Foxers Artist -??

[MiniMama]

Just curious - are you doing parrot rescue? I was looking at your photo bucket videos - there are lots of birds. Are you your own org, or are you working with someone else?
I liked your videos, BTW. If I didn't know any better I'd think you were the Patron Saint of Parrots. Clearly you have a gift with them, and its very soothing to see you with your birds. Anyhow, just curious how you came to be where you are at with them.

Take care, Kari

[FoxersArtist]

Hi Kari,
Thanks for your advice about Ziggy and his head bobbing. I know that their excited, fun-loving body language can turn into a display of nerviousness and that is certainly something I will watch for. Our blue and gold, Peggy Sue can have the same body language when excited but it becomes a bit more rapid when she is upset. It's so important to understand their body language so you can give them exactly what they need.

To answer your question - my husband and I run our own rescue in NM. I wish I had a website for you - we're working on it, but we also have one and two year old children to care for and that makes most of our projects slow going. Our website in the future will be Welcome to the Frontpage. There are no major avian rescue organization in our area and NM is not a very bird savvy place. Even though we are small scale, we feel that what we do is critical to helping the birds in our area since resources are limited. We take in between 8-10 parrots at a time and work with them until the right home comes along. God knows what he is doing because we never get phone calls about birds until right after most of our current fosters have been adopted! We have 14 of our own including 6 cockatiels, 3 small parrots, and 5 larger parrots. Many of "our" flock are rescues that we decided to keep in the past, though I feel very strongly about avoiding rescue burnout by making sure most of the birds in our care find homes who can take better individual care of them than we would be able to if we kept them - even the extra special or rare ones like CAG Sunshine and Astrial Conure Rico. Even many birds who would otherwise be bound for a sanctuary could really benefit from finding individual homes to take more specialized care of them and we have no place keeping them for ourselves. All of this being said, I feel called toward helping specific umbrella cockatoos who struggle with being pets and am hoping to build an indoor habitat for these guys in the future. This will all depend on funding and how many people are willing to help see our goals through.

I appreciate your complement about my working with the birds. I feel that I have a special understanding with birds - and not being afraid of a bite really helps too! The bottom line is that birds are birds and accepting them for whatever they are going to be at the time can be the best thing one ever does for them - no strings attached and no emotional investments to be made in their "friendliness" factor. When someone brings me a bird and complains about it's quirks, I don't see a bird that is broken or needs fixing. I see a bird that is unique for exactly who he is and let him decide where he wants to go from there.
-Anna

[MiniMama]

Thanks for the reply!
My favorite video was of hte little plucked cockatoo that was nibbling at your feet. If you have a chance you'll have to give us an update on her.
And if I'm ever in the New Mexico area I'll have to stop by.
Take care, Kari

[kellywess]

I love those MINIS.