JULY - AUGUST 2004  

Baby news, well let's see we have just had Jesse and Jodie hatch 5 out of 5, and then we got Misty and Noah who surprised Jo when they only laid 4, but hey they hatched all those four!  Jo is now feeding three of the little farts and I expect more will be pulled soon.  So you see, we'll also be back on course next month in the picture taking dept!  9 babies in all and 8 with plum eyes.  We have linnies just itching to get nestboxes, but Jo is trying to hold them off so she can work around her days of being away.

We had a real nice bird gathering last weekend.  Us Atlantic Canada Bird Lovers have a Yahoo group called just that!  Atlantic Canada Bird Lovers!  Every year we have an annual gathering, pot luck supper, door prizes, we even had a boing making demonstration this year (which sure helped Jo as she had two almost done, just could not figure out how she wanted to finish the ends).  Doris from Chewzy Beaks who is part of our group was really good to us and sent down a whole lot of toys for us to buy up, Jo took and set up a table of Healthy Bird Supplies, Terri and Andy set up a table of bird foods and books, Susan set up a table of bird toys, so let's just say our homes of birds were real happy to see us come home!    We have members from all over the Maritimes.  We have had the event for two years now in our town of Moncton as it seems to be central for everyone, but we'll see what next year brings. 

As you can see Jo has the Poicephalus Page started, but far from completed.  She is going to put in all the standard information, but finds it hard to decide what to do about the rest.  Sure she can fill it up with loads of information from books and the internet, but no two stories of information are the same, so she'd sort of just like to talk about hers and their habits she thinks!  Just imagine what that page is gonna look like when the babies come along!  Pictures glore!! 

Now she also has to get her act in gear and get the Hahns page up as well.  Summar seems to be just a hard time to get anything done!  We now have both pairs of Hahns in the house with us and Jo is in her glory.  She loves to listen to them chatting up a storm.  Lou knows one or two of them is talking.......Jo thinks it's Bonita and Peppe......we just can't be sure yet.  She now has Bonita and Peppe eating all their foods, but boy's oh boy's Guiseppe and Belladonna are sure not cooperating!  They love those apples, and well maybe a bit of this and a bit of that, but not much!  Now Bonita and Peppe, ya there's no denying they love those apples, but they'll eat any fruit going, love/devour their pumpkin bread Jo makes, beans, veggies, etc. They are doing really well. Same goes for Gillian and McGinnis and Tex *( used to be Willy, but Jo says he did not look much like a Willy!) and Sasha are little gobblers.  Chum and Rosa on the other hand, well they eat their pumpkin bread (which of course Jo has loaded with everything) but are giving her a hard time on the other good foods. 

Finally, folks we have babies again!  Course thats Jo's fault as she was not allowing them to nest.  We have nine beautiful little lovebird babies.  Four are spoken for, but we still have five available if your interested.  The little gafer looking up into teddy's eyes is going to be a beautiful cinnamon or silver pied and is going to live in N.S. when he/she grows up with some other babies from Tiny Rascals.  This lady is now a retailer of Healthy Bird products for Jo in N.S. and as usual, started with one lovebird.  Then she came back for two more.  Now she has two more on order as well as a senegal baby, which we "hope" will be born very soon.  Oh and we must not forget she also has a cobalt linnie of Jo's! 

Funny, Jo was going back thru history last week and thinking of all the close friends she has made thru selling birds.  What's even better is the amount of folks that before knowing Jo never had a bird.  Now she dosen't have enough fingers to count the folks that not only have one, or two, or three or four, but lots and lots of birds and just love them to pieces!  Addicting, oh ya, one is NEVER enough!  One friend of Jo's has two of her lovebirds, one of her linnies, another on order, a senegal from a good friend of Jo's, a gray, two budgies and today is getting her first cockatoo!  All these birds are pets and all spoiled rotten.  Another lady started with one of her lovebirds, then a linnie, then another linnie, than ANOTHER linnie, now she's waiting for another lutino linnie and one of Jo's Hahns babies.  The list just goes on and on.  Birds just bring so very much joy to our lives.

And now I guess we had best get to telling you bout all the pictures Jo has posted!  First off we have posted a picture of Evan with their new cockatoo, compliments of Kelley (that would be the human Mom).  As you can see that is a lot of bird with lots of fun to go with him.  About this beau you can see a picture of their Nibbles and Carl.  Nibbles is a cobalt linnie and as you can see, one of his favorite pass times is preening Carl, the lovebird.  Let us remind you that this is the exception to the rule of thumb, as normally these two species would sooner spat with each other, than kiss up to each other.  Carl really does not realize that he has feathers, he thinks he is one of the human kids and deserves ALL the attention. 

Then let's see we have posted pictures of our new little babies growing up.  These little guys are being scooped up (O.K. reserved!) quite quickly.  By tonight there may be 7 out of nine spoken for.  We tried this morning to get some nice pictures of their flights feathering in for you, but it is still really hard to tell their beauty by a picture.  Another week or so and we'll have some beauty pictures.

Now should we tell you about Jo's first BIG parrot bite.  Dear old Chum got her good the other day.  Jo's fault 110% and she knows it!  She has the ends of their cages covered as they seem to like a lot of privacy when nesting.  SO this being said, Jo was doing the fruit round early afternoon.  She looked in, did not see Chum, so assumed he was in the nestbox visiting Rosa.  So she opened the door, reaches in to do a quick changes of papers and imagine her surprises when out of the shadows comes Chum and latches onto her finger as quick and as hard as he possibly can.  Took Jo completely by surprise!  She was stunned for a minute, stood there grinning and bearing the pain as to throw him off would be nothing short of cruelty.   Finally her brain gets into gear and she grabs a piece of paper with the other hand, scunches it up and dangles it in front of his face to divert his attention.  Praise the lord it worked (as Jo knew it would) and he lets go and back up to his perch he goes.  Jo praises him for being a good boy and handfeeds him a treat.  You see Chum really is a super good boy and as Jo said, she knew this was all her fault as she did not see him there and scared him.  Next feeding break, Jo was smart enough to check the floor before opening up, and sure enough, there he was again on the floor eating a big hot dried chili pepper he had dropped.  

Now if you don't think for one  minute Jo is not on Cloud Nine!!  Not only does she have her nine beautiful lovebird babies (all spoken for), but she has three orange breasted senegal babies so far and two (at least) red belly babies hatched today.  There may be three but dear old Rosa won't move over and Jo sure ain't gonna disturb her.  You see, Rosa only started sitting after the third egg was laid, so really she could have three hatch today!  You can hear Chum all over the house, the proud Daddy has  been just strutting his stuff!  When Jo looked yesterday and saw all four eggs, sitting straight up, she knew (or should I say was hoping) the eggs were gonna start hatching!  Jo is just over the world!  She had just made a fresh lot of pumpkin bread two days ago, but decided today that they should have another batch made with all finely chopped veggies in it.  She knows they love their pumpkin bread.  As  a lot (o.k. more than a lot!!) of the veggies get thrown overboard out of their dishes,  and this way she knows they are getting them.  She even cooked a fresh batch of beans and put in it.  Yes we have to admit, all the nutrition is not there, as anything is better raw than cooked, but at least they are getting some of the good.   Nothing is too much work  to ensure nice healthy chubby babies!!   Her senegal babies are huge she says at just a mere 7 days old for the oldest and now her delimina is when to pull to ensure the bands fit.  Normally it would be 14 days, but she is seriously reconsidering this one!!!  She is going to see what the rest of the day brings for the last egg. 

 Just here for a sec folks.  Sunny, me next door here, face down, pooting cause my dinner's not ready yet.  Whole lot bigger than those lovebird babies huh!  Don't I just have the cutest little chubby toes you ever did see! Yep, you guessed it, Jo pulled us all!   Picture below with our teddy keeping guard, is all four of us napping after finally getting our dinners! 

Senegal pictures hot off the press folks.  First off we have Sunny, then we have Kane, (Jo has just dubbed these names as she figures she can't go around saying Hey You for the next 12 weeks!), then we have Gabbie and last we have Radar.  As you can see the first two have not had supper yet, but Gabbie, well that's another story.  That little tyke sits right up and gabs the whole time Jo is trying to feed her.  Hence the dirty face pictures, Jo could not resist! 

Finally Jo has got you a picture of Misty up here!  Misty is her little red belly baby and man oh man is she cute!  Sits right up as you can see.  Jo's trying to feed her and she is all over the place.  Jo has not figured out where she is trying to go yet, but she never stops!  Now that Chum and Rosa don't have the babe to tend to, they are right back to their old selves.  If ever you might be a little in the dumps, 5 minutes with Rosa and Chum and your spirits are revived!  Their main objective, to get out of their cage, and and of course for Jo to stand and hand feed them treats!  Jo knew Chum could talk, well now it's non stop talk when she goes to visit, but always the same line "What's ya doing".  She's convinced she heard Rosa mumbling yesterday as well, but has to pay closer attention to what she is saying. 

How about the two little lovebirds!  Jo has been feeding those two since day 1, matter of fact one of them hatched in her brooder.  THeir parents are first time parents and really these little tykes were not supposed to be here till Wednesday.  So Sunday Jo thought she was O.K. to do her usual big clean.  WRONG.  She moved their cage a bit and low and behold they got upset and LEFT the nest.  No way they were going back.  She tried to foster the babies to Pig Pen who is laying now, but Pig Pen was having no part of feeding them.  Sure she would keep them warm and take control of the rest of their eggs, but sure ain't feeding the babies.  So Jo took over.  So far so good, but with little ones this small it's always touch and go.  Around the clock Jo's been going since Sunday!  By gosh, the little white eyed Tyke is just full of spunk and can give a hollow louder than Sunny or Misty!    As you can see, also has no pride, "taking a poo as Jo is taking a picture"!

Gotta run folks, but stay tuned as next month there will be loads more pictures as all these wonderful gems grow up and show their true colours!

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