I don't think I've told Xander's story here, I hope not because I'm telling it again
The way I ended up with Xander was also due to my friend who helped me get Darwin.
I had stopped looking at Kijiji, there were far too many birds who needed homes and it depressed me to see it.
We had decided we weren't taking in anymore birds for awhile and that was another reason to stay away from Kijiji.
So my friend called me one morning and asked if I had seen the Alex for sale on Kijiji. That I needed to go look at him because he desperately needs a new home.
At first I refused to go look, but finally after she sent me the link multiple times I opened it, and immediately emailed the people who had him. He looked so terrible, his feathers were filthy and he had a lost look on his face.
We emailed back and forth and I learned that his previous owner, who was elderly, had fed him a diet of chips, pop, whatever Xander wanted.
The person ended up having to rehome him, and these people got him.
She told me that they couldn't stand Xander's screams, and the best thing to do was keep him in a small cage in their bedroom with him covered 24/7.
She said he had a big cage that they kept in the living area for when he was good, and I would get both of these cages.
We went to get him, and he was shivering he was so terrified. He flinched every time the people touched his cage while they were talking to us.
He was never in the big cage, it was obvious it had come from storage because there was zero room for it in their living area.
Here are the 2 cages he came with, he was living in the small one with those 2 perches. We added everything in the big cage and went out later that day to get some wood perches. They had said that they had a lot of perches, but there were 3. The 2 in the small cage and another sand perch in the big cage.
On the way home, he was still in the cage they kept him in, and he finally got up off the bottom and stood on a perch and started saying hello to us. I wish I could describe his tone, there was fear and sadness in it, with a little bit of hope that maybe we were different.
We usually kept birds names when we got them if they knew their name, but he cringed every time we said "Ziggy" so we changed it to Xander.
We had him in quarantine away from the other birds, and I decided to give him a mist bath. The minute the water touched him he dropped to the bottom of the cage and just shivered. They had used water as a punishment and I was so horrified that it hadn't even crossed my mind that I would retraumatize him. It took a long time for him to learn to enjoy a bath, once he was in with the rest of the flock that helped quite a bit when he saw that they loved it. He now wants to be completely soaked.
He settled in pretty well once he was with the other birds, and now shows no fear at anything.
He was 12 when we got him so he is now 20.
Here are a couple of pics of him. The first is the day we brought him home, the second was a few months later. The difference in his expression makes me cry every time I look at these.
I'm so grateful that my friend forced me to look at him, and that he became a member of our family ( and @GaleriaGila's family!)
The way I ended up with Xander was also due to my friend who helped me get Darwin.
I had stopped looking at Kijiji, there were far too many birds who needed homes and it depressed me to see it.
We had decided we weren't taking in anymore birds for awhile and that was another reason to stay away from Kijiji.
So my friend called me one morning and asked if I had seen the Alex for sale on Kijiji. That I needed to go look at him because he desperately needs a new home.
At first I refused to go look, but finally after she sent me the link multiple times I opened it, and immediately emailed the people who had him. He looked so terrible, his feathers were filthy and he had a lost look on his face.
We emailed back and forth and I learned that his previous owner, who was elderly, had fed him a diet of chips, pop, whatever Xander wanted.
The person ended up having to rehome him, and these people got him.
She told me that they couldn't stand Xander's screams, and the best thing to do was keep him in a small cage in their bedroom with him covered 24/7.
She said he had a big cage that they kept in the living area for when he was good, and I would get both of these cages.
We went to get him, and he was shivering he was so terrified. He flinched every time the people touched his cage while they were talking to us.
He was never in the big cage, it was obvious it had come from storage because there was zero room for it in their living area.
Here are the 2 cages he came with, he was living in the small one with those 2 perches. We added everything in the big cage and went out later that day to get some wood perches. They had said that they had a lot of perches, but there were 3. The 2 in the small cage and another sand perch in the big cage.
On the way home, he was still in the cage they kept him in, and he finally got up off the bottom and stood on a perch and started saying hello to us. I wish I could describe his tone, there was fear and sadness in it, with a little bit of hope that maybe we were different.
We usually kept birds names when we got them if they knew their name, but he cringed every time we said "Ziggy" so we changed it to Xander.
We had him in quarantine away from the other birds, and I decided to give him a mist bath. The minute the water touched him he dropped to the bottom of the cage and just shivered. They had used water as a punishment and I was so horrified that it hadn't even crossed my mind that I would retraumatize him. It took a long time for him to learn to enjoy a bath, once he was in with the rest of the flock that helped quite a bit when he saw that they loved it. He now wants to be completely soaked.
He settled in pretty well once he was with the other birds, and now shows no fear at anything.
He was 12 when we got him so he is now 20.
Here are a couple of pics of him. The first is the day we brought him home, the second was a few months later. The difference in his expression makes me cry every time I look at these.
I'm so grateful that my friend forced me to look at him, and that he became a member of our family ( and @GaleriaGila's family!)
