Hand Spun

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Wednesday, May 25, 2011

My Quaker Parrots

These are my Quaker parrots, Buttons and Poppy of whom I'm extremely fond and proud. Poppy turned two in April and Buttons will be 6 at the end of July. They're both DNA tested females and for my birthday this year, Buttons laid an egg for me. I was not pleased about that. I always worry one of them will get egg bound. Jeff came home on my birthday to find Buttons at the bottom of her cage, tired and eggnant. He called me, I rushed home from work as soon as I was off and by the time I got home she had passed the egg. I gave her some calcium anyway in case she had her mind set on laying more eggs and immediately changed the layout of both birds' cages to make it unfamiliar. According to my vet, making the cage less "nest friendly" makes them less likely to become eggnant and start laying eggs. Since then we haven't had any more eggs and both girls have been much less cage aggressive.
Quaker parrots were the bird I absolutely did NOT want to have when I was deciding on what my first parrot would be. I got a cockatiel (Cooper) and decided I wanted another bird. Quakers were noisy and boringly colored according to my first impressions. It was divine intervention that put me together with Buttons over 4 years ago. Since then, my love of these birds and their HUGE personalities in such tiny bodies has only grown. I actually have 3 Quakers in my house. Jade, who is not in this video, is a bit feral. A previous owner neglected to take Jade to the vet when her leg was broken and she has a permanently twisted left leg/foot that I think gives her pain and arthritis from time to time. She has a fear of human hands which leads her to be excessively aggressive. She came to live with us when my Nanday conure was destroying her feathers and my friends who owned Jade and I jokingly started talking about bird swapping. When we actually went through with it, it turned out to be a blessing to all birds and humans alike. Marley the Nanday is happy and in beautiful feather with Carlos and Carrie and Jade is flourishing and happy and coming out of her shell with other Quakers to be around. She does not like to be filmed however. So I spared her the stress. Poppy and Buttons on the other hand are regular hams. They will perform for me but usually clam up when a phone or camera appear. I was excited to get this video. My voice is high pitched on the video but I don't normally talk like that. My girls love it when I talk like this to them and it gets them all going. Quaker parrots are illegal in some states in the U.S. and there are actually non native wild colonies of Quakers in New York and  Florida as well as a few other states. They tend to become pests because they built communal nests and the weight of these nests on tall light poles can become a problem in cities.
Anyway, I love these guys and they love me back. I hope you enjoy the video.

2 comments:

  1. phyllis said Pa.is one state that we aren`t allowed to have these parrots.They are so adorable!phyllis

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