Posts Tagged ‘Jack’

Well, that’s the birds’ interpretation, anyway.

The yearly vet visit is a little different for the birds than the dogs. Puppies get leashed, widdle a little on the doc’s floor and get over it. They know there’s a treat at the end and the bonus of a car ride, so they go along with the program without much fuss.

Birds? Oh boy. Typically Jack’s the troublemaker, but he went without much of a production. Pratchett led me on a not-so-merry, squawking, growling, 20 minute long miserable chase around the kitchen. You would have thought I was trying to kill him.

Never heard a CAG growl? Oh, how you’ve been missing out…






I think Linda Blair took acting lessons from these birds, and Pratch did it for several hours straight.

Check out these fluffled up feathers and glare:

So he had to be toweled twice in one day, once just to get him in the crate, once for his exam, and it was not pretty. I thought the wing clip was going to give him a heart attack, and let’s not even talk about the nail clipping…

Note that Jack is way over in his crate, trying to see what the hell could be so different over in Pratchett’s world to cause all that noise…

The whole time all I could think about what the prediction of a “very active” hurricane season and what a barrel of laughs it’ll be if we actually have to evacuate with our own growling, freaked out and above all LOUD parrot soundtrack.

Bird toys are damned expensive. Totally cool, but made to be destroyed, and so there’s this sort of double edged sword to putting a new toy in their cages. Like, “Ooh, great! They love that one, they…oh, geez. Dead already.”

vs. “Ooh, dammit. Did I just spend that money for nothing? Totally not interested in it…but at least it’ll last awhile, I suppose…”

Except for one thing – the bamboo!

It was one of the first things to go in when we first started the garden, not realizing that the stuff is indestructible and will do its best to overrun everything it can. I don’t have a picture from when it was planted, but at only about 3 feet tall and in a 1 gallon container it looked innocent enough.

It’s now almost as tall as the house and has to constantly be whacked back, because it’s impervious- bugs don’t eat it, the cold doesn’t touch it, and after it rains you can practically sit back and watch it grow with the naked eye:

I don’t know if you can get an idea of the depth here, but there’s a ton of the stuff.

Luckily the parrots have decided they love it- I’ll cut a couple of canes and criss-cross them through the bars. The boys’ll go to their work, stripping and breaking them down, covering their cages in shredded little leaves.

It’s kind of hard to get pictures of the action, but here’s Pratch hanging down from his swing to get at it:

Honestly, he usually stands right on the canes to strip them, but he had a little a little Wile E. Coyote-style accident the day before. Taking a tumble after snapping the branch he’d so recently been standing on made him a little more wary the following day.

Jack loves it too, but of course had to get nosy when the camera came out:

He actually has it somewhat easier, being smaller, lighter and (sorry, Pratch!) more agile, he climbs and hangs all over the stuff- it’s a completely free jungle gym.

Proving that I am totally insane, I briefly considered buying another of those tiny, innocuous containers of the stuff at the nursery, thinking I could leave it in its pot between the parrot cages. They could strip stuff at their leisure, Pratchett could have a screen between himself and the hated Jack, and the bamboo would be contained and unable to spread.

Luckily I came to my senses, which, contrary to popular belief actually does happen once in awhile. But if you’re looking for a low cost, high yield parrot toy, this one fits the bill! Or beak. Or talon…

Last year it was only Pratchett in the kitchen and he felt his life was good. To Pratch’s dismay, I brought Jack in this year, too, and set up their various toys in the gap. Yesterday was the first day they really got to explore, and they were both so excited they forgot about each other and just played. I thought it was progress…

(cue ominous music)

Pratch was happily ringing every bell in the place when he remembered the ones on the far side of Jack’s cage. He used the net to navigate over, and Jack spotted him like a shadow passing over the sun.

At the last moment, the boy sensed something was wrong…

But it was too late… Jack attack!

All Jack really got was a beak full of red tail feathers. Pratch was fine…well, everything but his ego. He was quite grouchy for a little while, but a few almonds smoothed his feathers.

Still, I’m determined to have a peaceable kingdom. Eventually.

Ol’ Jack’s been having himself a fine time lately. He’s started really playing with toys all over the place, and suddenly he’s started talking. Senegal parrots aren’t especially known for their ability to speak, but I think this one’s gonna be a firecracker.

One of Pratch’s favorite things to say is “Peek-a-boo! I seeeeeee you….” About a week ago, I got worried about the boy- I thought he had a horrible case of the hiccups, but then I realized he was saying “peeka! peeka! peeka!” over and over… he’s working on adding the “boo” now. He’s been saying ‘hello’ for awhile, and the newest vocabulary word is Pratchett’s own “Pew!”

He’s generally just feeling his oats and stealing whatever he can get his beak on. In his mind he’s about 6 feet tall, large and in charge.
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Jack took the longest time to decide he wanted to eat his veggies, but once he did, he became quite the piggy…

And now he doesn’t only like his greens, but his pinks and reds and yellows too.

I STILL haven’t explained the mania that I’m gripped by at the moment, but I’ll try to get into that this afternoon. For now, a few pics of the pets helping me out.

Here’s Jack, playing his favorite game- throw everything on the floor and have the human retrieve it.

Okay, so our last Sennie didn’t work out so well. Poor Dewey.

But Pratchett’s breeder Tracy had her annual throw-down and show last weekend, and I had to go see her to say hey and pick up some bird toys. It was only being polite, really.

The funny part is that Charlie made me promise not to come home with another bird. And I yanked his chain, like, “oh…I can’t promise, you know how it is…” But truthfully, I had zero intention of doing any such thing. No, seriously.

See, my plan has been that once there are fewer other pets around (hopefully many many years down the road -May Kassie and Sammy live forever and ever, Amen) I’ll adopt somebody from a rescue. These little guys live so long and there are so many have horror stories you wouldn’t believe. I’ve always had pound-puppies and street cats- why would winged friends be any different?

Good plan, right? A socially conscious and well reasoned plan?

Yeah. That’s all well and good until a tiny 14 week-old green fluffball runs up your arm and start literally cooing in your ear. Then seals the deal by willfully entangling himself in your hair.

So…it looks like we’re going to try this thing again. Pratchett’s not thrilled, but he’s cultivating his own little patch of denial. They’re living in separate cages in opposite sides of the house, so he just pretends the little one doesn’t exist.

He/she (too young to sex) is as yet nameless. This is the part I’m bad at, but we’re working on it. I even googled ‘pet names,’ figuring there’d be something interesting- sure enough, there are multiple out there sites to assist the naming-disabled. This one even has a species selection guide, but their bird names are particularly trite, so we’re going to go it on our own.

Any suggestions are welcome, and we’ll see how it goes!