This was ALBS's first Pet Contest ever, and the competition was tough. The 1st place winner was a beautiful Orangefaced Green bird named Pepsi. Pepsi is owned by Sue and Fred Vokral of New Jersey. Sue and Fred can be contacted at Melford10@aol.com Enter: The Pepsi Challenge.
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The best way to describe our little bird is as the "Pepsi Challenge"! She likes to be where the action is, and if there is no action, she takes it as her responsibility to make some. She loves people and loves to travel around the house "helping" to get jobs done. |
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There is nothing like a good bath in the kitchen sink to start her day. To dry off she crawls into my husbands shirt hanging out and walking around as he does paperwork. Eventually, if she hears a noise she needs to identify and her little orange head will pop out of a sleeve or stick out the neck of a tee shirt. She makes little noises like a chicken, and is quite happy just playing around. Then a good skritching and her days started on the right foot.
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She loves the tunnels my husband made for her out of tube shipping cylinders. We have 2 of them...one is about 3 feet long (the beginner tunnel) and the second is about 4 feet long (the advanced tunnel). The advanced tunnel included a material covering that flaps over one end so she can run through it to get out, along with a hole in the side so she can peak out to see what she's missing, or to make an emergency escape. Pepsi and my husband are currently working on an elevated bridge that could connect the original tube to the advanced. There's never enough challenges to keep this little bird satisfied. Always curious, and extremely intelligent she earns her title "The Pepsi Challenge".
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She also loves her food. Pepsi likes to sample whatever it is we may be eating at the time, and sharing is the only option in our household. One of her favorite foods is peanuts. I get her the organic ones, and she likes to break through the shell to get to the reward on the inside. I included a picture of her standing on her cage eating a peanut, and planning her day, and probably mine too. The peanut is a workout and good protein. Of course, drinking out of a water bottle is a lot more fun than her water bowl any day!
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She was about 10 month old when my husband and I thought we might really have her figured out and down to a somewhat predictable routine. But, one day Pepsi woke up with a whole new purpose in life...laying eggs. I can answer the age long question, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" Well, it's neither...it's the nest! One day she just started chewing paper, and it took a lot of yips and yaps from her before I figured out she only likes to nest with neon colored index cards, or neon color stick-ems. Everything else is unceremoniously cast aside. She chews in perfect strips, sticks them on her back by her rump and makes her way back to her cage. Pepsi then takes them in her mouth, chews each one until it's soft, and weaves them together. By the time she lays her eggs she has a good, deep and round nest. The longer she sits on her nest, the more advanced the structure becomes! First she adds a mesh roof...lets air in, but keeps her hidden. Hidden you would say....? This picture shows a Neon bird with a Pumpkin head very well hidden in her chosen paper. She blends quite well!
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Now, back to the nest building...after the roof, she then adds two tunnels. The first tunnel travels across the bottom of the cage to the diagonal wall, and this becomes the entrance tunnel. The second tunnel leave the nest directly to the back of the cage, and this becomes the escape tunnel where she climbs up the back wall and jumps onto her rope perch. This is very predictable...in one way out the other. She makes my husband, the engineer quite proud of the structure!
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Pepsi, she is a wonderful, intelligent, determined, affectionate, cuddly, playful, nuttiest and interactive bird I have ever had. She's earned herself too nicknames. She loves to be skritched and kissed and will puff up like a big fluffy round ball...which earned her the nickname "Our little Bear". But, she can also be a rough and tumble, feet over her head, swinging by her beak, tunneling, mischievous trouble maker...and for all of this we call her "Tank". Built low to the ground and strong enough to sustain unstoppable forward movement. She is one little bird with one big personality, and she is loved very much in our home.
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