From: roberts@studguppy.lanl.gov (Doug Roberts)
Newsgroups: rec.pets.birds
Subject: A bit long, but submitted nevertheless...
Date: 13 Oct 92 23:28:51 GMT
Organization: Technology Modeling and Analysis, LANL-A7

Hello, everyone. Here is a draft of an article that I'll be submitting
to either BirdTalk, or perhaps another like-minded magazine soon.
Enjoy, make comments, whatever...

--Doug





Douglas Roberts                             About 1900 words
2064-D 42nd Street                  First N.A. serial rights
Los Alamos, New Mexico 87544       not a multiple submission
(505)667-4569 - O
(505)662-5817 - H




                      Spike and Bandit

                             by

                      Douglas Roberts
                            and
                         Eb Cravens


The Mercy Purchase

First, let me say that we didn't need another bird: we al-
ready owned five parrots. However, a year after we first saw
the ragged little Goffin's cockatoo we ended up bringing him
home.

It was about a year and a half ago that my wife, Ingrun and
I walked into a new pet store in Santa Fe, New Mexico. We
were impressed that the store was clean, and that they
seemed to care for the animals.  Then we rounded the corner
to the bird section and immediately changed our minds.
Behind the glass wall facing us were several miserable-
looking imported parrots in _tiny_, bare cages.  The Goffin
caught my eye. He was constantly in motion, climbing around
and around the confines of his 12" X 14" cage. No toys, fil-
thy water, seeds: unfortunately typical pet shop fare.
Although it's difficult to determine the age of a parrot
after it has reached the age of five or so, this one looked
like he had a few years on him -- I estimated that he might
be around ten years old. He also looked like he'd been
through hell. His feathers were in terrible shape, one nos-
tril was enlargened (eaten away, actually) from a previous
bout with sinus infection, and he was skinny.

Ingrun and I discussed it: we already had one young Goffin
that we were hand-raising. Maybe he and this wild one could
become friends.  The condition in which this wild Goffin was
being kept, although typical of many pet stores, was
depressing. We also know that one shouldn't succumb to "mer-
cy buying" impulses, because that just encourages the pet
store to carry more imported birds.

However...

The price listed for the wild Goffin was $269. I asked the
clerk to call the store owner and offer $200. The offer was
rejected, and so we left the store. We spent the rest of the
day feeling depressed about that poor miserable bird.

A full year later, we happened to be in that same shopping
mall, and I decided to check out the pet store again to see
if things had improved any. Guess what, that same wild Gof-
fin was in the same tiny cage.  Again, I asked a clerk (dif-
ferent clerk) to call the owner and again offer $200. This
time the owner agreed, and we took a wild, screaming bird
home with us.

The New Member of the Flock

We named him Spike, because of his tough-guy attitude. Spike
is a survivor. If he wasn't, he probably wouldn't have lived
through the ordeal of capture, quarantine, and at least one
year of solitary confinement (who knows how many other
places he'd been held since his release from quarantine).
The first thing we did was to to let Maynard, the green-
cheeked Amazon "lend" Spike his 24" X 24" X 36" cage (tem-
porarily, of course). Maynard was happy to move back to a
smaller cage for a while -- he's pretty easy-going about
stuff like that. The next thing was to give Spike  plenty of
fresh hookbill seed, water, and toys.  We continued his seed
diet knowing that the process of weaning him off of seeds
and on to a more healthy diet would take time. A wild parrot
that is suddenly denied all seed will often starve itself
rather than adapt to a foreign diet.

The toys! He acted like he'd never seen toys before. After
just a few hours I could peek into the bird room and find
him gently beaking the twenty dollar plastic parrot toy I'd
bought for him. His other favorite plaything turned out to
be a piece of knotted-up cotton clothesline which he'd hang
on to with one foot while chewing the knots to shreds.

People terrified him. When either Ingrun or I would approach
he cage, he'd scream, and leap to the back wall where he'd
hiss at us until we left the room. For that reason we left
Spike out of the twice-daily social time we have with our
birds to give him a chance to adjust to his new surround-
ings. The other five birds have a routine: first thing in
the morning, I cart them all downstairs to their perches and
we have breakfast together. The others are Jezabel, a double
yellow-headed Amazon; Sancho, a blue-fronted Amazon; May-
nard, the green cheeked Amazon; Maggie the severe macaw; and
Igor, the other Goffin. After breakfast, they all go back to
their (now cleaned) cages. We have the same routine in the
evening. They all come down for dinner and play time, and go
back to their cages by 8:00 for bed.

Spike watched this twice-daily migration suspiciously for a
week before his time came to participate. During that week I
built another perch for him. Our living room has become de-
cidedly crowded with all the perches, and yes, our non-
bird-oriented friends think we're a little strange.

I waited until Saturday morning to include Spike in the rou-
tine.  First all the other birds went downstairs. Then,
armed with a two-foot stick (for stick-training, of course)
I opened Spike's cage and stepped back. He surprised me --
he was out of the cage like a shot.  Other wild birds I've
trained required a significant amount of encouragement be-
fore they'd leave their cage for the first time. It seemed
that I had an extrovert on my hands this time. I spent the
next ten minutes trying to get close enough to the scrawny
little Goffin to start teaching him the "Up!" command with
the stick. When I finally did get close enough, he got on
the stick just long enough to use it as a catapult. It would
be days before I could get him to stay on the stick long
enough for the trip downstairs.

I ended Spike's first training session by wrapping him in a
towel and carrying him downstairs to his new perch. I must
say that we had everybody's full attention as I deposited
the screaming, struggling bundle of beak and feathers on the
new perch. Ten seconds later, there were birds everywhere!
Spike decided to go perch hopping, displacing Amazons, ma-
caws, and the other cockatoo in his wake.

Well, things eventually settled down. As the months passed,
Spike gradually became an accepted member of the bird fami-
ly. He now joins in with everybody during their morning and
evening vocalizations, and he eagerly waits for his twice-
daily ride downstairs for food and company. I still haven't
been able to get a hand near him, but he is comfortable rid-
ing the stick, and he no longer shrieks and hisses when I
come close and talk to him. Unfortunately, our plan for
Spike and Igor to become friends, possibly even cage-mates
didn't work out.  Igor was terrified of Spike from the first
instant he saw him. Igor would flee, crest up and shrieking
like the devil himself were after him if we attempted to
bring them together.

In the mean time, Igor's feather plucking habit was getting
worse. We had tried all the normal approaches to curing him:
a checkup by the vet to make sure the cause wasn't physio-
logical, changing his toys often, administering vitamin sup-
plements, and giving him plenty of extra attention. We fi-
nally decided that Igor was simply bored being in his cage
all day, even if he did have five other roommates.  We went
looking for a compatible cage-mate for Igor.

This Bird Likes Cockatoos

We had purchased Igor a year ago at Feather Friends in Santa
Fe, New Mexico. Feathered Friends is a nice bird store,
where people are welcome to wander through the aviary and
handle the birds. We explained to Darlene, the owner, that
we had finally decided to get Igor a cage-mate. Eb, the shop
manager suggested that we look at Bandit, a little five year
old black-headed caique. "Bandit likes cockatoos", he said.
"Watch."

He put Bandit on a branch near a young Goffin's cockatoo,
and the little caique immediately scooted over to the Goffin
and proceeded to groom the larger bird. We removed the Gof-
fin and replaced him with a large umbrella cockatoo. Bandit
stretched to the limit of his reach and started grooming the
large white bird that was easily twice his height. The um-
brella, obviously well-acquainted with Bandit, obligingly
lowered his head so that Bandit could reach it easier.

"He's smaller than a Goffin", I said. "Would it be safe to
put him in the same cage as Igor?" Before either Darlene or
Eb could answer, a large eleonora cockatoo wandered over to
see what his umbrella buddy was up to. I watched bandit
transform himself into a miniature feathered "pit bird". He
growled and aggressively beaked at the eleonora, telling him
to stay clear.

"Bandit can take care of himself", said Darlene. "He backed
a scarlet macaw down this morning when the macaw tried to
eat out of his food dish."

"We'll take him."

Igor Meets Bandit

"Shriek!"

"Igor's afraid of him." Ingrun was ready to admit defeat.
Igor's first reaction to Bandit had been to raise his crest,
flare his wings and weave threateningly. When that didn't
work, he screamed and ran behind Ingrun.

"Give them time to get acquainted", I said.

By the end of the day Igor (still a bit mistrustful) and
Bandit (happy as could be) were peacefully  co-existing in
Igor's cage. By the end of the week, Igor was comfortable
with Bandit sharing his quarters.  Now, a month later, Igor
still doesn't let Bandit groom him, but he is sufficiently
occupied during the day that he hasn't plucked once since
Bandit joined him.

Bandit Meets Spike

In spite of Darlene's assurances that Bandit could take care
of himself, I was hesitant to introduce Bandit to Spike, the
wild Goffin.  However, one morning Spike looked especially
lonely sitting on his perch after having finished his break-
fast. I decided to let Bandit try his charm on Spike. I
transferred Bandit over to Spike's perch and stepped back,
ready to intercede if Spike showed aggression.

Bandit looked around, saw Spike, and seemed to think to him-
self, "Hey!  you're another cockatoo. I like cocaktoos!" He
waddled over to Spike, leaned up, and almost touched Spike's
neck before Spike overcame his astonishment at the nerve of
this new interloper. Spike raised a foot and shrieked, say-
ing very clearly, "Get back over there!"

Bandit seemed to shrug it off, and went over to Spike's food
dish and finished Spike's breakfast. A few minutes later, he
eased back over to Spike and reached out again with his
beak. Spike opened his mouth as if to warn Bandit off again,
and instead, lowered his head and offered his neck to Ban-
dit.

The rest of the morning (I stayed home an extra hour to
watch those two) Spike followed Bandit around begging to be
groomed. After who knows how many years, Spike finally had a
companion. We now have an established routine. Bandit spends
his mornings and evenings with Spike, and his days with
Igor. Spike has never seemed happier, Igor isn't plucking,
and Bandit loves it!

We don't know how much tamer Spike will ever get, but thanks
to Bandit he's clearly much happier than he's been in a very
long while.
--

==================================================================
Douglas Roberts                |
Los Alamos National Laboratory | All good work is done in defiance
dzzr@lanl.gov                  |  of management. -- Bob Woodward
(505)667-4569                  |
==================================================================
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