Barney and I love to just lounge on the sofa watching tv. He huddles on my chest, close to my neck as I give him scritches. He is a wonderful stress-reliever and would love to just be with me 24/7. he will occasionally go to my husband if he has some goodies to share - like bananas, wheat thins, grapes, apple juice...

I can't believe it has been so long since my last post!

Well, Barney is doing very well with us. He has really become bonded with me and will go easily to anyone else, especially if he knows that, that person will bring him to me. :-) when he is on his cage however, he has a tendency to be a bit territorial to anyone but me. with me, he comes running to my shoulder.

Barney has been successfully eating zupreem fruit pellets since his conversion from seeds to pellets. he has now shown interest in eating harrison's pellets! which is optimal. so i will start slowly converting him to an all harrison's pellet diet.

he still loves tomatoes freshly picked from the garden, including any lettuce, snow peas, beans I also grow. he has learned to drink from a cup. we have tried offering some sugar free fruit popsicles to him but he still finds them either a bit too scary or a bit too cold to come near.

he's a wonderful companion and he loves to follow me around like a puppy dog. :-)

here is barney playing around...

Barney had is vet appointment yesterday. He is getting tested for pretty much everything just to be safe - liver profile, chlammydia (sp?), pacheco's disease, CBC, any bacterial infections, etc.

he got his nails trimmed and his beak cleaned.

the dr. said that knowing that he was on an all-seed diet, his feather condition was to be expected (it is not as healthy as it could be). and even though he was on an all-seed diet, the dr. was slightly surprised that barney didn't have any weight problems or any eye problems (being on a seed diet would normally raise the cholesterol levels in a bird, which would tend to make parrots (especially amazons) obese. High cholesterol levels in the blood can also lead to cholesterol deposits being left in the eye, which can eventually cause blindness.

but barney's weight is good, there are no signs of fatty, lumpy deposits around his body, eyes are clear, nose is clear (although the dr. mentioned something about the hairs around his nostrils). no abnormal signs of growth in his mouth, ears are clear.

we should be getting some results back by tomorrow.

poor barney was so exhausted after that vet visit...but he was a good boy. didn't bite a thing except for the towel that he was wrapped in. i bought him a pretty cool new toy at the vet's office (wow, they have a great selection of cool toys!). i decided not to give it to him yesterday after all that stress, but i will introduce him to it during the weekend.

Barney is a great, perfect bird for me. he lets me grab him without a fuss if he gets into "bad" areas, he won't fuss when i take him outside with me and keep me company as i do my garden work, and he doesn't beg for food like the other birds do in our house (thank the hubby for that!).

it has been 6 weeks since we welcomed him into our home as a member of the family, so he is technically out of quarantine. my schedule has been so busy lately i have not been able to set a vet date for his wellness checkup, but he is now set for one - september 4th at 3pm with the vet that we really like (and who we use with our own parrots).

we are not sure about whether he plays well with other parrots, but we do know now that he doesn't really care for another blue front amazon that we are currently fostering. he got into a little skirmish with the other guy (barney actually started this). luckily no one was hurt. just a little lunging and feet going up.

we will probably try to introduce the other amazons in this house to him, one at a time - strictly supervised - but slowly. i will let barney just hang out on my shoulder while sitting in the living room with the other parrots on their own play areas....just for him to get used to seeing them from afar.

barney doesn't really care for the showers we take, but he takes it. he loves tomatoes, jalapenos, pasta, wheat thins...OH, and a BIG change has happened! barney is now COMPLETELY converted to pellets! YEP! okay, not the best kind of pellets - he is eating the zupreem fruit blend pellets (he loves the yellow ones) - but better than an all-seed diet! he gets a few seeds as a treat and if he feels like foraging in certain areas of his cage (i hide them) but none in his main food dish. i've noticed that his poop is a lot better formed since the conversion.

anyways, that is what's new with barney. i will be sure to post some new pics of him soon!

barney enjoying the outdoors with me...

Barney hanging out with me in the garden