Pickles The Parrot Returns: My Continued Adventures with a Bird Brain (3 page)

Of all the vegetables, he loves potatoes the
most. Raw, cooked, mashed or low-salt/transfat-free potato chips.
Doesn’t matter what shape or size, he’ll take it any way he can get
it. He asks for potatoes, yells for potatoes, can’t get enough of
them. Mashed potato is the only thing he will gulp down in huge
mouthfuls and large gulps, as his eyes pin in ecstasy. Neil and I
don’t eat a heck of a lot of potatoes but Pickles gets a good share
when we do. I know they’re good for birds, I don’t know how much
may be too much but how can you deny him one of the few nutritious
items that he actually loves?

One time I gave him half of a really big
baked potato. I placed it on the base of his playstand and let him
go at it. One hop landed him right in the very middle and allowed
him to gobble as he spun in circles, ripping it up as fast as his
beak could shovel it down his throat. When he had his fill, he
crouched down on his haunches in the middle of the potato skin,
fluffed up, half-closed his eyes and lay on his belly, sated and
content. Not only did he get to
eat
a
potato, but now he gets to
sleep
in a
potato. Oh, the glory of it all!

A boring list of fruits and vegetables that
Pickles will eat regularly is, anything in the potato family,
carrot, peas, corn, cauliflower (but only steamed), peppers of any
kind (but usually only the pulp and seeds), lettuce, pumpkin and
squash, steamed zucchini and steamed celery. Fruits he eats are,
banana, pomegranate, grapes (usually only green), papaya (but
usually only the flesh and seeds), and oranges (but usually only
the pith from the inside of the peel). He’ll eat most grains, rice,
pasta and beans – all cooked. He likes walnuts, pecans and almonds
but pine nuts are his favorite (pine nuts are actually seeds
though) but pine nuts are only given for treat rewards.

He likes poultry, sometimes beef and will
sometimes eat some lean bacon, the odd time we cook it up but he
rarely gets meat of any kind. Hates seafood. Likes Raisin Bran,
without the raisins – I think he’s convinced it’s mouse turds - and
especially Cheerios. Treats he doesn’t get often but are his
favorites are, Sesame Snaps, jelly beans, sugar cane bark, pudding
and Jello. Obviously, he doesn’t get those things often because of
the high sugar content.

If you’re wondering about sugar cane bark,
try Googling Kaytee’s Nature’s Benefits Sugar Cane – it’s not only
tasty but it gives a bird something to chew on for awhile. He goes
nuts for homemade pancakes (without butter or syrup), homemade
French fries and pizza crusts. He gets his seeds every couple of
days but will only eat the safflower and the odd pumpkin or
sunflower seeds and his Pretty Bird pellets (the only ones he will
touch) are always available. If I can find the cardamom seeds in
the white shell, he will split the shell in two, cup one half in
his talons and scoop out all the seeds with his beak. He can’t
manage to eat the green or large brown cardamoms without spilling
them when he splits them open. He smells delicious after eating
them and the whole house is permeated with the delightful scent.
He’ll drink juice, sometimes apple, some kinds of orange but mostly
grape. He likes whole wheat or rye toast in the mornings and often
gets oatmeal porridge for breakfast.

Sometimes Pickles is very fussy about the way
fruits and vegetables are presented to him. One day he wants them
diced, next day he wants a chunk he can hold in his talon. There
were some things that we thought he didn’t like but once offered in
the manner of his choosing, he would eat it.

Speaking of vegetables, we had invited a
friend over for stir fry one evening and Pickles, who loves company
and didn’t want to be left out, was set on his diningroom boings a
few feet from the diningroom table. We sat our guest, Rick, down
and left him alone momentarily while Neil and I went to the kitchen
to fetch wine and other items. We returned to find that Pickles,
having seen a window of opportunity present itself, had dove to the
table and splashed down, right in the middle of our guest’s dinner
plate.

Pickles had made a field day out of it by
chowing down with happy flingings of food as he burrowed into the
pile. Rick was leaning as far back as possible but the chair
insisted he remain within less than an arm’s length. His arms were
thrown down and back, leaving his chest and lovely sweater a viable
target. He was frozen in place. Ohhh, he acted like this was the
daily norm for him and that it was no big deal, but his body
language and facial expression clearly betrayed him.

Neil scooped Pickles up by cupping his chest
and belly – no time for a step-up argument – and carried him out of
the room. Having grabbed talons full of noodles, they sailed
through the air beneath him as he squawked in protest over this
undignified treatment. I could hear Pickles swearing at Neil in the
other room as he plopped him unceremoniously on the top of his cage
and while I nonchalantly picked food scraps from the poor man’s
clothing – remarking, “He
never
does this.”
It wasn’t
really
a lie. But only because we
never eat in the diningroom so Pickles never gets the chance to do
it.

Rick was very gracious about it and even
remarked in his defense, “I was merely confused as I didn’t know if
parrot required salt and didn’t want to offend the hostess.” But it
wasn’t until after he departed that evening that, while clearing
the table, I noticed that we had neglected to remove Neeka’s litter
box, right next to the table and to the right of Rick’s chair. I
almost died. Especially since it contained a nice chunk of turd.
You can dress our family up but …

Anyway … the way we get the nutritious foods
that Pickles doesn’t like into his fussy little body is with birdie
breads. I put a bunch of his favorite stuff in the bread and add a
fruit or vegetable that he doesn’t like – chopped up fine, or
pureed – and it takes on the flavors of the other things in the
bread that he does like. Sneaky, but effective. I’m sure Pickles
doesn’t have the best diet that a parrot could have, but we try. In
the beginning, we tried removing seeds, pellets and snacks and just
leaving fresh food in his bowl but he would literally starve
himself. I know this works for other birds but it didn’t work for
us. Pretending to eat something ourselves would work occasionally
but usually he’d just roll it around in his beak then spit it
out.

Pickles loves to be part of the supper-making
process. It seems there’s nothing more pleasing to a parrot, than
to hang around on a counter, explore and knock to the ground,
anything in sight. It’s an opportunity to flat-foot, run, hop, skip
and jump. Is there
anything
more precious
to watch? Pickles carries out his counter business as I prepare his
supper. This involves snapping off a square of his frozen birdie
bread, heating it up, breaking it up, mixing Hemp Seed and Herb
Salad into it, dumping it into his twist-on supper bowl - all with
short interludes of Spoon Beak Tapping – and then it’s off to Ride
The Supper Bowl back to his cage. The twist-on bowls are handy
because he gets a little merry-go-round ride at the end.

During the whole process, Pickles commentates
about his supper. “Supper? Mmmm, supper.” He’ll cock his head and
look sweetly into my eyes and ask “Gonna eat some supper?” “No” I
say, “Mommy’s eating something different.” He stares into my eyes,
in deep thought. “Doncha wanna eatcher supper?” he asks. “Not now”
I answer. And off he toodles in search of mischief, all the while
asking, “Potato supper?” No. “Bean supper?” No. “Carrot supper?”
No, we’re having a banana bread supper. “Mmmmmm”

Pickles will always step up for a Ride On The
Supper Bowl; over the years we’ve made a game of it. We had to do
something to get him to step up off the counter. He’s usually
pretty good about stepping up when we want or need him to but,
c’mon
, the kitchen counter? But now, no
matter how badly he doesn’t want to leave the counter, he really,
really wants to ride that supper bowl. And then, once the ride is
over, he’s really happy to have a nice warm supper. However, he
will not dive in until he’s sure he has fresh water to wash it
down. If we forget, he will politely ask “Fresh water?” or “Be
right back with the fresh water” or make the gurgling sound as we
walk away in our forgetfulness.

Sometimes he likes to feign falling off the
bowl as we’re riding to the cage. “On no!” he cries as he lowers
his whole body down until only his head and talons are visible
above the rim and then he’ll throw his body back so far, that he’s
almost upside down. All the way back to the cage, he’ll whistle for
Neeka – figuring that the dog should join in this game or at the
very least, act as spectator.

Pickles loves counter tops but it can be
quite the pain in the ass to have him there. I have to either clear
everything off before I put him there or I have to watch him like a
hawk. Once up there, he travels at bullet speed trying to get into
anything I was stupid enough to leave there. Nothing’s too heavy
and nothing’s too scary. I’ve discovered that a toy he would
normally find a little disturbing at first, is assumed, by Pickles,
to be forbidden fruit if it’s on the counter, therefore it must be
grabbed as soon as physically possible and before it’s ripped from
his beak.

Once, he flipped the sugar bowl into the
butter plate just before I managed to remove them and when he saw
my hands approaching, he took off running – right through the whole
mess. It was summer so the butter was especially soft, even runny
around the edges, so Pickles was able to track this mixture across
the counters, over a tea towel and cookbook and across my hand as
he used it to pole vault, rather than step-up, onto the top of the
bread machine. When I went to reach for him he jumped back on the
counter, right back into the mess but his buttery feet slid him
(and much of the mixture) straight into the silverware drawer. This
was convenient. He thinks of the silverware drawer as his own
personal toy box so he got busy throwing knives at me and spoons on
the floor.

Oh My God. I stood there staring at the
sticky mess I’d have to clean up and I’d just about had it with
Pickles. I tried one last time to get him to step up but my finger
was merely used as a springboard. Pickles bounded up, landed on a
big wooden spoon that had moved to the edge of the counter during
the commotion with its handle sticking about 6 inches out and away
from land. Thinking of it as a perch, he walked the plank. The
spoon collapsed below him and he fluttered to the ground as the
spoon part followed and knocked him on the head.

He was willing to be picked up at that point
and I placed him and his buttery, sugary talons on a perch while I
went back to clean up the mess. No way would he allow me to clean
his talons and I thought – fine, get a coronary.

I cleaned what I could, salvaged what I
could, made cookies and ate them in front of him, remarking how
delicious they were and too good to share with him.

I make treats for Pickles now and then but
that’s been hit and miss. There’s a couple of different kinds of
little snack cookies he likes but a real treat for him, are his
Popsicles. I pour grape juice in a shot glass, add anything from
banana pieces, to Cheerios to nuts and then I cover the glass with
Saran Wrap, poke a piece of chopsticks through both the Saran and
the juice, right to the bottom and put it in the freezer. The Saran
keeps the sticks in place until it freezes so that Pickles has a
perfect little handle to hold onto.

Spoons are great for enticing Pickles into
eating new foods because he
knows
that’s
where the best food is kept. Pudding, jello, juice, mashed potato,
yogurt – all come served on this silver platter. He refused to eat
the red palm oil when we first got it and we never knew if he
managed to eat it or spit it out when we mixed it with his supper,
so I started hiding it in a small morsel of mashed potato or
yogurt. Just enough for one small bite in case he tried to eat
around a whole spoonful, leaving the palm oil and then not caring
about it because he’d had his fill. He soon got used to the taste
and even got to the point of eating it straight and undisguised off
the spoon. I got so confident that I started calling it ‘medicine’.
“Look Pickles! Medicine! Mmmmmm. Want some medicine?” as I approach
him with the spoon. He’s thinking –
RIGHT ON!
Spoon approaching!! Medicine you say? Well, it’s on a spoon so it’s
GOTTA be delicious!
I smirk, and can’t help feeling a little
smug each time he falls for the scam. Of course, I always follow it
up with a mouthful of something yummy on the spoon afterwards, just
so he knows that even if the palm oil isn’t such a great treat,
something good will follow once it’s gone.

If you’re anything like me, you probably find
it confusing to read about vitamins, nutrition and all the foods
you should feed or not feed your parrots. There’s the basic toxic
items most people are aware of, such as avocado and chocolate, but
the more you read the more you find such things as apple seeds,
rhubarb, apricot and peach pits etc. Just recently I read that raw
potatoes can’t be digested and I had been feeding them to Pickles
for years. You start to wonder where it ever ends and you’re afraid
that one day, you’re going to feed your bird something you hadn’t
yet read about and kill the poor thing. There’s all the safe and
unsafe wood out there and since Neil makes all Pickles’ play
stands, cage and aviary stands, we’ve been forced to learn about
toxicity in plants and trees. But when it comes to vitamins and
nutrition, things get a little more complicated for me. Luckily,
Neil is good at reading, absorbing and retaining this sort of
information. Not only that, but he’s great at sifting through
conflicting information and coming up with a sensible
understanding.