The boy (teenager), who used to live next door, came over one day, and asked if I wanted another bird, and told me that his friend, was looking for someone to buy his bird. When I asked him why, he told me that he wanted the money, so he could fix up his motorcycle, that he wrecked. I thought...he is thinking of that bird as MONEY!? NOT a living, breathing, beautiful, companion!? I knew then and there, that I had to get this bird away from this kid! (Get the Kleenex out now) First I had to talk the hubby into it. That wasn't too hard when I started talking of all the things this poor baby could be going thru, and then started crying. (That ALWAYS gets the hubby.) He said we were ONLY going to look, and make sure that it is ok, and I agreed to that. We made an appointment to see the bird, and went right over there. We walked into the living room of this stranger's house, and I seen the cage in the middle of the room, up against the wall. The floor around it was clean, so I could tell that it was not in the place where it usually stays. The wall behind the cage was also too clean. The boy took Chance (Petrie was her name), out of a cockatoo cage (wrong cage for her, and nowhere to climb), and held her in one hand, and a CIGARETTE in the other. I wanted to take her and run! I could see that her feet were green, from standing on the bottom of the cage, in her own feces, and her band was cruddy with it. My guess would be, that she had never had a bath! In her bowls, (cruddy, filthy bowls) was pellets, and dirty, dirty water! On the bottom of her cage, she had some rubber stuff you put under rugs, to keep them from sliding, and I asked why it was there, and he told me that they didn't like to listen to her tap tap tapping on the bottom of the cage floor, so they put that in there. Arrggg! I could see that she had taken little bites from it, and probably ATE them, along with her droppings! I looked over the bird, and could see that her nares were clean, and she was alert, and in good feather, so she wasn't in bad health. The boy went in the other room, and I looked at hubby, and had tears in my eyes, and he KNEW I wanted to get her out of there. He haggled with the boy on price, as I talked to Chance, and we took our 4 month old sweetheart home! I and hubby truly believe, if she had remained there, she would be dead today, so we named her Chance...as in second Chance at life. She had a yeast infection, and was treated promptly, while in quarantine, in my bedroom, away from Moochie

well, until she was 1 year old. At that time, she was starting to chew and shred her feathers. I took Chance came to me at the age of 4 months, and never showed any signs of illness after I got her her to the avian vet, but was told she is not sick or doing anything that will turn into plucking. Were they wrong! Chance started plucking her feathers under her wing first, so I couldn't see she was doing it, but when I gave her a bath in her bowl, which she loved, and she started flapping her wings with joy, I seen it! OMG, what do I do now? 

I took her to the avian vet, and they kept her there for a few days, giving her vitamins, and antibiotics, thinking she had pneumonia. She was sent home with me, with instructions on her meds, and what to do for her pneumonia, which was a hospital cage and a vaporizer with just water in it, which I later found out made her worse. She was getting worse, with not staying on her perch, and headshakes, and plucking till she bled, so I took her to an avian vet farther away, in Niles, to Doctor Sakas.

 He said he would have to keep Chance there, and could not send her home with me or she would surely die. Chance was there for 2 weeks, and I called every day to check on her progress, that looked very grim for the first few days. She was still too sick to do any invasive testing on her, so we just kept medicating her. They mostly fed her vitamins, and things to help her immune system. Everyone at the clinic fell in love with Chance. When I was finally able to bring her home, I was given the vitamins, and was up day and night with her, but she still plucked, and was still very sick. After that she continued to go downhill, and eventually died. It was shortly after her 2nd birthday, (Her hatch day is Feb 14th 1999). It was June 26th, 2001,when I had to say good-bye to Chance forever, and I almost lost my mind with doubt, and grief. I had not been sleeping, and was with Chance 24/7, but nothing I did, or nothing the vet did was helping. I felt so helpless, and guilty, that I could not do anything to help my poor baby to feel better. She talked to me and gave me kisses, but she was getting sicker. When she died, I had a necropsy done, and was told she had no muscle mass in her heart, and it was like Jell-O. I searched the net to learn about that and found that Greys are prone to heart problems but that it doesn't show up until they are at least 2 years old. She will always hold a special place in my heart. She loved playing ball with me, and playing on my chair with me, her baths, and hanging upside down from her cage door.

Rose