I haven’t talked about the pets lately, and I don’t think I’ve introduced our second bird.
It would seem we have been getting information from a bad source. Last December, when Jazzy turned two, he started screaming – ALL the time! He was generally better when I was in the room with him, but even then sometimes he would start screaming in my presence. And he started a frustrated squawk that really grated on my nerves.
When we bought Jazzy, H was the manager of the pet store, and she was great with birds. We watched as she conditioned a conure from being a cranky, biting bird to one that was friendly and gentle, and she could turn upside down with no problem. Suddenly, she was relocated to another store, and N came to be the manager. She talked about the birds she had at home so we figured she was also in the know.
When I talked to N about Jazzy’s screaming, she said he was in his mating phase and with most birds, it passes. January, February… it wasn’t passing. She said there were some things I needed to stop doing and he would stop. Any kind of attention paid during the screaming would be taken as affirmation, so I had to ignore him and only pay him attention when he was quiet. Do you know how hard that is? March, April, May… the screaming continued. Then N said for some birds, it’s not a phase. They need a mate.
So, in June, we bought Ella. We have discovered it is almost impossible to tell if a cockatiel is male or female. Some say if it talks, it is always a male. In reading online postings, breeders say females can talk, but it is more uncommon. So far, Ella only says “hello.” Some say if the tail and wing feather colour is solid and not banded, it’s a male. Other say, this is not the case. If at the age of one they are still the pearl colour, it’s a female. That one holds the most promise, and Ella has not lost her pearl colouring. Behaviour difference, anatomical differences, DNA testing… none of them seem to be 100 percent accurate. A breeder said the DNA test from one of his males came back as a female because of contamination to the needle that took the test blood. The only way to know for sure if a cockatiel is a female is if she lays eggs. So, as far as we know, Ella is a female, even though we’ve had differing opinions by the “experts.” We really don’t care. We want Jazzy and Ella to bond so he will stop screaming! So far, this has not happened.
We saw one of the employees – L – at the pet store that we knew had worked with H so we asked where H had gone, and L told us. We were doubting that N knew anything about birds, and we remembered the conure H had tamed. And we had concerns about our little Ella.
In early June, we bought Ella on sale. She and another cockatiel had just gone through a molt and had bald patches – not very attractive to the average buyer. We were glad to get a bargain. They claimed she was hand-raised and hand-fed like Jazzy had been. But they had a very difficult time getting Ella out of the cage. She’s scream and flap and avoid being captured as long as possible. I felt sorry for the little thing. When I took her, she immediately sought comfort under my chin. The store people were amazed and I took that as a sign that Ella was our next bird. And she liked Jazzy. She wanted to be near him, and we took that as a greater possibility of bonding.
The day we actually bought her, in getting her out of the cage – with a net, no less! – the store staff said Ella broke a blood feather so they took her in the back and removed it. Birds bleed very quickly and they can bleed to death in a very short time. Blood feathers are the newly grown feathers after a molt and they are attached to a vein. If the feather breaks anywhere along that vein, the bird bleeds. So, we thought they took care of it and we could take her home. She flapped furiously when we tried to take her out of the box – hand-raised? I think not! – and started bleeding profusely. The bleed-stop powder they sold us didn’t work, so I called. They said to press on it like you would for a bad bleed in a person. So I turned our new little bird on her back and held the bleeding area until it stopped. She lost a lot of blood and was rather lethargic for about a week. I had to repeat this procedure the next day, reopening the bleeder in trying to get her out of the cage. I decided it was best to leave her in her cage for a few more days.
And we discovered she was actually afraid of hands! With great patience and slow movement, she has finally gotten to the point where we can get her to “step up” quickly and confidently. But new things still frighten her and she flaps.
I took both the birds to H’s store the other day for a wing clipping and to meet Ella and to see Jazzy again. They called me into the clipping room and said Ella had to go to a vet – that her wings were infected and she was very sick. They gave me the name of an avian vet in Hamilton and he prescribed antibiotics. He said she had broken all her flight feathers in night frights. I said she had only had a couple of frights since we brought her home, and her wings had looked that way when we bought her. I always thought there was something wrong about the way they looked but since I trusted N, I thought it was OK. We even had her in for a clipping in late July and they said they clipped a couple but not the blood feathers. H confirmed to me by the time of the clipping, the feathers that came in after the molt would have grown past the blood feather stage. Lies all the way around. At least we’ll save money on wing clipping for Ella for a while.
Now, we have to keep her from re-injuring her wings until her next molt – next spring! Her anxiety level is improving, but this will be challenging. She has already injured one wing again because something startled her. And no wonder Jazzy wasn’t bonding with her. In the wild, a sick bird is not considered a good mate. We can only hope once she is healed, and her disposition improves – it’s already pretty good – he will find her attractive. There is still hope for the screaming to stop.
I think I will see what L likes so we can buy a gift certificate to thank her. She saved our bird’s life.
Until next time, watch the birds in your backyard, and enjoy their praise to God…
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