We’ve been so happy with Pascal. He really has become a real part of our family and everyone is attached to him. I know that feeling bad for an animal is not a real good reason for getting one, but that’s exactly why we took in Peanut. He’s had a rough life and even if he doesn’t come around to be friendly, at least he’ll have stability by not being bounced around from home to home. I do not expect him to ever become a Pascal, but I think we can at least give him a good home and hopefully in the future he’ll learn to trust and love us.
What to say about Peanut…I’m told he’s nine years old. He’s a Congo African Grey parrot. One of his wings is pinioned. How sad for a bird to never be able to fly agin. It honestly breaks my heart.
From what I’ve been told, he was originally owned by an older couple. The lady died and the old man had asthma. He kept Peanut and his bird companions in a closet for at least two years. Peanut has permanent eyesight problems as a result. Birds need full spectrum light or else they can get some vitamin deficiencies. A vet said that’s what caused Peanut to get white spots on the lens of her eyes. He still seems to be able to see alright, but it looks like cataracts. The poor boy.
Another kind lady rescued Peanut. He lived there for about eight months, but the lady found she didn’t have time to devote to Peanut. She had other parrots that wanted her time. I guess when she first got Peanut, you couldn’t get within five feet of his cage without him lunging at you. The lady got him calmed down and stick trained pretty well.
Peanut then lived with my brother for about three months. He has a big aviary full of finches, canaries, etc., but he just could not get along with the other birds. He attacked two cockatiels, actually killing one of them. I wonder how he did that without being able to fly.
My brother asked if I would like to have him last night. I thought about it over night and discussed with Dave. I don’t want to do anything that might hurt Pascal and honestly, him attacking those cockatiels concerns me. I admit that I didn’t sleep most of the night trying to figure out what I should do. In the end, we decided to welcome him into our home.
So, tonight I went to my brother’s house and picked him up. He was definitely not a happy boy, although luckily he has not picked his feathers. It would be hard to overcome that as well as the other behavorial problems we’re going to have to deal with. We got home about 5pm and set him up in the living room. This keeps him in a separate room from Pascal, although they can see each other. It will also give him lots of interaction with the family as we hang out and watch TV. When we’d get up close to his cage to softly talk to him, he’d scream–and I mean SCREAM. So much for the first day together. Here’s to the long road ahead….