The 4th place winner was a beautiful bird named Seabie. Seabie is owned by Stacey Robinson, one of our youths. She can be contacted at birds@shdybrk.com. Congratulations Seabie and Stacey!
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I can not ever remember a time of not having pets in my home. When I was old enough to begin walking my mom told me that my cat (that is about ten years old now) became my pet, because I would put my doll clothes on her, and grab her by the tail and she would help me walk. As I got older I started taking on the responsibility of taking care of her.
We are the best of friends even to this day. Since I was old enough to take care of my cat, my parents figured I was old enough to take on the responsibilities of other pets. |
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| When I was about 8 or 9 my mom got a Parrot for Christmas. I was told that I had to build up a relationship with this Greenwing Macaw, because they live for so long that one day when I’m all grown up she might have to come live with me. You can tell that she is definitely my mother’s bird, but we began to have an understanding of each other, and as I get older, our relationship becomes stronger. She even comes to play with me, and hollers out when I have to leave for school in the mornings. She used to ride to school with us when I was going to another school, so I think she misses going to school with me. |
My mom is a stay at home mother, because my brother is autistic, and I have a mild form of autism as well, so when we have bad days at school she has to be available to talk to us, or even come get us from school. I don’t think my mother really minds staying home, but she really needed to have something to help pass her time. My father suggested that she got into breeding birds, because they said she has talked about doing that every since they met. My parents began to research the different types of pet birds, and Mom picked Peachface lovebirds to breed. We bought a few breeder pairs from a breeder that works with my Father. When we went to pick up the breeder pairs one of the pairs were already sitting on three eggs.
It was so exciting to see.
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I was only 11 at the time, but I had a birthday coming up in a month. The first and only egg hatched 2 days before my 12th birthday. To see that little bitty thing lying in the nest was just amazing to me. When my birthday came up, one of my presents was an empty bird cage. Could this mean what I thought it meant? Were my parents really going to give me the one and only baby bird? Oh how exciting, when the time came for my mom to pull that baby from the nest to begin hand feeding it, it was just a little thing that fit in the palm of my mom’s hand. She pulled the baby from the nest before I left for school, so I got to see the little thing, and it was just the most beautiful thing I can remember ever seeing. |
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Well my mother has bred a lot of birds, and has added many different pairs to her flock, but there still hasn’t been another bird like my Seabie. My Cat even loves my lovebird, and mom has caught them napping together! Seabie has stolen my heart, and even though I get to help raise many lovebird babies, I don’t think I will ever fall in love like I did with my very own little lovebird. He is a Medium Dutch Blue, with personality, and a lot of spunk. He loves to chase my pencil while we are working on my homework. It is just so cute to watch him chase the pencil in circles. He gets up every morning with me, and we eat breakfast together. We have worked out a routine that works very well for us.
The funny thing about our routine is if I break it because something has come up, then it ends up with Seabie getting very upset with me. When this happens he will fly over to my mother, as if to tell on me, and if I walk over to him, he will turn his back on me. Can you believe that a bird can be smart enough to have emotions and find ways of expressing them? He is just a spoilt little brat, and he can even say “spoilt brat” even though it isn’t very clear, and people say that lovebirds can’t talk. He is just the smartest bird there is.
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When I help mom with the other baby birds, my Seabie tries to help feed the babies. He even gets along with the other birds we have. He helps the birds that don’t have a mate preen their feathers. One of his favorite birds is a Dusky-Headed Conure named Mocha. Mocha came to us, because the owners thought he was too loud, and he likes to bite anyone that came too close to his cage. But since he has come to stay with us, he has become a lot nicer, and he even allows my Seabie into his cage to play. Seabie likes going into everyone else’s cages to make sure they have plenty of food, and toys. He is so loving and trusting that there will never be a birdie like him! He loves to lie down on his back in my hands; it is fun to show the new owners of our baby lovebirds the tricks and things that my baby can do. I have gotten many of my friend’s interested in the lovebirds, and even a few of them have been able to talk their parents into letting them have lovebirds for their pets too. So it is fun to go over to their houses to see how their birds are doing, but I have to admit that Seabie is still the best pet out of all the lovies that we have raised.
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