Amber and Alex!

[Amber]

Hi guys, I’ve found myself browsing the forums for info on conures every now and then, so I thought it was time to sign up and introduce myself and my bird.

I’m Amber, and my sweet little guy here is Alex, a baby Jenday conure I’m hand raising. He’s half weaned at the moment. Alex is the first bird I’ve hand reared, and the first parrot I’ve ever owned (Although my family has always had them around). I first saw Alex when he had next to no feathers and fell in love! I wasn’t actually keen on a conure (I originally had my heart set on an ekkie) but these things just happen. The lovely woman who was raising Alex him was teaching me how to hand feed birds at the time, and sadly she fell ill (though I hope she’s doing much better now, she’s a great person) so I took over once he was able to be out of the hot box.


As for me I’m a university student in Australia. Not much interesting to say about myself I guess. This is my first year of uni, and my first year away from home, so it’s all new and strange still. I live with a bunch of my friends in a tiny house, plus Alex and two cats belonging to one of my housemates.


Back home I also have an old cat who I miss terribly, but it was kinder to leave him home with my mother then to drag the poor old thing halfway across the state to live in a crowded house with two other cats (he hates other cats). My mother also has two lovely dogs and two cockatiels of her own (A normal male and a pale grey/yellow pearl male). We’ve always been surrounded by pets, especially weird ones. We’ve had bearded dragons, sheep even a magpie. We always give our pets the best of care.


Me and Alex travel around a lot when we don’t have uni. We visit my parents halfway across the state pretty often and we go on holidays together. It’s a strange system but it works. It originally started when I needed to travel places but couldn’t leave him for more than a few hours because he would want a feed, and eventually turned into traveling all over the country together. Alex loves car rides, train rides, bus rides, anything. Once he sees his travel cage being packed he gets all excited for the next adventure.



As for general health things, Alex is not clipped, and he is not banded since he has a habit of chewing his legs, but instead microchipped (Actually only had that done yesterday, but I highly recommend it), and he eats a combination of seed mix and pellets and assorted fruit and veg (when he’s not begging for formula!). I originally had intentions of clipping him but he loves to fly, and I couldn’t take that away from him now.

That’s about all about us!

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[Spiritbird]

Hi there Amber. I am jealous of such a pretty bird and all the lovely parrots that are in Australia.

 

[Amber]

Hi Spirit! Thanks for your kind words on Alex. He is a pretty boy, I'm quite proud of him.

We have some beautiful wild birds here. The gum tree out in the backyard is home to a flock of rosellas ( I think they are eastern rosellas). They come and roost there every night. Back at my parents house their are wild galahs, sulphur crested and even the occasional black cockatoo like to feast in the garden. We also get lots of lizards (and snakes!) as well as possums. Further up the mountains near the parent's house theres kangaroos and deer (introduced species) and plenty of different kinds of birds! It's a beautiful country if you don't mind deadly snakes everywhere (Thats why we have our dogs after all, they hunt them down)

 

[antoinette]

I fell in love again, Alex is so beautiful
Sounds like you are doing a wonderful job being Alex's guardian, keep it up.
Enjoy the forum, so much to share with one another

 

[andrea.faerie]

How wonderful! I hope that Lucy and I can travel I'm a university student too, I'm in my Junior year though (3rd year) I think it's great that other college kids have pets and not just me!

 

[merlinsmom13]

Welcome to the forum. Its great that the 2 of you can travel together. I wish we had taken merlin out more when he was young. Have you ever thought of a harness? I bet alex would love to travel w/o his carrier.

 

[Amber]

Thanks for the welcome guys my Alex is (of course) named after Dr. Pepperburgs Alex, who was an amazing creature!



I love your grey in your picture Antoinette! He’s beautiful!

I hope you and Lucy can travel together too Andrea. It's actually easier for me just to take Alex with me then try to find someone to care for him while I'm away. That and I hate leaving him behind. Plus I'm always traveling around when I don't have classes, so it's great that he loves it!


Hi Merlin! Alex is harness trained (Well, kind of, he will wear it but he doesn’t like it much, but we’re working on it) but since we use a lot of public transport I like to keep him confined to a carrier or cage for his own safety and out or respect for other people on the train/bus/what not as some of them may not like birds. When we are driving (or being driven around) he’s more than welcome to wear the harness and crawl around the car! He loves to sit on the passenger seat and watch the world go by. J

 

[charliebrown]

I'm sooooo jealous to be able to see while parrots would be amazing and you have them in your back yard so to speak. Alex sounds wonderful and he's so cute!!!

 

[Parrot Parent]

His blue is so stunning! o:

 

[Amber]

Thanks! I love his blue feathers too.

 

[Bright Star]

Welcome! Alex is gorgeous It sounds like he's in excellent hands, as well.