My cockatiel Pepper has been in egg-sitting mode. She has been at it diligently for several weeks now. Of course these eggs are not going to hatch; they are not fertile. (Of course if they do hatch, no one will be more surprised than I will. Pep is not even engaged.)
What makes this interesting is that she has set up her nest in a waste basket. Well, it is her waste basket; note the ladder for her to use to get in and
out. Her food and water are up in her cage, and
every evening, or perhaps late afternoon, she climbs up, gorges herself on her food, and then trots back down to her “little ones”.
The vet was concerned if she continued to lay one egg after another -- it would debilitate her, he says. But she seems content with the two she has going. The vet also said it would take her about three weeks to give up on the project, and both Cliff and I think she has reached the three week mark. But for the moment we are biding our time.
The other day she surprised me. I had gone back to the den, and when I turned around, there she was, following me. She wanted up on my walker, and after I’d put her down, she climbed up my leg and proceeded to preen, getting feather ‘dust’ all over my pants. She got something else on my pants, but never mind. Then when Cliff and I left on an errand, she climbed back down to her eggs. (I know the photo shows only one, but I wasn’t about to go digging around down there.)Then the following day she came back to the den with me, and once again messed up my pants. Into the laundry. The pants; not the bird. Last evening Cliff closed the cage door on her, and today she was out all day. We think that maybe she has returned to her normal activities.
MORE LAWS OF THE NATURAL UNIVERSE
Murphy's Law of Lockers:
If there are only two people in a locker room, they will have adjacent lockers.
Law of Rugs/Carpets:
The chances of an open-faced jelly sandwich landing face down on a floor
covering are directly correlated to the newness and cost of the carpet/rug.
When I picked up some cat litter at the pet store today I noticed two little love birds near the check out. I mean "birds" literally. They were so cute preening each other. I bet their eggs will hatch (if that's not too smutty to say.)
ReplyDeleteI remember once having a friend's bird on my finger and not wanting to get it next time it went, while it was climbing up my shoulder, etc etc. So as it sat on my finger, I held it out from me and told it, "Go poop." And it did!
ReplyDeleteI asked the owner how often her bird went, and she said about every 40 minutes. So I waited about that long and repeated the process, thus teaching her that her bird could respond to that command. I tested it by telling it that when I knew it was too soon to, and the bird clearly tried.
Maybe going on command would work for Pepper too? Easy to try, at least.