Living with Parrots

Potato chips, miniature horses, parrots. It's seems you can't have just one. This is the continuing saga of living with my Eclectus parrot, Mr. Tumnis. I have had companion birds of one kind or another during my life, but now I was ready to upgrade to a larger bird. I read Bird Talk magazine from cover to cover, for over a year until I decided that an Eclectus parrot would suit my family lifestyle. My husband and I both work full time during the day. We have dogs that run in and out, and the occasional niece and nephew come for a visit. We needed a bird that could entertain itself during the day, but would be friendly and hopefully talkative in the evening. Many of the articles, in Bird Talk, state that if you want a bird to talk, you should buy a bird that is already talking. I began looking up all the bird websites, and aviaries I could find on the web. "Birds N Ways," was one of my favorites, as they have great articles from soup to nuts, and a classified ad section.

That's where I found a breeder in Iowa, who raised Eclectus and African Greys. I called her to ask her some questions. She didn't have any babies for sale at the time, but she did have a bird that was spoken for, but might come up sale again, as the young man who was going to purchase him, was contemplating getting a different species. After getting my questions answered, about their care, needs and problems that might arise, she told me this baby had a disabled back. He had been hatched at a different facility and been fed too much protein. This caused the bones in his back to grow faster than the muscles, resulting in a spine curved to a 90 degree angle. It didn't cause him pain, but made him unable to fly. His story struck such a note in my heart, I had to have him. I asked if I could call the man who had already claimed him in hopes of convincing him to go with the other bird. When I called him, we made an instant connection. He was a special education teacher like I was. He wanted to use the baby bird in school just like I planned to do. We chatted for awhile, and then he said cheerfully, that he would be happy to give up this eclectus, since he'd be headed to a school.

And so our journey began. My husband and I drove to Iowa to pick up our new baby. We arrived at their home and talked in the kitchen. All the while, I could a voice in the aviary, "Hi..... hello....hi... I'm a good boy..."

Finally, with all the necessary exchange of money and paperwork, we were introduced to our new child. He was a disaster! His normally irridescent green feathers had multitudes of black banding across them. Better known as stress bars, these dark abnormalites are indicators of traumatic stress, due to circumstances or poor nutrition. The nutrition we knew about, but how could that cheerful voice be from a distressed bird? How? Perhaps the large padlock on the cage was an answer. A padlock, it seemed was the only way to keep this green monster in his cage. At six months old he had figured out or dismantled every other type of latch that had attempted to secure him. He would make his escape then loudly and proudly tramp around the aviary, taunting the other well behaved parrots. We were getting a criminal! His antics have only escalated since then.

We named him Mr. Tumnis, after the Faun from The Lion,the Witch and the Wardrobe book series. He's ten years old now and what we call him lets him know how much trouble he is in. Can you decipher them as well as he has? Mr. Tumnis, Tum Tum, Tummy, Green Chicken, Young Man....