Frito Wants a Corn Chip

Frito is a wonderful, funny and verbal African Grey in our rescue. One of Frito's favorite sayings is, "Frito wants a corn chip." His former owners apparently knew of this addiction to corn chips, hence his name Frito (I'm assuming here but it does make sense). He loves his toys and really enjoys throwing whiffle balls around his cage and trying to chase them. You might wonder why such a wonderful Grey is still in the rescue and not adopted. The answer is simple. Frito is terribly disabled. He was born with Hypocalcaemia due to his egg laying mother not receiving the proper calcium supplements while laying eggs. I won't bore you with the medical explanation to all of this but simply tell you the outcome for Frito. The bones in his legs were so soft that they bent under his own weight at he grew. Multiple fractures occurred in his hip and legs. I cannot imagine the level of pain that he endured in the first few months of life. As his diet provided more calcium, his bones slowly hardened and set. The result is that Frito's left hip sticks out from his body at a 45 degree angle and then bends back forward with his leg turning inward in a horizontal line. His right leg is also skewed and his feet don't fully grip. In short, he doesn't "look" right. 

When Frito came to us, we had a quality of life consultation with two avian vets. We were concerned that he was in constant pain. After Xrays and careful manipulation of both legs and hips, it was determined that he was not in active or constant pain. He was put on a medication that would help with the early onset arthritis he had developed. The problem with Frito and everyday life was two fold. What kind of cage could we put him in. He couldn't really walk. He kind of trundled or rocked on his legs like a weeble and when he is tired he simply grabs the grate in the cage bottom and pulls himself along by his beak. We solved this by adapting a large high quality guinea pig cage on wheels. it gave him a long area to roam in horizontally and was was not too tall so that if he pulled himself up the sides by his beak and luck, he wouldn't have far to fall. We hung toys from the sides so that he could reach them and play. The second problem wasn't as easy. Due to the pain of bones breaking in his early life, he was terrified of hands and being handled. Hands equaled pain and he wanted nothing to do with it. Frito would see hands coming toward him and start screaming and thrashing so hard that he would fall over and not be able to get up. This made changing his cage hard and traumatic. For months, I would end up crying when his cage had to be cleaned. 

I wanted to be able to comfort him and hold him but I had accepted that that time would probably never  come. I spent countless hours on the floor by his cage gently playing a game of touching through the bars and talking quietly and calmly. Some days he bit me, others he would finally put his head down for me to give a two second scratch. Fast forward eight months. One day, I had the side door opened on the cage and he was learning out toward me ---- and he fell into my hands! I was shocked and so was he. I slowly lifted him to my shoulder and loved on him for all I was worth. He let me for 20 wonderful minutes, making little beeping sounds and rubbing his head on my shoulder. I finally shifted to see how to put him back and he panicked, thrashed and screamed. I quickly and gently placed him back in and got a quick fear bite from him. I closed the door and spoke quietly and he stopped screaming. He waddled to the door and pushed his beak through and beeped at me. I wiped the blood off my finger while crying, not from the bite but because after all those months, I had hope.

Hope and a twenty minute cuddle - that is why I do this! Frito will probably always be with me because  I have seen how people react to his deformities. It makes some people uncomfortable. I don't mind because I am madly in love with him, but they sure don't know the courage, humor and love they are missing out on from this little guy.

Here is one view of Frito's left leg.

What? You Mean My Parrot Might Not Be That Into Me??

Recently, I have begun to draw parallels between rearing kids and fostering/raising parrots. I don't do this to minimize or marginalize parenthood. I am definitely still a parent and it is the hardest job ever. I love it almost 99% of the time! The same is true about parrot rescue and parrot ownership. Sadly we have all been led astray with the "fairy tale" version of bird ownership. You know the one...the bird instantly loves you, never poops on you, loves everyone it meets, never gets hormonal, never bites and has a vocabulary of 1000 words. Your neighbors never hear the bird or they think that his/her evening calls are like sweet music.  <queue the violins here for a crescendo> The bird lives sixty years and you both pass gently away together, ending the perfect bird/human relationship. WAKE UP!!! That just doesn't happen! Birds are unique creatures, each with their own personalities, strengths and weaknesses. Just like toddlers, they have good days and bad days. Recently my Jardines parrot has been in a "mood". I have been very busy, my mom was in the hospital, we had new parrots come into the rescue, my daughter had the nerve to sound like me (which got her bitten.) My son, Michael, happened to catch Jasmine biting me for the first time in years. He was shocked and offended! "You have fed her since she was a baby, you clean her cage, you take her outside, she gets to eat near the dinner table. She doesn't even realize how good she has it." I wish I could have recorded that, seriously. I stared at him a minute and I said, "everyone has a bad day once in awhile and Jasmine is just tired of me right now." He paused a minute, looked at me and said, "Your bird just isn't into you right now? Is that what you mean? That's kind of pathetic, mom. You and the birds are making me crazy." He strolled down the hall to the kitchen where he proceeded to eat the food that I had made and put out.

Jasmine my Amazing Jardines

Just as I don't take it personally when my teenagers/young adults say thoughtless things (with no malice intended); I try not to take it personally when one of the birds that live with me are having a bad day. The good Lord knows I have had plenty of them. Sometimes, just sometimes, I get tired of certain people too.

I have seen birds end up in rescue because their owners are convinced that the birds no longer "loves" them. This is so sad. All parrots and people go through seasons (hormonal and otherwise). Try to remember, it's not always personal. Your love-bug might have gotten up on the wrong side of the perch. Hormones may be raging through your bird that would make a teenager's hormones look tame. Sometimes birds are getting sick or having a physical problem that they are masking and their only communication option is to act like a jerk. If this has happened to you or you feel like it is happening, reach out to other bird people for help, ideas and encouragement! Don't give up! Even when it hard and all the birds are throwing their expensive, organic fruit and veggies on the floor like its the worst food ever (which two of mine are doing right this minute!) Start asking questions, watch for clues, because maybe it's just not about you.