How We Met...

I thought I would add some background to this story:

I first saw Barney's picture in a craigslist post, whose poster was trying to look for a new home for him. I was just smitten with his good looks! As an added bonus, the poster wrote that he was very friendly and would warm up almost anyone.

I wrote back to the poster and inquired about Barney - asked more about his personality, vet history, eating habits, etc. Come to find out he is a very people-friendly bird who has only once gone to the vet (around when he was born) and he prefers greens over fruit (weird, huh?!).

It was after a few emails when I decided I would like meet Barney in person. His current companion brought him out to my home and we got to spend some time with him. To my surprise, he easily stepped up on my hand, as well as my husband's, and felt so comfortable with me that he fluffed himself twice on my hand. It could've been him being on his best behavior in an unfamiliar setting, but he just looked comfortable. He made noises and talked for us, he even did a great wolf whistle! And if I even started the wolf whistle, he would finish it for me. It was really cute!

Barney allowed me to hold his feet between my fingers, which was great - shows me that I can restrain him on my hand if we were to go outside and i can prevent him from flying off (although his wings are clipped).

Barney was very inquisitive - probably wondering where all the other birds (who were making a bunch of noises) were. He also tried to climb down a cage we use as a playstand out in our living room, which his companion said he normally never tries to do (climb to the ground).

Comparing him to Bentley and Herkimer (two blue front foster parrots that we take care of), Barney is small in size, with proportionally smaller feet and feathers. What did I first think? Perfect for my smaller hands! :-) Barney was just awesome. I truely believe we can offer him a good home. We sometimes like to go on outings with the birds, and Barney will definitely be a wonderful addition. He will help us to inform people about parrot personality and adopting from rescue organizations (although Barney is not a rescue bird - to make that clear. He just needed a new home).

In two weeks after receiving Barney, I will take him to his first avian vet visit with us. Since we have other birds in our home, we want to make sure that he doesn't have any internal problems with viruses or other things. I will wait 2 weeks because if I were to take him to the vet soon after getting him, his stress levels could cause a false positive for infection.

Tonight, we will be getting the cage ready and filling it up with toys. We have a radio which just needs some fresh batteries (Barney's companion person said that he really liked listening to music or watching cartoons...when we are not home, he can listen to some tunes on the radio).

Okay, next post will be after Barney comes "home". :-) I will post pictures of him then.