New Home for Smokey

This is probably the last post about Smokey the African Grey Parrot.  I hope you don’t find it boring.  We’ve been having such beautiful weather that I have been working outside part of each day.  Maybe I’ll actually take a picture soon.

The place I worked went to a 4 day week, 10 hour days.  Then my family obligations increased.  Most days I was gone 12 hours.

Poor Smokey had a bare neck from picking himself.  I had no time to give him.  So the best solution was to find him a better home. 

I had him surgically sexed and found our assumption that he was a “he” had been correct all along.  There is no other way to tell for sure what sex an African Grey is.  I think they now do hormone tests on fecal matter. 

The vet was one I had found by asking around.  Vets don’t usually specialize but they kind of do and this vet was good with birds.  He had a baby scale modified with a perch so he could weigh the little buggers.

I watched for ads for someone who might want him for breeding.  They bond very strongly with their person and I was worried about that.  I figured maybe a girl African Grey parrot could replace me.

I finally found an ad for a White Capped Pionus parrot that said they would trade.  We met at their apartment. 

Smokey took a flyer off my shoulder and landed on a cage much like his at home.  We spent a long time discussing all his tricks and the words he knew.  I was impressed that they wrote down what I said as we talked.

Of course, the Pionus bit me when I picked him up.  We had an off again, on again relationship.  He never talked for me, they don’t talk much.  But he wasn’t as temperamental about the time I spent with him. 

We ended up trading for a while to see if it worked.  A couple of weeks later they called to say a friend of theirs had visited and when Smokey heard her voice in the next room he started talking a blue streak.  This woman kept foster children and raised birds.  So they gave him to her.  What a perfect solution.

Several weeks later we visited him.  He came to me right away, rolled onto his back along my forearm and made the puffing sound.  He wanted me to blow on his tummy.  I did. 

He was well feathered, no more bare neck.  He had the run of the house, ate off their plates for dinner.  He was spoiled rotten, still.  I never visited him again.  I didn’t want to disturb the bond he had made with his new family. 

Later….