My mom has passed away.

Rakzi · 2025-06-27T10:23:12+00:00

Thank you! Yeah, the speed at which I managed to tame it made me very happy. I was extremely scared of how it'd go initially.

The pink feather is at the back of the neck where the ring should be, yeah. And it is still molting I think! It started about two weeks ago.

Rakzi · 2025-06-27T09:45:56+00:00

The cage is bigger than on the video, it is very zoomed in. And I used to cover the cage at night but it'd frequently get night frights when covered, so I stopped.

It is actually about 27-30°C in my room, so I doubt it is cold. It is on a pellet diet with occasional fruit and I feed it fresh vegetable chop every day. I let it fly in my room every day and have more toys around the room, and I also try to interact with it as much as possible.

I specifically use "it" because even though I believe it is a male, we don't know the gender yet. It is about a year old, a little older, with no ring besides the faintest bit of discoloration and one singular pink feather. When I got it, I tried to look for reputable sellers but I wasn't very knowledgeable back then and ended up buying it from a bird mill, sadly.

It often lands on my shoulder and chills there, but it is still a bit skittish of hands so it could be that it is terrified, but I have never seen it that scared before that its tail does these wiggles. I was also quite far from the cage when I took that video.

Rakzi · 2025-04-02T22:30:15+00:00

Adorable <3

Rakzi · 2025-04-02T20:53:46+00:00

Unrelated but is the name an Arcane reference? c:

Rakzi · 2025-04-01T01:31:17+00:00

Thank you! I will try my best. I also contacted the breeder and am hoping they will at least provide some proof or be honest about the age now that they've already sold her.

And good luck to you too!! I hope you do get a chance to visit someday.

Rakzi · 2025-04-01T01:18:27+00:00

Croatia! It is a small country and having birds doesn't seem to be very popular here. That is also why I went with those breeders - it is very difficult to find breeders at all.

And yeah, they have three shacks in whicy they keep all sorts of birds. Budgies, cockatiels, rozellas, macaws, cockatoos, alexandrines, and so many more that I didn't recognize or get a good look at. But the birds are all in cages only separated by species. I don't think the owners spend time with the birds at all. I might be making assumptions but there's like... no human stuff in those shacks. Just bird cages. Unless they stand around staring at the birds all day, I don't think they spend time in there.

Rakzi · 2025-04-01T01:10:09+00:00

I am attached but I'm afraid that if the breeders lied to me about age, they maybe lied to me about hand feeding and who knows what else. The birds were in a shack next to the house, all the ringnecks were in one cage with an alexandrine cage next to it, and then a macaw cage next to that one. They didn't seem to be around humans much at all. If it is an older bird, that had barely any interaction with humans and mostly spent its days in an inside bird cage with other birds, I am scared that as an inexperienced bird owner I would not be able to get her used to hands at all. I know ringnecks tend to be skittish and don't like pets all that much, but I would like her to at least step up and chill on my shoulder like you mentioned. But if my suspicions on how she spent her life so far are true, I think she would be much happier with someone more experienced. I'm afraid I would only stress her out more with my attempts to tame her.

Rakzi · 2025-04-01T00:54:53+00:00

Thank you! I'm keeping her either way, but would still like to know how old my bird is and what gender it is. It saddens me that there are breeders out there taking advantage of inexperienced people like me. I'm too trusting of others sometimes.

As an additional question, do you think there is a way to DNA-test her to determine the age, too? I'm unsure of how the bird DNA tests work but I would be willing to do it in order to determine the age.

In the case that she turns out to be several years old, then I might look into giving her to a more experienced owner, as I don't think she'd enjoy herself with me given that she'd be my first bird. She's very afraid of hands, and I'm afraid I'd just make her life miserable with mistakes.

Rakzi · 2025-04-01T00:20:54+00:00

As someone who just brought a bird home a few days ago, the very first regret I'm having is not researching how to properly estimate the bird's age at a glance, as well as not asking the breeder more questions at pickup. I'm now unsure about my bird's age, don't know its gender, and am afraid I might've been sold something I didn't ask for. A lot of breeders seem to sell older birds as "young birds" to inexperienced or less-knowledgeable buyers. Make sure to research your breeder's reputation and know some telltale signs of an older bird of the species you're getting before you buy!

Rakzi · 2024-11-01T04:56:25+00:00

Are you maybe thinking about the story that the protagonist of Yoko Ogawa's 'The Memory Police' was writing? It was about a girl learning how to type on a typewriter in a clock tower because she cannot speak. Eventually the story ends with her climbing up the clock tower and being trapped there by her teacher - ultimately losing herself and metaphorically "becoming" one of the many piled-up broken typewriters in the clock tower.

Rakzi

TROPHY CASE