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| Welcome to Sandspur Villa Aviaries This is a special forum for parrot owners and the exotics who love them. If you enjoy chatting about that special bird or lizard in your life, if you need advice on how to choose the right species for you, everything, from your lifestyle, such as how much you travel, or if you smoke, to how much space you have for a cage and play area set-up, and of course, your budget, must be taken into account. Smaller birds like finches can become quite an expensive past-time for many people, while the more costly, first-time purchase of a macaw, congo or cockatoo may be the only substantial expense you find yourself making. Veterinarians don't tend to base their fees on the size of your bird, and food for your pet is an almost unnoticiable expense, unless, like us, you become afflicted with "parrot fever" and find yourself purchasing 50 to 200 pounds of feed at one time. Everyone is different, and their birds equally so. Many people find that their parrots are perfectly content playing with almost anythng they can find around the house, from shoe strings to car keys. Others invest quite a bit in toys from the pet store. You'd be amazed just how quickly a macaw or cockatoo, and especially a conure, can take a toy apart. :> Not to mention, window blinds, window screens, wood trim inside your house, electrical wire insulation, important books and papers, clothing, jewlery, the list is endless. If you feel that's just too much risk to take with your personal items, remember that, like children, they seem to get into the most trouble when we ignore them, when we don't have that quality time to love them and let them love us back. In the 14 years that we at Sandspur Villa have been involved in the care of parrots, and later with iguanas and goats and chickens, each a complete surprise to us, we have made many mistakes, had many successes and built many dreams. The day that we discovered and fell in love with "Cinnamon," our very first parrot, we had no idea that one day we would have more than 100 birds enriching our lives every day. And certainly we had no clue of the pain that we would feel the first time we lost one of them...and every time since...it is inevitable, that over time, some would pass on...sometimes after being with us a short while, and others after years of bonding. It hurts just as much now as it did that first time. Having a lot of birds doesn't make that any easier, at least not for us. So, when people ask us, as they often do, "should I get another bird to keep the one I have company?" almost invariably we will answer "yes." The old myth that getting another bird means that your first one won't love you anymore is nothing but bunk. It might not always be a good idea to house them together, you might even choose to purchase a different species altogether, but regardless, only the most demanding parrots, particularly the cockatoos, seem to have any objection to adding another little happy person to your home. |
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| "Juliette and Jiggles..." Juliette is an American Lutino Parakeet, and she is large for her species. Most of the larger parakeets tend to be of the British variety. Her "bodyguard" is "Jiggles," a Cinnamon Pied Cockatiel Male. Unlike many other birds, cockatiels and parakeets co-habitate quite well. Of course if you want to breed either species it's best to keep them seperate...Parakeets tend to fall in love with cockatiels at the drop of a hat... |
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