Hello, my name is Jeremy, and I live in a zoo. Not a regular zoo, mind you, with entrance fees and support staff.. no, my family and I live in our own private zoo, consisting of 11 cats, 3 dogs, and most recently two birds. Most are rescues with physical or emotional problems, so things are often interesting.

It all started a few months back. My wife had mentioned on several occasions that she wanted another bird (her first was killed 5 years ago by one of her golden retreivers), we were passing one of the better pet stores in the Austin area and she tells me to stop, she wants to see if they have any hand-raised lovebirds. I figured i'd go along with it, I'm more of a cat person, but if it makes her happy I could tolerate a bird. Well, they didn't have any lovebirds, but I did get to hold my first bird, an adorable OWA named Dexter.. I was intrigued. "So birds aren't just wild animals or cage decorations?" Still, she wanted a lovebird, so off we went to a significantly less awesome pet store (that shall remain unnamed). There she fell in love with a little peach faced lovebird that had been returned by his first owner as a biter. Oh he was bad (my hands have the scars to prove it -- hence my username), but she had to have him. The thought of him living in a little rabbit cage, on the bottom row of cages, with no toys and no interaction with people or other birds got the better of us, and we brought him home.

"This is not a lovebird," I told her several times. "This is a hatebird." But we both love a challenge, and set about the task of rehabilitating Loki (named both after a giant from norse mythology, and a play on the words 'low key', which he isn't), and not much later he's now more lovebird than hatebird.. still a little cage agressive (making progress on that daily), but very sweet once he's out, and we just adore him.

That was the beginning. This past weekend we were at the first pet store (Gallery of Pets, one of the best pet shops in Austin IMHO) again, looking for a heated perch for Loki, and met Oscar, the most adorable little green QP I'd ever seen. He was another return.. his first owner couldn't care for him, so they brought him back to the shop to resell. He'd plucked out his tail feathers and they say he was molting, but he was just too cute.. again we couldn't resist, and after a night of researching online, calling every bird person we knew for advice, we brought him home.

He's just the sweetest little bird.. bigger than most quakers I've seen, but a gentle giant, and we're looking forward to many years with him and Loki and the rest of our zoo.

welcome Jeremy and fids. i too live in a zoo and we should should charge admission. As you can see on my signature we have a wide varity of critters and are ever growing. Our newest additions are Barney and Juanita, they are Azureus Poison dart frogs. They will be joine this weekend 11/15/08 by another pair of yellow ones, (unsure of the name). Since the addition of the vivariums there are also cultures of wingless fruit flies for the frogs. Yes, I am a push over for my hubbie. I am working on his sympathy so I can add another bird to my flock!

QP are cool little green chickens with the spunk of a cobra and the lungs of a monkey in heat. I wouldnt trade it for anything.
Please post pics soon!

Welcome to the forum.You might just find that there are a few of us who have large animal families too.

It's always nice to see other large animal families.. too many people look at me very strangely when I mention the size of our menagerie, but once in a while I come across someone similarly minded.

I am glad to see you rescued those little guys. I use to rescue macaws and cockatoos back in the late 70s. The first one was a B&G macaw that the guy said was mean because it raised its wings and screamed at him. He left the room, I took it off its perch and left. We adopted our Qp and he is quite a character!

I can't wait to see what he will do next and hope you enjoy your friend, too!

Mark

Congrats Jeremy. Looks like they found a good home

welcome, jeremy! i think it's awesome that you took in 2 birds that were returned like damaged goods. i hope they bring you years of happiness!!

Finally got a couple of pictures of Oscar and Loki, pardon the focus issues, I'm not used to the autofocus on my wife's camera.

Welcome to the forum,Jeremy~! I think we might be related,as I live in the annex of your zoo(LOL) Seriously,it's nice to see that there are others that have big animal families..We have 6 dogs,4 birds,10 fish,one turtle,all ours,and then there are the "rescues" that seem to always be in attendance....which reminds me,I'd better go and check the front door,I swear it's revolving

Welcome Jeremy, Oscar and Loki (and the rest of the zoo )! Nice to hear that other people have large families like some of us on here. I just joined a new bird club and I could tell by the area the club was started in that most of the people there were going to be a lot more wealthy than I was and I thought "cool... they're sure to have lots of birds." WRONG! I was right about them all being wealthy (clothes, cars they drove etc.) but each couple had like, ONE bird. Here I sit in torn up jeans, Nikes and the confession of being owned by 9 parrots, 2 canaries and 4 finches (not counting two dogs and two cats who like to live outside). Sheesh! I must've been red as a tomato on that one. But they're a good group and I'm trying to infect them all with MBS (mulitple bird syndrome) so I'm not the only one there with eleventy million birds. Looking forward to more pics of your mob. How does Oscar do without his tail? I've seen African Greys without tails but never a Quaker. Does it mess up his balance?

welcome to the forum. this is such a nice story to read.

Welcome! And I love your story, too. As a matter of fact, someone called me "Mrs. Noah" just yesterday...

Welcome and yes its great to see someone with losts of animals! As Renee see we really want to infeact the our fellow bird club members ha ha! We both belong to the same club and it was rather shocking to hear they only had one bird ber family! Oh well! Not for long! After they see how much her and I have they will want more! You can see by my siggy I have a few birds not to many!

Just one bird? Now that I have my two, I couldn't imagine only having one.. and we've already decided to be on the lookout for others that need a home, the house just sounds so much happier now with the two of them chattering away in the background, coughing along with me (as Loki started doing today) while I try to shake the congestion I picked up this weekend visiting Chicago, and just generally being happy little guys. I suppose we could be closer to being wealthy if we didn't have all of these pets, but I wouldn't trade'em for anything.

Oscar's tail is growing back nicely now, but he was a little wobbly for a while. We attributed it to his being young, but now that you mention it, his missing tail probably had a lot to do with his balance issues.

Today he showed us just how crafty he can be: my wife Barbara was home sick, sitting in her recliner reading. She looks up, and there he is, clinging to the outside of his cage. The best we can figure is he opened up one of the small food/water doors on the side and climbed out, so I got to spend my lunch securing him a little better.. with as many predators as we have running around the house, I really want to make sure he stays in when we're not around to supervise.

Just shot a few more pics of the rest of the fids: In the first picture, Bailey the white persian, Daisy the golden retreiver mix, and Dusty, the westie/basset hound mix. The second picture is of Bella, the calico, then Sparkle, the other calico in the third. Next is Max, the orange and white puffball, then Sandy, then Tina, the crazy siamese, and Cuddles, who is currently shaved after becoming hopelessly matted. Finally, there's Tigger, our latest stray, who showed up at our door one day and decided to stay. He's currently missing, my MIL "forgot" to feed him while we were out of town from Thurs through Sunday, so I'm sure he wandered away and we just need to wait for him to come home. We also have a couple of cats that are effectively feral.. they eat our food, but we can't touch them, or even look at them too long without them getting scared and running.