I had many birds growing up, and my parents still have our approximately 30-year-old Timneh African Grey. I recently moved across the state and realized how much I missed having a bird around. That's where Odin comes in.
Odin is our new cinnamon whiteface cockatiel. I decided to "start over" and do all of my research from scratch, despite having several cockatiels as a child. So much has changed in the 20+ years since I've owned cockatiels. Diet has changed, there are so many new mutations, and training methods are very different.
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The little guy has four different foods and millet sprays to boot. Gone are the days of dumping some seed into a bowl and calling it "balanced". He's got pellets, seeds, egg food, and some dried fruit. He's probably eating better than I am right now.
I picked up a book on clicker training, and plan on starting that up in a few weeks. The author suggests documenting the training process, so the most obvious route for a computer geek like me is to use a blog as a journal. Perfect, really.
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We met the breeder today when we went to pick him up. I could tell that she has quite a passion for birds, and instantly knew we made the right decision to adopt from her. She breeds high-quality show birds, and both of Odin's parents are champions. Pretty cool, huh?
She recommended that we keep him in his carrier cage for a few days because his permanent cage is very big. I'm thinking about temporarily lowering the perches when I do move him in since he feels a little unstable on his feet. I don't think he's unstable enough to lose his balance and fall, but I'd rather not find that out the hard way.
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