- Aug 29, 2018
- 27,068
- 37,642
- Parrots
- Fang ({ab}normal grey cockatiel), Valentino (budgie), Jem (cinnamon cockatiel), Lovejoy(varied lorikeet), Peach (princess parrot)
Ok, so you know how sometimes you walk into a shop meaning to buy one thing, and you come away with something totally different? Well, that happened to me just this last Saturday.
Hubby and i went grocery shopping, but before that we needed to go to the hardware store, which just happens to be right beside a pet store. Lovejoy needed some more lorikeet food, so we popped into the pet store to grab that, and in doing so we saw this ...
... a sweet little princess parrot with, horror of horrors, a single wing clip. I SO wanted to buy her on the spot, but for starters we already have a flock of four, and we'd need to buy her a new cage for which we really have neither the budget nor the floor space in our small house for, plus the extra vet bills and all sorts of other unknowable considerations. I left the pet store in tears, subsequently cried my way around the grocery store, and when I got home I spent the afternoon doing the maths and the geometry in my head, trying to think of ways to make it work, so that maybe I could find a way to be able to bring her home after all. Finally I decided, you know what, there are dozens of reasons why I shouldn't do it, but only one reason why I should, and that reason is pictured below. So may I please introduce you all to the newest and most unexpected member of our family, the very beautiful and completely adorable Princess Peach!!
It's only very early days, but she has slotted in with our existing flock very well, and she is already COMPLETELY besotted with Lovejoy!! She has been to my avian vet for a check up and has so far tested negative to a lot of health conditions that are fairly common in princess parrots here, but I'm still waiting on the results of a test for psittacosis which may take 3 weeks or so to come back. I am accustomed to getting results of that test within 24 hours but apparently the one and only lab in the world that made those tests doesn't make them anymore, and the remaining PCR test takes much longer to get a result. So as my vet is fairly sure she either has something lurking now or has had it in her recent past, for both her and the rest of my flock's safety we have started her on a 6 week course of antibiotic injections to combat anything current or lingering. I have also had her vet perform a feather implant procedure to restore her wing - shockingly enough she was able to fly pretty well even with that awful clip but she would never have been able to keep up with the rest of the flock and may have done herself a terrible injury had she tried to do so. Here's a pic of her having just had her implant done (with a BIG shout out to Dr Adrian and the team at Brisbane Bird Vet, they always do amazing work!) ...
... and another from today, with her wing restored!
Now, as to her name, naturally there's more backstory behind that too. According to the store, they sold her to someone else prior to me, and they were the ones who named her Peach. Apparently however, they returned her to the store because they were unable to "manage" her, I have no idea what they meant by that, perhaps it may have been because she is actually VERY NOISY for such a little bird. It's not constant screaming, but a very loud contact call is a feature of her species, so perhaps that was a factor. I've decided to stick with her name because it actually does suit her, and given her species it's pretty much inevitable that "Princess" would get tagged onto it. I *was* gonna leave out the Super Mario "Toadstool" bit but the more I think about it, that's pretty cute too! She's had a rough start to life, and I can't help but wonder if a certain other "Princess" might just have made me take a detour into that pet shop on Saturday, the whole thing certainly seems to have Lilly's magical little claw prints all over it
Hubby and i went grocery shopping, but before that we needed to go to the hardware store, which just happens to be right beside a pet store. Lovejoy needed some more lorikeet food, so we popped into the pet store to grab that, and in doing so we saw this ...
... a sweet little princess parrot with, horror of horrors, a single wing clip. I SO wanted to buy her on the spot, but for starters we already have a flock of four, and we'd need to buy her a new cage for which we really have neither the budget nor the floor space in our small house for, plus the extra vet bills and all sorts of other unknowable considerations. I left the pet store in tears, subsequently cried my way around the grocery store, and when I got home I spent the afternoon doing the maths and the geometry in my head, trying to think of ways to make it work, so that maybe I could find a way to be able to bring her home after all. Finally I decided, you know what, there are dozens of reasons why I shouldn't do it, but only one reason why I should, and that reason is pictured below. So may I please introduce you all to the newest and most unexpected member of our family, the very beautiful and completely adorable Princess Peach!!
It's only very early days, but she has slotted in with our existing flock very well, and she is already COMPLETELY besotted with Lovejoy!! She has been to my avian vet for a check up and has so far tested negative to a lot of health conditions that are fairly common in princess parrots here, but I'm still waiting on the results of a test for psittacosis which may take 3 weeks or so to come back. I am accustomed to getting results of that test within 24 hours but apparently the one and only lab in the world that made those tests doesn't make them anymore, and the remaining PCR test takes much longer to get a result. So as my vet is fairly sure she either has something lurking now or has had it in her recent past, for both her and the rest of my flock's safety we have started her on a 6 week course of antibiotic injections to combat anything current or lingering. I have also had her vet perform a feather implant procedure to restore her wing - shockingly enough she was able to fly pretty well even with that awful clip but she would never have been able to keep up with the rest of the flock and may have done herself a terrible injury had she tried to do so. Here's a pic of her having just had her implant done (with a BIG shout out to Dr Adrian and the team at Brisbane Bird Vet, they always do amazing work!) ...
... and another from today, with her wing restored!
Now, as to her name, naturally there's more backstory behind that too. According to the store, they sold her to someone else prior to me, and they were the ones who named her Peach. Apparently however, they returned her to the store because they were unable to "manage" her, I have no idea what they meant by that, perhaps it may have been because she is actually VERY NOISY for such a little bird. It's not constant screaming, but a very loud contact call is a feature of her species, so perhaps that was a factor. I've decided to stick with her name because it actually does suit her, and given her species it's pretty much inevitable that "Princess" would get tagged onto it. I *was* gonna leave out the Super Mario "Toadstool" bit but the more I think about it, that's pretty cute too! She's had a rough start to life, and I can't help but wonder if a certain other "Princess" might just have made me take a detour into that pet shop on Saturday, the whole thing certainly seems to have Lilly's magical little claw prints all over it
