Lefitte
02-10-2015, 01:38 AM
Hello!
I posted in the health care forum but I thought I'd give an introduction as well. I'm Sara, but you can call me Lefi, most people do online. I'm 25 from California. I've had several birds other than cockatiels such as lovebirds, finches, parrolet, doves, and blackbirds. When I was 10-12 I had my hands full every summer taking care of wild baby birds. Not a good idea and I always looked for nests but could never find them or the neighborhood kids destroyed them. Most of these birds came to me via my mom's coworkers who were street sweepers so most of them were far too gone to help. I had one true success story with a dove who went on to find a mate and raise her own babies.
I'm a writer and an artist. I work part-time and go to college part-time. I have 6 species and 18 pets; 5 cats, 2 cockatiels, 1 kingsnake, 6 neon tetras, 1 male betta, and 3 nerite snails.
On to the fun stuff! My cockatiels!
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I have a male and female (formerly) breeding pair who are 18 years old. The female is Kiki and she's a simple grey. She was a present for my 7th birthday. I went to the breeder's house and pointed to an egg in a clutch. He picked up the egg and carefully marked it, telling me when it would hatch, so I had no idea on gender or looks! After a while, I got to finally bring Kiki home. Her name was actually a bit of sarcasm from my sister. "You should name her Kiki." Except 7 year olds don't always understand sarcasm and instead I decided it was the perfect name for her.
2636
Pretty Boy came along some months later. We went to the local petshop and this pretty little yellow faced male wouldn't stop following my sister's every move. She begged, despite not liking birds to this day, and we brought him home. Before she could name him, he started repeating "Pretty Boy" and since that was also a line in one of my favorite Depeche Mode songs, we decided to keep it as a name.
It wasn't all that well thought out and pretty soon 2 birds became 7 birds... Ironically, I made friends with another girl, Alyssa, who also had a grey female and yellow faced male named Binki and Ine. We're still friends today. Her grandfather bred cockatiels and their pair also bred so we got to raise little babies together. Even when they had a clutch, Kiki and Pretty Boy were also very sweet and never bit. They had nearly ever color of cockatiel and typically had 4-5 babies from 5 egg clutches.
One day, my friend Alyssa and I got together and performed a double wedding with our birds. If I remember right, we even had little Barbie veils that didn't work for long.
Their last successful clutch, I believe, was in 2006. They had several 'tries' since then but fewer and fewer hatched and survived. Eventually, we started taking the eggs out all together so that the parents didn't use up a bunch of nutrients trying to keep babies alive and failing. Kiki doesn't lay eggs anymore and if she does happen to lay them, she doesn't sit on them anymore.
Now that they're 18, they've settled into retirement. Sadly, we used to keep them in a cage far too small. When I finally realized it last year, I got them the biggest cage I could find with small bars that they could still climb. They seem so much happier and even with all that new room, they still sleep right next to each other. They hardly ever bicker but when they do it's usually because Pretty Boy obviously doesn't understand how Kiki wants her 'hair' done.
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Recently, they've also developed arthritis. I can see it in one of Kiki's toes, in the way it's a little twisted sideways and doesn't bend as well. Pretty Boy has a more serious problem which is detailed in the health care thread I made. I'm trying a few new things and relearning how to care for birds. We didn't have all this knowledge on cockatiel care on the internet back when I got them that we do now. All I had was a general book!
I posted in the health care forum but I thought I'd give an introduction as well. I'm Sara, but you can call me Lefi, most people do online. I'm 25 from California. I've had several birds other than cockatiels such as lovebirds, finches, parrolet, doves, and blackbirds. When I was 10-12 I had my hands full every summer taking care of wild baby birds. Not a good idea and I always looked for nests but could never find them or the neighborhood kids destroyed them. Most of these birds came to me via my mom's coworkers who were street sweepers so most of them were far too gone to help. I had one true success story with a dove who went on to find a mate and raise her own babies.
I'm a writer and an artist. I work part-time and go to college part-time. I have 6 species and 18 pets; 5 cats, 2 cockatiels, 1 kingsnake, 6 neon tetras, 1 male betta, and 3 nerite snails.
On to the fun stuff! My cockatiels!
[Users must be registered and logged in to view attached photos or hyperlinks] pg?oh=77c0867655a6f941ad44e6f3527e2c95&oe=5590C0D9&__gda__=1432366374_3174021143218c7076061348a512dc2 2
I have a male and female (formerly) breeding pair who are 18 years old. The female is Kiki and she's a simple grey. She was a present for my 7th birthday. I went to the breeder's house and pointed to an egg in a clutch. He picked up the egg and carefully marked it, telling me when it would hatch, so I had no idea on gender or looks! After a while, I got to finally bring Kiki home. Her name was actually a bit of sarcasm from my sister. "You should name her Kiki." Except 7 year olds don't always understand sarcasm and instead I decided it was the perfect name for her.
2636
Pretty Boy came along some months later. We went to the local petshop and this pretty little yellow faced male wouldn't stop following my sister's every move. She begged, despite not liking birds to this day, and we brought him home. Before she could name him, he started repeating "Pretty Boy" and since that was also a line in one of my favorite Depeche Mode songs, we decided to keep it as a name.
It wasn't all that well thought out and pretty soon 2 birds became 7 birds... Ironically, I made friends with another girl, Alyssa, who also had a grey female and yellow faced male named Binki and Ine. We're still friends today. Her grandfather bred cockatiels and their pair also bred so we got to raise little babies together. Even when they had a clutch, Kiki and Pretty Boy were also very sweet and never bit. They had nearly ever color of cockatiel and typically had 4-5 babies from 5 egg clutches.
One day, my friend Alyssa and I got together and performed a double wedding with our birds. If I remember right, we even had little Barbie veils that didn't work for long.
Their last successful clutch, I believe, was in 2006. They had several 'tries' since then but fewer and fewer hatched and survived. Eventually, we started taking the eggs out all together so that the parents didn't use up a bunch of nutrients trying to keep babies alive and failing. Kiki doesn't lay eggs anymore and if she does happen to lay them, she doesn't sit on them anymore.
Now that they're 18, they've settled into retirement. Sadly, we used to keep them in a cage far too small. When I finally realized it last year, I got them the biggest cage I could find with small bars that they could still climb. They seem so much happier and even with all that new room, they still sleep right next to each other. They hardly ever bicker but when they do it's usually because Pretty Boy obviously doesn't understand how Kiki wants her 'hair' done.
[Users must be registered and logged in to view attached photos or hyperlinks] 344aa375b96ad49d76f9a4cce75&oe=55561D6B&__gda__=1435615202_f9509f9e8b151f516857a156306dd35 a
Recently, they've also developed arthritis. I can see it in one of Kiki's toes, in the way it's a little twisted sideways and doesn't bend as well. Pretty Boy has a more serious problem which is detailed in the health care thread I made. I'm trying a few new things and relearning how to care for birds. We didn't have all this knowledge on cockatiel care on the internet back when I got them that we do now. All I had was a general book!