Parrot Lover of the Month- August 2011- Nancy Donaldson
We Learn That UnPellet Mix is Not Just For Parrots and That Homing Pigeons Don't Always Know How to Get Home!
We know that some of you nibble on some of your Phoenix Foraging Rolls foods when you feed them to your parrots. that's fine because all of our products are made from human grade ingredients. But we hadn't heard of them being fed to other types of birds until now. Nancy Donaldson is home most of the time and is in a wheelchair. So her birds are important companionship for her. Nancy tells this story about her homing pigeon, Blessing:
"Blessing arrived at our house unexpectedly. She came to the storm door and pecked on it, then walked around the porch and came back to peck again. She knocked on our door for about 30 minutes when we decided to open the door and see what happened. She walked in and got up on Jeff's chair. We put her in one of our wire dog crates and kept her in a quiet room for about a month. When she arrived here, she was terribly emaciated, covered in mud and missing her tail. The avian vet said she was basically healthy but had likely lost her way and been attacked by a predator. She had no band but knew the command to step up. We found a really big wire crate and fitted it with perches. I had to learn how to feed her because pigeon food comes in 50 lb sacks. I mix dove food with split peas, lentils, barley, brown rice and pigeon/chicken vitamin supplement. We've had Blessing for 5 years now. We have no idea of her age. She's a beautiful bird and was likely part of a flock before she came here. People raise white homing pigeons and rent them out as "doves" to release at weddings and funerals. If they used real white doves, once they are released they would just fly away. If they release white homing pigeons, they look like white doves but will go back to their loft. Blessing just lost her way.
When I was in the hospital for my amputation, I was gone for 2 months. At the same time, Jeff was working in Kansas. We had a house/pet sitter staying here. Blessing went into a depression and started just sitting in the back corner of her cage. We took her to the vet. She got a physical and was so happy to be back home that her depression lifted. I was running a little short of food for Blessing so I gave her some of the food I had gotten from you for Samson. Blessing loves several of the items. She eats the rice, the lentils and other small seed type foods. Being a pigeon, she doesn't eat cooked food or fruits/veggies. She is not able to eat things like the corn because she can't crack them open. She's a picky eater but ate everything I gave her from Samson's food. She loves brown rice and I bought a bag of Crispy Rice Snacks. She ate all the brown rice and left the black rice in her bowl. LOL! I guess I'll be ordering extra of her favorite foods!"
Samson is Nancy's male Eclectus. Nancy also has eight small dogs, three of which were rescues. They have a room with their crates and it also has a gate to keep them away from the birds. Nancy calls this their "gated community." Two of the dogs have learned how to put their paws under the grate of the birds' cages and scrape out any food that was dropped and eat it. When they were doing this recently, Samson went down and looked at them and said "Whatcha doin'?" Samson entertains Nancy with other expressions that he learns from a variety of situations. He learned to yell "Help!" from watching Grey's Anatomy with her. He also likes to watch the ventriloquist, Jeff Dunham, and he laughs every time the audience laughs. Samson enjoys reggae music but if he gets too excited, Nancy puts on classical music and this calms him down.
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