September 2008 Rescue Updates

9/22/08
Everybody in my loft is doing well. Bean is growing stronger and her limp is a little less pronounced. I'm still bringing her in the house in the late afternoon to spend the night indoors and get a little extra TLC. Willow and Blue spend long hours gently preening each others' faces and gazing into each others' eyes. Walter's fitting in just fine. Rocky's still Tony's mistress while his wife Doll sits angrily on their-one-fake-egg nest. I swapped Rome and Opal's beautiful real eggs for fake. I housed 3 quail in the loft for 2 days on their way from the SF ACC to their new home in Concord (thank you, Mary, for adopting them!). Alejandra's face looks bad but I'm told it's just moulting. Tess and Dill hardly ever spend time together anymore. Santino's doing great. Everything's good in there, just no new room for any new birds and some adoptions seriously needed. I'm doing outreach to all sorts of folks and places (organic farms, vineyards, feed stores, etc.) and would appreciate it if you'd do the same. If you know someone who cares for animals, mention king pigeons to them. Even if they don't adopt, they may mention it to someone else...








From SF ACC, along with the 3 quail we've been able to place, I took the remaining 6 king pigeons to Andy's Pet Shop and I think they were happy with the increase in cage space and amentities. I'm also pulling 2 chickens and 2 roosters (who will be going to live in San Juan Bautista, thank you Kam!) and a dove who now has a home in Vacaville. Phew.




These roosters and chickens have found a home in San Juan Bautista but need a ride from SF to get there.

Thanks to Mickaboo Volunteer Dianne building this aviary in her backyard, this dove now has a home in Concord (but needs a ride from SF). Here's what Dianne says about building her aviary-

I pretty much just built a big box, 10 feet wide, 4 feet deep and 6 feet high. I walled off a 3 foot section on the outer door end and added an inner door so there would be no escapes. This also gives me storage area for feed, etc. and a separate area in case I need to house any of them solo due to injury, etc. and lay down 1ft garden flagstones for a flooring on that end. The aviary itself has a sand floor and I got a bunch of manzanita that I zip-tied together into a crazy tree! I found some little plastic square tubs at the dollar store that are perfect size cubbyholes and screwed them onto a crossbeam on the far end. I couldn't find the type of screening that I wanted and the 1" chickenwire I felt was too big, so I got rolls of 3' plastic garden fencing, which went up fairly easily with a staple gun. I had to "sew" the seams together with nylon cording, which looks kind of funky, but the whole thing only cost me about $225 for materials. I figure to upgrade later with some proper screening material, but this will do for now. (Blogger's Note: Dianne's dog keeps the raccoons out of her yard. Predator-proof screening is strongly recommended!)

MickaCoo has also been contacted regarding 2 other stray/injured doves and another rooster who needs a home. We're working on them too. We can always use help- volunteers to foster, help with outreach and fundraising, transportation, websites, etc. etc. HINT!

Spent yesterday at a Mickaboo Adoption Fair in Hayward. I took Rocky and Santino and they both did great modeling their Pigeon Pants and making some new friends for pigeons.

9/16/08
A lot has happened in the past couple of weeks. True and then Nicky died. I brought sick ACC pigeon Santino home and she's recovered and is doing well. I brought sick pigeons Lark & Uma home (from the same group as Nicky & Santino) and they've died. I brought injured feral fledgling pigeon Bean home and she flew away (through a mistake on my part) and then miraculously came back. She's sitting in her basket looking out the window as I type this. I met with two potential adopters, both wonderful people, but felt their cage situations were too small for big kings used to a loft and so didn't adopt out any of the birds. I did, though, see a roller flip in mid-air, my first time. They do it faster than I expected. I guess I was imagining a bi-plane's trick stall and roll or something like that. I borrowed another rescuer's single king pigeon, Walter, to take with as a potential friend for a pet fantail named Paloma of one of my potential adopters and, when I didn't place him (?), invited him to stay in my loft until I can place him. In his previous home, he lived with feral pigeons being rehabbed for release and so he kept getting and then loosing mates. Here, he can stay single or, if he wins a mate, stay with that bird (eventually being adopted out as a couple). Then, I brought home my four kings from Andy's Pet Shop and will replace them with ACC birds (who've not lived in a loft and so will be gaining space with the bigger cages at Andy's rather than losing room to fly, sunshine, etc. like my guys did when they so graciously took one for the team and moved back into cages after a life of luxury in my loft). So what had been a potential net gain of +5 adoptions turned into the net loss (no offense, Walter, Sparks, Alejandra, Willow & Blue!) of 5 more fosters. Don't ask for the grand total. I know it but you'll have to count for yourself.

What's next? I'm going to REALLY focus on generating outreach and placements in the next six weeks and then I HAVE TO CUT BACK ON THIS (note to self). I'm doing it pretty much full time and neglecting other things that need to be taken care of.