Bobby34231
New member
As some may know I just adopted a CAG named Ashley, I was asked to share the story of how we came into each others lives, sorry I haven't posted sooner or been here on the forum as much as I usually am but I've been spending most all of my free time with Ashley as she's still in quarantine at the rescure till her test results come back and we know she's free of disease as I have other birds in the home that would be at risk, I should know Tuesday at the latest, if all is well she'll be comming home then.
Ashley is 17+ years old, a 1993 hatch from California, I sent out her DNA Tuesday for sexing and got the results back yesterday, much to my surprise I was right, she is a female, I rarely guess right....lol, (thanks avian biotech for the quick results, I highly recommend them) anyway, I'm sorry to say I only know about the last four years or so of her life, I'll start with the last week and a half and work my way backwards as the story was told to me, last Thursday the 28th I recieved a call from one of our rescue coordinators asking me if I was still looking for an african grey to adopt and I said I was, she gave me the phone number of a woman that was frantic to find a home for a CAG that she used to be the guardian of, now we go back about four years ago, the woman who I contacted and her boyfriend bought Ashley and had her about three years before they broke up, the woman, even though she couldn't really handle Ashley as she would bite her quite often was the primary care giver, making sure she ate healthy and was well taken care of, shortly after the break up Ashley started plucking, needless to say, her level of care was much less than she was used to, so the guy decided to sell Ashley to a young woman who was a close friend of the couple, she had Ashley for about 6 months, in that time her feathers grew back, her weight was good, and much to the surprise of the woman who was the caregiver for the previous 3 years, while visiting with Ashley she stepped up, gave kisses and didn't bite her, she couldn't believe it was the same bird, now comes the sad last couple of months, after having Ashley for only about 6 months the young woman fell on hard times and could no longer care for Ashley, so unfortunatly she gave her back to the guy that she originaly got her from, he needs to go out of town for a couple of weeks, so he asks an ex-roomate to watch her while he's away, the roomates is in poor health but agrees, so while out of town the guy gets himself in some legal trouble and gets arrested and placed in jail, where he still remains, shortly after Ashley was moved to the roomates house he finds out he's highly alergic to her, so she was placed in the back of a dark spare bedroom in a hallway between the room and a bathroom in a niche like a small closet, fed only a harts mountain parrot seed diet and kept in a small 18x18 cage, Thank God the roomate also knew the ex-girlfriend and managed to get a hold of her and let her know what was going on, unfortunatly for Ashley a couple of months late, so that brings it back to last Thursday when I got the call, as it was fairly late in the afternoon I was going to arrange to go Friday and pick up the bird, but in talking to her she said the man was so ill and unless I could come then and there he was going to call animal services to come get her, I jumped in my truck and headed over there to meet her, when we got there the man was sitting in a recliner coughing his head off and told us where Ashley was, there were no lights in the room so it was hard to see what we were looking at, I tried to coax her out of her cage and she was screaming and attempting to bite my hand off, who could blame her, I decided it would be easier and less stressful to towel her and place her in a small travel crate for transport, neither the woman or myself were prepared for what we saw, poor Ashely had mutilated herself pretty badly, and her cage was filthy and full of roaches, to say I couldn't get out of there fast enough would be an understatement, between the dark room, the smell and the tears rolling down my face from seeing the condition she was in I was tripping and falling all over the place, I placed her inside my truck, threw her cage in the back of the pick up said thanks to the lady and tore out of there, I felt bad for the woman as she was in total shock, having never seen Ashley in that condition or understanding how she could be kept it such horrible conditions, I talked to her later and assured her she did the right thing by calling us and getting Ashley the help she needed, the first couple of days were pretty rough, she would run and scream if you even went near the cage to change her food and water, I've got her eating pellets and fruits and veggies and other goodies, I've been spending an average of about 8 hours a day with her at the rescue, at first just sitting and talking to her, to having her step up, to going outside on a perch and getting daily showers, while trust has come fairly quick for both of us I'm still vary careful to allow things to progress at her pace and comfort level and not mine, I can't wait till she comes home
Being so long and drawn out I hope this wasn't as hard to read as it was to write, though it will be a highly gratifying story when all is said and done in the end, it's one I hope no one has to ever experience for themselves
Ashley is 17+ years old, a 1993 hatch from California, I sent out her DNA Tuesday for sexing and got the results back yesterday, much to my surprise I was right, she is a female, I rarely guess right....lol, (thanks avian biotech for the quick results, I highly recommend them) anyway, I'm sorry to say I only know about the last four years or so of her life, I'll start with the last week and a half and work my way backwards as the story was told to me, last Thursday the 28th I recieved a call from one of our rescue coordinators asking me if I was still looking for an african grey to adopt and I said I was, she gave me the phone number of a woman that was frantic to find a home for a CAG that she used to be the guardian of, now we go back about four years ago, the woman who I contacted and her boyfriend bought Ashley and had her about three years before they broke up, the woman, even though she couldn't really handle Ashley as she would bite her quite often was the primary care giver, making sure she ate healthy and was well taken care of, shortly after the break up Ashley started plucking, needless to say, her level of care was much less than she was used to, so the guy decided to sell Ashley to a young woman who was a close friend of the couple, she had Ashley for about 6 months, in that time her feathers grew back, her weight was good, and much to the surprise of the woman who was the caregiver for the previous 3 years, while visiting with Ashley she stepped up, gave kisses and didn't bite her, she couldn't believe it was the same bird, now comes the sad last couple of months, after having Ashley for only about 6 months the young woman fell on hard times and could no longer care for Ashley, so unfortunatly she gave her back to the guy that she originaly got her from, he needs to go out of town for a couple of weeks, so he asks an ex-roomate to watch her while he's away, the roomates is in poor health but agrees, so while out of town the guy gets himself in some legal trouble and gets arrested and placed in jail, where he still remains, shortly after Ashley was moved to the roomates house he finds out he's highly alergic to her, so she was placed in the back of a dark spare bedroom in a hallway between the room and a bathroom in a niche like a small closet, fed only a harts mountain parrot seed diet and kept in a small 18x18 cage, Thank God the roomate also knew the ex-girlfriend and managed to get a hold of her and let her know what was going on, unfortunatly for Ashley a couple of months late, so that brings it back to last Thursday when I got the call, as it was fairly late in the afternoon I was going to arrange to go Friday and pick up the bird, but in talking to her she said the man was so ill and unless I could come then and there he was going to call animal services to come get her, I jumped in my truck and headed over there to meet her, when we got there the man was sitting in a recliner coughing his head off and told us where Ashley was, there were no lights in the room so it was hard to see what we were looking at, I tried to coax her out of her cage and she was screaming and attempting to bite my hand off, who could blame her, I decided it would be easier and less stressful to towel her and place her in a small travel crate for transport, neither the woman or myself were prepared for what we saw, poor Ashely had mutilated herself pretty badly, and her cage was filthy and full of roaches, to say I couldn't get out of there fast enough would be an understatement, between the dark room, the smell and the tears rolling down my face from seeing the condition she was in I was tripping and falling all over the place, I placed her inside my truck, threw her cage in the back of the pick up said thanks to the lady and tore out of there, I felt bad for the woman as she was in total shock, having never seen Ashley in that condition or understanding how she could be kept it such horrible conditions, I talked to her later and assured her she did the right thing by calling us and getting Ashley the help she needed, the first couple of days were pretty rough, she would run and scream if you even went near the cage to change her food and water, I've got her eating pellets and fruits and veggies and other goodies, I've been spending an average of about 8 hours a day with her at the rescue, at first just sitting and talking to her, to having her step up, to going outside on a perch and getting daily showers, while trust has come fairly quick for both of us I'm still vary careful to allow things to progress at her pace and comfort level and not mine, I can't wait till she comes home
Being so long and drawn out I hope this wasn't as hard to read as it was to write, though it will be a highly gratifying story when all is said and done in the end, it's one I hope no one has to ever experience for themselves
