Sunday, May 19, 2013

Mango Monlogues


It's a well known fact that parrots like to practice their speech when you're not around.  The problem is, they tend to break out of their monologue when you enter the room.  I wanted to get a recording of his talking just to hear some of his words, but I didn't want to have to record gigabytes of data on my iPad to be able to accomplish it.  Thankfully to the ever expanding application space on the internet, I found a an app that has an 'auto pause' function to ignore periods of inactivity.  So I was able to set my iPad next to Mango's cage on record, and get a condensed version of a bunch of words he said while we were gone.

Enjoy :)


Download music file directly

Friday, May 17, 2013

Mango and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day

Well, that's a little extreme... but today was definitely a very "off" day for us. We don't know if it's because Brian was up at 4:15 this morning to bring Jamie to the airport, so he got woken up early, or if he's missing his old home, or if he is just trying to test the boundaries with us as he gets more comfortable - but, we're glad it's over. Tomorrow is a new day, and we can't wait to see what it brings! 

Mango, you were a punk, but we still love you!


(That's a sneak peek of Mango's new diet.. We'll mention more on that later since we are using this as a "diary" to track changes, progress and this crazy adventure!)

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

The bath experience

We decided to give our little green friend a bath shortly after he arrived.  We heard that in the past he liked to take showers in the bathtub.  I wasn't sure how well that'd work out, so we went with what I knew best:  the kitchen sink.


I was pretty amazed at how well he sat there being washed but even more amazed at how well he could look back up at us with his pathetic eyes begging for it to be over with. So after a few minutes, we gave in and we took him out to dry. 

  

We now had a sopping wet bird and weren't sure of the best way to dry him off.  So we attempted a towel, but he was pretty quick to slide out of that. 


The next attempt was a bit more successful.   Enter the hair dryer (on low).  He definitely seemed ok with that.  Though maybe it was all the attention.


To ensure future successful bath times, we finished off by giving him a treat at his cage.  Where he continued to preen himself until it was nearly time for bed.  First bath down.







Monday, May 13, 2013

Introduction


This is Mango, the main character of this blog.  He's an Eclectus parrot, and is roughly 15 years old.  He came to us through the www.parrothelp.com bird rescue program in the Twin Cities area.  He's an extremely friendly and calm fellow and has an extensive vocabulary that he's only begun to share with us.  He is standing on his original cage, filled with toys that he had at his previous home, which all help make his transition to a new house more comfortable.

As you can see in the photo, he is quite enamored with removing his own feathers.  Feather plucking is not an uncommon behavior with captive parrots.  There doesn't seem to be any sort of general consensus of what causes it, each occurrence is its own special case. His previous owner was very good to him, and he continued to pull anyway.  We're hoping we can make some progress with his plumage, but he easily makes up for his avian baldness with his great personality.  

Mango has landed!

We are so excited to let you know Mango is at our house! He came around 6pm yesterday, and is slowing observing, adjusting, and sharing his extensive vocabulary with us!



We left the iPad on when we left, so he should be jamming out to some George Strait, Tim McGraw or Carrie Underwood around now! 

More to come later!