I don’t even remember what I was going to blog about this morning.
I have a nice tender spot on my neck that’s burning and made me forget.
I took Woodstock out of his cage this morning, like I always do, and we hung out, it was all good. Went to put him back in his cage so that I could get Twinkle out and he didn’t think it was time to go back in. He got me good on my knuckle. The middle one on my hand. I said, ok. We’ll just hang for a tad bit more. Went to put him back in his cage again, and he looked at me, then bit me on my neck.
On my neck.
I have never had one of my birds bite me on my neck.
Little “4 letter word that I don’t put on my blog that starts with s and ends with t”.
I cannot believe he just did that to me.
At least he didn’t draw blood in either spot. I just have a couple of indentations where he peeled some skin off.
That’s not right.
I’ve had him since the end of July, but birds are different type of animal. They don’t immediately become your best friend. Well, unless they are handfed babies, like Twinkle was. She loves me because I gave her the formula. She was accustomed to our hands from 6 weeks on. Older birds, especially rescue birds, it takes them awhile to get to trust you.
Woodstock is 7 and set in his ways.
He’s lucky in that he wasn’t abused, but he was abandoned by his owner. She was in a bad situation and dropped him off with her friend, she said she’d back back to get him. Then the friend never saw her again. Her friend wasn’t a bird person at all, so she took her to the Macaw and Cockatiel Rescue of New Mexico. I fell in love with his little face in a picture and when they came through Iowa, he came to live with us.
I don’t think he’d ever eaten anything but seed. I’ve got him eating bird bread (full of veggies, fruits, protein, and other things that are really good for him), chopped veggies, pellets, and a little seed now. I just gave him his first chopped up fruit this morning. He’s not interested in it so far. It makes me sad when I hear about birds being fed all seed. I did it with my first parakeet because I didn’t know any better and didn’t do my research. It causes so many health problems, including liver failure eventually. Who knows if that is what took Huck before his time or not, but now my birds all get transferred to a huge variety of food (snuck into their bread if it has to be).
Back to not trusting you. Birds live a very long time. Lovebirds, even though they are smaller birds, can live 15 years or longer. (Did you know that budgies can live that long too if well cared for? I’m determined mine will. Penelope is 5 and Lucky is 4. They are my oldest budgies.) When you get an older bird, especially one who has been abused, it takes them a long time to trust you. It can take months, at the very least. Seeing as I’ve only had Woodstock a month, and I was gone for a week of that, I don’t blame him for still being nippy. (That’s a nice way of saying, watch his body language or he will take a chunk of skin out of your finger….or neck.)
With Woodstock, you never ever offer your finger for him to step up on yet. He’ll take a bite, hang on, and twist (which is what he was doing to my neck). When I take him out of the cage, if he wants out, he’ll hop to my shoulder. Then when I put him back, I put my shoulder up to the door, and he hops in….usually. The only time I give him my finger is if he’s flown somewhere he can’t down from or if he’s on the floor and he can’t get back up. Then he doesn’t bite.
That’s another thing with him. I think he’s either been kept in a small cage his whole life or had his wings clipped since before he fledged or right afterwards, not giving him a chance to learn how to fly.
Twinkle has never been clipped and I have no intentions of ever clipping her. She zoom zoom zooms all over the place. She can turn corners on a dime, fly down from the highest places she finds to perch (surprisingly, flying down is very difficult for birds – if they have never really learned how to fly), she’s just amazing to watch. I can turn around to watch her, and she’s already done a complete lap and is back at the starting spot when I’ve just turned to see her go.
Woodstock only flies when he is surprised. That’s it. And then he needs you to come rescue him. He prefers to walk/hop everywhere. I keep telling him he’s a bird and that he needs to use his wings, but he doesn’t listen. I guess it’s actually good for now while he’s getting to know us that he doesn’t take off and hide somewhere. 
You want to know the funny thing about Woodstock? He trusts Katiana. She can get him to step up and put him right back in the cage. I tried to wake her up to help me put him back when he bit me and Pato yelled at me to let her sleep. but, I have a vampire hanging off my neck.
All in all, this is why I don’t have a cockatoo or a macaw. They have HUGE beaks that can do major damage if they aren’t trained properly. That’s also why I don’t own a pit bull. I don’t think I am a strong enough personality to be in control and those animals definitely need to be trained by someone who is in control and firm with them. Not wishy washy ol’ me. I’d love to have a bigger bird, I think they are gorgeous, but I leave them to the people who really know what they are doing with them.
Speaking of birds, we had moved the budgies into Jordan’s room when we got back from Ohio for a long drawn out reason. He decided last night, against my advice, that they needed some out of cage time. The budgies don’t like people bothering them. We’ve tried taming them. They are in a flock. A lot of times in a flock situation, they have no interest in making friends with their humans. Mine just want me to feed them and leave them. He let Angel and Lucky out somehow. Which I found really strange because we’ve tried to let them out before and they wouldn’t even come to the door. Then he opened his bedroom door to say, MOM! Lucky and Angel got out of the cage, but I’ll get them! Scared budgies are fast budgies. Took me quite awhile to capture both of them. I had to towel them to get them back in the cage. They seem none the worse for it this morning, so that’s good.
Kat just got up and asked me what happened to my neck. She said it looks like it hurts. I haven’t looked at it yet, but if anyone asks at her soccer game today, I’ll just tell them Woodstock gave me a hickey.
Speaking of soccer, I have to go take a shower, get 4 kids ready, a husband up, and Jordan packed for his dad’s.
You have a wonderful day!
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