G, Jack (the third bird from the left on our banner), is a plucker. Several years ago he began plucking areas under his wings, as well as some small patches on the tops of his wings, and started pulling feathers from the inner portions of his legs. I had him as a fully-feathered bird for 24 years before he started to pluck. It began when I brought Zaf home in 2005 and Jack's cage mate, Maynard, decided to reject and start brutally attacking him. Jack became distraught and the quality of his life suffered from then on :(. He was my first Macaw and he's such a sweet bird. You can see part of one of his missing feather areas (his right leg) on the banner image. I thought about adding some feathers there with photoshop but opted against it.

My guys are each such individual personalities. I adore them all! I'll try to post more about all 4 of them in the future. Thanks for asking :)

[Debra]

Thanks for the update. I enjoy hearing about your boys.

[plax]

You're welcome, Debra. I haven't been making videos of them lately, mainly due to my present state of disorganization and other things that have been continually happening around here.