Powder and the crazy parrot

[Marrie]

I adopted Powder near the end of April, he was living in the humane society shelter since October 19th! Poor baby. They had no luck placing him because the kids who came in thought his eyes were scary.

They gave us a carrier to bring him home in and it took him 15 minutes to come out. He started exploring the house and even gave us a few sniffs. The slightest noise set him off back into his carrier though.

He met Thanos, our crazy cockatiel. Thanos tried to bite him when Powder gave him a sniff, scared the poor bunny!

(that is a picture of Thanos as a baby, he has since lost the pearls since he is male ... and grown back out his tail feathers so he isn't a duck butt anymore! And don't worry the straw was clean since the cup had just been brought home.)

First day Powder spent under our bird cage. He was scared and not quite sure about us. The lady had asked if I wanted to hold him at the shelter, but I declined as I didn't want his first experience with me to be a bad one (since bunnies hate being held).

Second day he started exploring more - he discovered the hallway with hardwood floors, but didn't want to get off the carpet.

By the third day he was out of his shell and sleeping under my computer chair. He began following me about the house, if I walked I had a rabbit underfoot. He started doing binkies the first day, but really started doing binkies and bunny 500s by the 3rd, he was going nuts with freedom!

From day one he was using his litter box, so he had full run of the house. We were putting him to bed in a cage at night, but as of a few nights ago we stopped that. He is cage phobic and I see no reason to stress him out nightly. I am trying to get him used to the cage in case he ever needs to be restricted for health reasons, but he is now allowed to sleep in our bedroom. He's quite happy about it.

This morning we were sleeping and Powder came running into the bedroom and jumped right up on the bed at 7am, on a Sunday. Argh. He was jumping around the bed like "wake up, wake up, it's time to play!" ... he got down and we went back to sleep and 15 minutes later he was up again. Gave up and just got out of bed. lol

When Powder gets his veggies now, I put a smaller pile to the side so he and the cockatiel can eat together. My tiel tries to preen him, but Powder runs like he's been bitten, think my tiel pulls out his fur when preening (given, when he preens my hair he pulls out my hairs).

And anywhere I go, I have a bunny with me. He follows me everywhere around the house, he even chased me into the bathroom for my shower this morning. He is independent enough to sleep in his room during the afternoons though for a nap and he doesn't get destructive if I have to go out.

He will be neutered soon and then we hope to adopt a second bun for him to bond with, after some thorough research on bonding!

I will get some pictures of the bird and bun eating their salads together when I get a new camera up and running. My camera battery stopped holding a charge... it was 6 years old so I need a new one anyway!

 

[jujub793]

awww it seems like he is so happy you found each other!

 

[Yurusumaji]

What a great story. I used to have a couple REW ferrets and everyone would always say they were "creepy". I always just told them to shut up. Powder is precious as a button and I'm so glad you have found a rabbit that you have bonded so well with!

 

[Marrie]

Thanks.

He seems quite happy here - right now he's in our closet sleeping, because it's dark in there he likes it.

I originally had to talk my boyfriend into a bunny - he thought they stink and were boring cage animals. Now he's bringing home bunny things every couple of days (toys, treats, chew material), laying in the floor to pet the bunny, always complains his feet hurt but he still runs around the house to get the bunny to chase him. And he hasn't even complained about the hay being all over the place! (that stuff really does end up all over)

Kelli, I agree, I just roll my eyes at people who say the red eyed animals are creepy. Or black animals, or any animal really! Their loss if they don't want to get to know the wonderful animals because the eye color is wrong in their opinion.

 

[Yurusumaji]

My husband thought he'd hate having a hamster. Then I took him to see some Roborovskis and we've had Robo for over a year now. Hubby loves him. LOL. Silly boys.

Ugh, yes! I know certain patterns, colors, etc. all appeal to people differently, but I think it's kind of bogus to blow off a pet because you're superstitious or assume they'll be evil because they look different. Honestly. :rollseyes

 

[Marrie]

Aw, hamsters are adorable. <3

Boyfriend thought the bird would be loud and skittish - he's a velcro bird that sings, talks, loves kisses and loves attention. Boyfriend said he had no idea birds would have such personality. So he should have known better than to judge a rabbit! lol He grew up in a house that just fed, watered and left animals though so he has been learning how much fun a spoiled pet can be! Now he wants a second bun for Powder.

I grew up in a small town and my mother made us make sure to lock up all our black animals inside anytime "evil spirits" were supposed to be out in the world (halloween, friday 13th etc) because some people in town would kill any black animal they crossed paths with to avoid bad luck. :rollseyes

 

[Yurusumaji]

Oh goodness! Some people are totally insane.

Our bird is hubby's baby. We have a Conure and she's a squawk-a-holic! We actually went out to pick up a fish tank and supplies, but hubbs started cooing at the birds and Phoenix kept trying to get to him. It was so cute! It took some serious convincing, but he loves his bird (and she'll be easier to move than fish).

I've never let the bird meet the rabbit just because I always assumed they wouldn't really give each other a second glance. The bird does love the dogs though, so she might actually enjoy Michiko's company. You've given me an idea!

Thanos is such a handsome guy.

 

[Marrie]

Aww, what kind of conure is she? I'm in love with green cheeks, the ones at the pet store are so adorable and playful! There was a sun the other month that was hanging by one foot off his toys at petsmart, boyfriend looked at me and said "no".

Thanos was immediately inquisitive of Powder - the second day the bunny was here our tiel flew from room to room watching the bunny to try to figure out what this big white thing was. He follows Powder around on the floor now, it's very cute. Powder even helps me put him to bed - Thanos flies down to the floor to try to escape me, so Powder "herds" him back to me.

And thanks, Thanos is my baby - boyfriend named him (after the Marvel character) but he stays with me all the time. But, boyfriend did teach him the only words he says... "turkey bird", which gets repeated constantly along with head bobbing.

 

[Yurusumaji]

LOL! Phoenix is a yellow-sided green cheek. She never got very good at talking and sometimes she'll try and it'll just be a bunch of mumbles. We can understand her when she says "Come here." and "Step down."

Phoenix likes to preen our dogs and she'll ride Apollo around. Birds are great pets. They are so funny and inquisitive.

Hubbs and I see a lot of beat-up looking conures come into PetSmart out here and we always talk about how we wish we could save them all. They're usually stuck there for months, poor babies.

LOL @ your hubbs, "no". Mine is like that, too. Every time I run over to the rat cage and squeal he does the same thing. :rofl:

 

[I_heart_Fraggles]

Good for you on your rescue. Powder is beautiful, I love NZ's myself. I saved Fraggles at five weeks from a litter that was being raised for meat rabbits. :sigh: Wish I could have taken all of em

 

[Marrie]

I just saw your blog, she is a pretty bird! I love green cheeks, they're so silly. My petsmart keeps one conure at a time, other than that they just have budgies, canaries, finches. Their conures tend to go pretty fast though and they give them the largest enclosure, with several perches, toys etc.

And your bun, omg those ears! I bet your bird would love to preen those lol

 

[Yurusumaji]

A short while ago our PetSmart had three green cheeks, a sun and a sun mix. They ended up moving the 2 scraggly-looking GC's into the biggest cage, but the others had to stay in the smaller cages. They have all since been adopted and there are no Conures in there right now.

Thank you so much. I do think Phoenix would be entranced by Michiko's ears. LOL! I think we'll introduce them on Wednesday when hubby's schedule goes back to normal.

 

[Pipp]

Aw, this is so sweet!


sas :bunnyheart

 

[Nancy McClelland]

:yahoo:

 

[Marrie]

Aww, at least you got Fraggles out of there! I know what you mean though, anytime I go to a shelter I want to take every animal home, especially the ones marked with how long they have left to be adopted.

Kelli, that is awful. Those poor conures! That is why I don't like chain pet stores - the animal care depends totally on how good the manager is and there is no standard. At least corporate started taking customer reports seriously, after getting so many animal abuse lawsuits for petsmart.

Today Powder jumped up on the bed again at 7am, I petted him a little then went back to sleep. Then this 10lb rabbit hops right on my legs, oof. He is not interested in letting mommy sleep in anymore! And boyfriend keeps keeping me up til after midnight (he's playing some strategy video game), so one of them needs to cut it out lol

I was a member of the SOE gaming community and, um, it has been down for 2 weeks but came up on Friday night, so I get to play my game again today. Woohoo!

And been having an ant invasion, for like a month now. No matter how much bait I put outside, inside, clean up, they won't go away. Cleaned off their trail with bleach, vinegar, etc and no use. *gr* Their queen must have an awesome reproductive system, I keep coming in to hundreds of dead ants in my kitchen but they keep getting replaced the next day. Tried raid, terro, hotshot, they eat the bait and apparently won't take it back to their queen. Would probably help if boyfriend learned how to use the garbage can or rinse off a dish when he's done with it, rather than leave ice cream bowls in the sink with ice cream still in them.

 

[Yurusumaji]

Ooh, which strategy game?

I had to install the new PSN update and change my password yesterday as well. The whole thing has been a nightmare, but hopefully SOE has learned their lesson.

Omigosh, we have ants too! Our bait traps say you have to leave them out for 3 months. We put them up during the day and then set them back down on the ground when we put the other animals to bed since that's when they are most active and it keeps our dogs and cat from getting into it. The best course of action is, unfortunately, a passive one. If you're killing all of the ants when they get into your home then none of them are making it back to the queen to give her the poison. It could take ages before she gets it, though. Then you have to wait until every ant left in the colony has had a piece of the poisoned bait. It's a very long, tedious process. Good luck in getting rid of them.

 

[MiniLopHop]

Powder is beautiful. You can tell anyone that makes a mean statement about her eyes, that it is just the love shining through!

 

[Marrie]

Lords of war and money - a browser version of heroes of might and magic run by some Russian company. The actual M&M game (5) broke on us for internet play (will not connect for anything, no matter what fix we try), so he plays the browser one.

I don't have a PS3, thankfully... I think I would have died if my games had been down a whole month. Sony has increased their security, added an actual security person to their staff, etc. So hopefully it doesn't happen again. I play EQ2 and I was so bored, I ended up buying Rift. But, free PS plus and game time is nice.

We aren't killing them, they are gorging on the bait traps instead of taking food back to the colony and die from feeding off of them. We apparently have greedy ants.. so I just keep refreshing the bait traps and hoping one of them remembers to take the poison back home.

When we moved in, they were already here. The landlord hired someone to clean up the house before we moved in, but whoever he hired just cleaned the bare essentials - there was food left under the stove and it was greasy and gross and the ants were loving it. The "house ready" people also painted our walls, but they DUCT taped the plastic onto the wood trim to protect it... which when the duct tape got removed, it stripped the stain off the trim since you're supposed to use painters tape, not duct tape. This is why if you're a landlord, you shouldn't hire your family to fix up your property. lol

I'm not gonna complain though - moving from an apartment to a house was nice and let me get my Powder bun! And no more 4-year old neighbor kid screaming 5+ hours a day at the top of his lungs because they said no, or want him to go to bed, or his playmate is playing with a toy he wants... I will take the ants any day over that!

Powder learned we have another two whole rooms in the house - he finally worked up the courage to go into the kitchen, then the laundry room. Thanos followed him around singing to him while he explored. Then boyfriend came home for lunch and opened the door, scared the bun and he came running really fast back through to his bedroom, which set the bird off flying like a lunatic and screaming. Probably not the greeting he was looking for when he walked in the door! :rofl:

Also learned that my vacuum cleaner does not take well to hay. Had to unclog the hose, which spread bunny droppings all over the floor by where I was cleaning. Yay. Maybe time to look into a shop-vac instead...

 

[Yurusumaji]

I play RIFT. I love it, but I haven't been on in a little while lately. Think I'm going to make a Defiant character since my Guardian Warrior is Level 50 and endgame isn't great yet.

We were still able to play our games, just not online. I never play anything online through the PS3 anyway. Too funny, we are on the last boss of Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes on the PS3. LOL!

Lucky! I want a house. We live in an apartment, but the ants are a new problem. They infest my sugar gliders' bowl, so I really want them gone.

I just got a shop vac and let me tell you ... get one. Wal-Mart has their 5 gallon units on sale for $30 and they are amazing! My Dyson cost ten times that amount and it couldn't handle the rabbit room at all! Our shop vac does poop, hay, fur, all of it! Love it.

 

[Marrie]

Hehe ah, then the PSN downtime didn't hurt you too much. Losing all personal info still is no fun though, but they are offering free identity theft protection up to $1mil if you haven't enrolled in that yet (if you had any info on your PS account).

I liked Rift, but it isn't EQ2... the lore, the gameplay, the voice acting, the raiding. I think what bugs me the most about other MMOs is limited voice acting - EQ2 the mobs taunt you as you fight them (skeletons say things like "your eyes are so pretty" or "seek death and it finds you"), etc. I might still play it off and on, though until my sub is over. I did get into the first dungeon and walking into the blizzard and losing pretty much all visibility was a nice touch.

Boyfriend found our house coming home from work - it actually ends up being no more expensive (or maybe cheaper) than the apartment, since it's under $700 a month and within walking distance of his job. $4 a gallon fill up every 2 weeks was costing a lot! I'm quite happy with it - fenced in back yard for Powder too.

Eeps, yeah infesting the animals food is bad. Poor gliders.

I think i'll send the boyfriend out to wal-mart for one, we got a $30 bagless one at wal-mart a few months ago and it was working fine for the bird, but the buns hay is all over the place lol he has 3 piles in the living room, 1 in our bedroom and one in his room. If he doesn't have them he chews the carpet, even if I put toys all over the place for him.

Brandy, thanks Powder likes being complimented - he'll sit for hours if you tell him how pretty a bunny he is, so vain!