As a hobby, my family and I raise and sell birds.  We currently have five cockatiels, three sun conjures, and 24 finches. It is almost a full time job just feeding and cleaning up after them.  We spend close to $80 a month on bird seed alone. But if you were to ask anyone of us if it is worth it, we would say, “Sure is!” Then again if you were to ask us if we were crazy, we could say, “Sure are!”  Because we live in Florida, we have an outdoor aviary. Thank God we have understanding neighbors because the birds can be a bit noisy at times.

I’ve always loved animals growing up. I can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t have some kind of pet.  But my interest in birds started when I was about ten years old.  My mom bought my dad a cockatiel for his birthday, and I fell in love with that bird.  That was it. I was hooked.  For my 25^th birthday I received a cockatiel.  I remembered back to my first bird and how lonely it was. I decided to go out and get a mate for him.  I named my first bird, Popeye and the mate, Olive.  Guess what.  Popeye turned out to be the female and Olive was the male. To this day we still call them by their original names.

After my aneurysm, I moved down to Florida, and I brought Popeye and Olive with me.  My parents had about 15 finches at the time. We used to let them fly free in our screened-in pool area.  Soon we realized that the cockatiels liked to chew on the screens and large holes quickly developed.  We lost a few of the small finches who escaped through the holes and several panels of screen had to be replaced.  This is when we decided to build an aviary just for the birds. We had to keep the cockatiels and conjures in their cages so they wouldn’t destroy the screens in the aviary.  The finches continue to fly free though.

Over time we got 3 more cockatiels, and two sun conjures, which we hoped to breed. The cockatiels have been very productive and we have had many clutches.  It takes about 21 days for the eggs to hatch after they are laid.  Then about two weeks later my Mom begins to hand feed them with an eye dropper and a special baby bird formula. The babies become used to human touch and are very friendly.

When we bought the sun conjures, we were told that they were a pair. It turned out that we had two females. So we got a male. So far we have not had any baby conjures but we are still hoping.  Our finches on the other hand are very productive.  The type of finches we have are called Lady Gouldian Finches.  They are small and have beautiful colors.  It takes about four months for the colors to develop completely. The combinations of colors are absolutely fantastic. It is exciting to see the colors develop as they mature.  We do not hand feed the finches.  The parents make sure they are well fed after they are born. It’s fun watching the parents feed them and finally wean them.  Both parents take turns sitting on the eggs before they hatch and feeding them while they are young.

Since I am unable to speak, I have trained some the cockatiels to sing and talk using my DynaVox V.  I taught my first male cockatiel, Olive, to whistle the theme to the Andy Griffin show. I downloaded the theme from the show onto my DynaVox.  I played it over and over until he learned it.  Now as soon as he hears it, he joins right in and sings along. In the cockatiel family, it is always the male that sings, whistles and speaks.   I also taught him to say, “Pretty bird” and “I love you.”  With the conjures it is different.  The females have learned to say,” AFLAC”, and ”Are you all right?”.  They think my Mom’s name is Aflac.  Every time she is near they say, “AFLAC.  Are you all right?”

I guess by now you have figured out that my whole family love animals.  I have told you a lot about the birds and now you understand why my title is: “This Blog is for the Birds.”  But we also have two dogs, Oreo and Cody.  They are both males.  Oreo is a Papillion and Cody is a Bischon. We have papers for Oreo and we couldn’t believe it when we saw that Oreo’s mother’s name was Olive and his father’s name was Popeye.  That is the truth and with that amazing fact I will end.