FEATURE


heads. I had a plan, now to find the birds! Again this was not the easiest but a lot easier than Brotogeris. I first found a young Blue head male on


the Isle of Wight and after exchanging phone calls and pictures with the seller Rickie I was on the ferry with a carrier to pick up my first ever parrot. I’ve kept lots of finches, canary, gamebirds, etc before but parrots interact with you so this felt like a real pet. This young male was one of five that these people keep. The parents in their living room along with a pair of macaws and the Pionus bred in a standard pet parrot cage right next to the massive macaws which looked strange and amazing. It was also there I saw some Parrot Society magazines lying around and asked Rickie about the Society, as a new Parrot keeper I wanted all the information and contacts I could get so decided to join as soon as I could. When I got young Ozzy home (all my


parrot names come from the rock/metal music world as I am a big music fan) he very quickly started interacting and made a great pet. He was parent reared but Rickie and his family regularly take the babies out to play with them and do a lot of interacting so although he’s not hand reared he was almost the same He ‘stepped up’ from day one so I think this is a good alternative to hand rearing if you are not always at home or other commitments. If you can without the


parents taking your fingers off, it’s something I will be try in the future with some of my babies to see how well it works for me. Ozzy was quickly joined by ‘Von D’ a young female Bronze Wing as I really wanted both breeds, she is a hand reared bird from ‘Riverbank Aviaries’ in Norfolk, I had real trouble finding a Bronze Wing back in 2011 now there seem to be a few more around. Roz at Riverbank was and is a great help for advice and I went back there as she found me a unrelated male ‘Sixx’ from her friend so I could make an unrelated pair. The problem was the Blue head male started to show classic pairing


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