Introducing: Pricho

I am still not completely set on the name, so Pricho is his "working title" for now. :) Ficho-Pricho is one of the nicknames.

He is a Fischer's Lovebird, whereas Ciro was a Peachfaced Lovebird. I got him, somewhat unexpectedly, exactly 2 months ago, on St. Patrick's day. He was wearing his green for that day! :) He is 4 months old now.

I knew I wanted to get another bird after Ciro's passing. And I knew I wanted a lovebird. I was thinking of slightly different color, maybe more yellow than green, just so that it doesn't look too much like Ciro. And I wanted a male. Well, after few weeks of search in Austin, I discovered that Lovebirds are really hard to find here. Big stores, like Petco, Petsmart, and Thomilson's, do not offer Lovebirds any more because of some disease that is very common among them and is very contagious to other birds. Smaller stores also didn't have them, and I couldn't find any breeders in Austin that have them. I got in touch with several little pet stores I've never heard of before, bird rescue centers and such, but aside from budgies and cockatiels, they all deal with much bigger birds. I posted adds and requests on different sites, and the best I got was to wait until summer when the mating season is in full swing. I only found one place, Gallery of pets, who happened to get 3 chicks from someone with an abusive hen, and because the store was now handfeeding them, they jacked up the price to 4 times more than breeders in other cities! Not cool. Plus, those little ones were all green, like Ciro, and I wanted some yellowish.

I was willing to wait few months. In the meantime, I researched cages, as I knew I wanted to get a bigger one, and Ciro's cage was no longer in best shape. It was almost as hard picking out the cage as it was picking out my new car! :) Many bigger cages have thicker and more spaced out bars, which are not suitable for small birds. And I had a list of other requirements: both large and smaller doors, rounded top, removable grate, both vertical and horizontal bars,... I am very happy with the one I ended up getting.

Before actually purchasing this cage, I decided to check out a bird fair that was coming up in Temple. I've never been to a bird fair, but I read that they usually have birds, cages, toys, food all for usually much lover prices. I went hoping to maybe find this cage there, get some toy making supplies, and if I was really lucky, find the yellowish lovebird. I brought the small cage with me, for just in case. The whole experience was quite overwhelming. There were not that many exhibitors as I expected, so not that many birds, no cages similar to what I was looking for, no toy supplies, and no yellowish lovebirds. The lovebirds that were there were four blue masked (4 months), one all yellow lutino (1 year), and four Fischer's (8-10 weeks).



So, since I knew I wanted a young bird, so I can tame him quicker, only Fischer's were an option. I circled around, talked with my brother and mom over skype, touched to try to figure out which ones are male, asked around if anyone knew of Peachfaced breeders, and circled some more. The lutino happened to be owned by a lady I knew from St. Edward's choir, but it was too old for me, not the right color, and just not in the best shape. Finally, after about three hours of decision making, I decided to get one (out of two left by that point) Fischer's! The breeder, Stacey from south of San Antonio told me that she actually gets many of her birds from a breeder even further south, and that he has many peachfaced lovebirds, so I was torn weather I should wait or not. But I am happy with the decision I made. I got me (what Stacey thought out of those four, was) an 8 week old baby lovebird (2nd from the left on that picture above).

Day 5: standing on my hand and eating outside of the cage

He (I got him DNA tested two weeks later, so I know for sure I have a boy :)), has been really sweet! And such a quick learner. The first evening he was already eating millet spray as I held it inside his cage, the next day he ate if from my palm, and third day he was already willing to step up! I had the breeder clip his wings, so we don't run into a similar situation like with Ciro flying into a glass door on the 3rd day I had him, but I will not clip again once his new feathers come out later this year. Since he can fly only short distance now, and was young enough not to yet be too afraid of people, has been warming up rather quickly.

Now, after two months, he can step up from outside of the cage, fly to me for a treat, comes to my shoulder for a ride, lets me scratch his head (which is huge), give him kisses and pick him up in my hand (another big one!). He loves playing with (many) toys in his cage, enjoys shredding cardboard and wood toys I give him, is very talkative, and smart figuring out his foraging toys. I built him a tree stand, so he enjoys hoping on there, but still rather stays near the cage. I assume that will change when he gets more confident with flying. Right now he often lands on the floor, and I have to pick him up (good thing he wants to step up), so I think he feels a bit unsure when he gets too far from the cage.

The fact that I got him so young makes a huge difference. He just learned to fly and eat on his own a week or so before, so even though he was not hand-fed, he didn't yet have time to get afraid of hands and humans. It was much easier to build the trust bond with him than with Ciro, whom I got when he was 3 months old, and been sitting in the store for a month. He was wild! With Ciro it took me two months to just be able to put my hand inside the cage without him going all nuts. This little one lets me hold him already. Such a cute, smart little bird! I see a great future ahead of us. :)