Adoption Success Story: Cloud the Budgie

Article from “The Mickaboo Bird Rescue Companion”
Published October, 2022

By Sasha Mayton, Adoptor

I found Mickaboo when I was walking around the park and happened upon an adoption fair at the nearby Davis library. Having a budgie back at home, we decided to see what it was about. We got to meet all of the amazing volunteers and some of the birds that were up for adoption. I came to love birds growing up because they are such amazing and unique animals! I have a particularly soft spot for budgies thanks to owning one myself, and after hearing about the need for fosters I decided to become a foster parent. Even though I’m open to other apartment-friendly species there just seems to be so many budgies! I’ve never met a budgie with the same personality as another - maybe similar but they always have such unique quirks! They are so entertaining to watch, and I love being able to interact with the ones whose trust I’ve earned.

Cloud turned into our foster fail. After fostering her for two years we just couldn’t part with her because of her personality. Cloud came to Mickaboo with three other friends in her flock because the owner could no longer care of them. We fostered the group and found Cloud was very bonded to Shadow. They were the cutest pair! They were together in absolutely everything they did from singing, eating, feeding each other, preening each other, sitting next to each other, and following after each other. They’d run up to the cage for mist baths together, and sing in excitement when they saw us bring fresh fruits and veggies in the morning. Every day we saw them filled our hearts with such warmth and joy. I’ve never seen as truly a bonded pair as those two. Sadly, Shadow passed away. Maybe it was his prior diet catching up to him or maybe it was his age? I really couldn’t say for sure. The loss broke our hearts and we cried; we realized the pair had become such a big part of our lives in such a small, simple way. Seeing such deep, requited love every day, being able to watch and share in their joy of each other’s company, and watching them have their bickering moments like any other couple, we couldn’t part with them. So, we adopted Cloud and we had Shadow cremated and put him near Cloud’s cage so they could always be together.

Cloud now shares her cage with our prior foster fail and weight loss buddy Nora. Both girls enjoy food so much that they would use their bodies to block their past cage mates from it. Now they share a cage together and they have a puzzle food bowl where they have to work for their food. Cloud has been stellar at solving it while Nora keeps trying to cheat. The pair get to have some outside cage time with my two boys Quinn and Pip. Cloud is still a little hand shy but she is not above bribery, so for millet she’ll come over to me. Unfortunately, she is still working on being brave around the camera and it’s a bit difficult taking pictures with one hand holding a little white floof and the other holding millet. Being able to talk to her as she runs up to listen, and having someone just SO excited for fresh veggies and water everyday makes her so worth it!

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