It is that time of the year again! The parrot above is not our Bokkie. Bokkie (who has featured in this space before under pets) our bokkie - I need you to use your imagination here, is bright yellow, has a very long tail, a ring around her neck and her beak is, apart from being extremely sharp, bright yellow, and her claws are the longest I have ever seen. We cut her nails twice a year.She dominates our little flat and thinks we are hers to command. Unfortunately we have made a rod for our own backs and she does command us!
Once a year she lays 4 perfect little white eggs. It takes her a week to finish this exercise. Before the first one is laid, there are signs, and we know that we are in for a month of trying to protect our wooden furniture as, for some reason - anything wooden must be chewed to shreds. So everything is covered or taped down. However, there is none as stubborn as a parrot who is on a mission and I am left to repair some handles of an old chest of drawers I have!
She also chews her calcium block often, particularly at night. I think she does this to keep us awake, not only to harden the shells of her perfect eggs!
The last egg was laid last night - and now that they are all laid for the season, she will sit on them, not, we have noticed, before then. She has a special soup bowl, burgundy in colour and just the right shape that we use every year, and for one month we have relative peace as she tends these eggs and lovingly enfolds them with her wings. After a month, because they have not been fertilized, her instinct is to give up on them and one by one she puts them into her food bowl for us to throw away.
Last year she only nursed 3 eggs because she was sitting on the curtain rail when she laid the first of her 4 eggs and it came to a messy and untimely end on the tray of her stand, she has no cage, and probably no clue of gravity!
I have been encouraged to let a man into her life so that she will have the opportunity of caring for young and not only eggs. There are a number of reasons I have not done this. It would mean parting with her, something she is not used to, or bringing in a male which she may not like, into her space. There is also the problem that I have no idea as to the mating habits of parrots or when she would need to be with her man.
The noise would probably be unbearable as she herself can be heard throughout our complex which is vast. So I still have not come to any decision on that one but am leaning towards just leaving things as they are and letting her have the pleasure of coddling her eggs for a month and be done with it. No decision was made this year.
However, I will buy a book on the mating habits of parrots and see if it is even possible that she would accept a man as her life is so cushy. She may not want all the complications a man would bring into her life after all!
If anyone has any comments on my dilemma, I would be pleased to hear them.
As for Crunchie the tortouise, "He links my worlds" has once again gone into hibernation and I have not seen him for a month. I will let you know around October when he comes out from his "place" to rejoin the world of the animal kingdom!
May you all enjoy your pets as much as we do!
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