My Parakeet, Ike, Answered His Own Question Last Night….

@MarineBob I had parakeets many years before but up until about 18 years ago none of them ever talked this good, these last few interact with me etc. But I think the last thing you’d want is a complaining little bird. Maybe it’s because Ike is getting older.

@cherokeepatti mine never talked that well either.
I had a female who had a couple of husband's.
She wasn't to much into people and preferred to have a mate, but then nagged them endlessly.
The one she preferred shut her up by kissing her and then knocking her off the perch.
Boy was she a nag.

@Adrift Oh yeah I had a female parakeet I named Blondie. She bossed her mate around something terrible. He could talk good but she didn’t say anything. When he died she started throwing some fits and I thought she was stressed. She’d fuss loud for about 15 minutes and work herself up in a frenzy and then rest about 30 minutes and start up again. It went on for about 3 days. Then one afternoon I went to the refrigerator and got a stalk of celery and was eating it and walked past her cage. She says “Want some, Want some”. So I went and got her celery. I used to offer her mate celery and he would chew it and put the celery in her mouth and feed it to her. After that she didn’t have any more fits. She remembered what I told him and somehow learned to say it to tell me she wanted celery. At first she didn’t talk to so clearly but she got better and better. One of her favorite things to do was watch me cook, she had a tall cage and sat up high so she could see me. She learned to ask me what I was cooking, what I was doing, what I was fixing etc. And other things. She knew if she asked I would either tell her or show her. She got so good at that. She seemed to be the meanest bird but ended up being my favorite. She lived for about 3 years after her mate died and they had one baby out of two that survived and he was a real character too. Smart little mouth and liked to watch Western and cop shows or movies, shows with men talking and he learned to say some of the things he heard on those movies and shows.

@cherokeepatti Sad, my girl lost her mate too.
We tried to find her another one but she didn't connect as well as the one she lost.

@Adrift I had another female that lost her mate. She didn’t seem to grieve though. My neighbor had two male parakeets that he gave me and she took a shine to one of them. They were in separate cages and she’d scoot over to talk to him and he would scoot over to get near to her. He started chewing on a very small bar in his cage and he eventually broke it and he would squeeze out of the opening. The canaries would make their alarm sounding which is their way of tattling on escapees. I would go find him and catch him and put him back in his cage. The third time he did it I found him on top of Sweetie’s cage staring down at her. So I caught him again and told him if he liked her so much he could live with her. They never fussed even one time, got along very well and very happy. She would fuss at her first mate and boss him around and especially if she caught him watching tv, she’d squawk and push him so he couldn’t watch it. But she never did anything to Mike.

@cherokeepatti I think this is observation born of love and an open mind.Thank you so much for sharing!