My Policy

Since 2012, I have operated a policy regarding increasing the flock.

The idea is that when the flock is reduced to two, I increase it. The purpose is to not have one bird left on their own. This was born out of a situation decades ago, when I had two budgies, Albert & Pete. When Albert died, Pete suffered grief & it took him about six months to overcome it. Certainly, each bird is an individual & will react differently to losing a friend, so that needs to be considered.

Since starting this blog, it was when I lost the two girls, Atilla & Raspy, that I decided Cagney & Bezukhov needed ‘backup’, at which point I introduced Phineas. We have been rolling along on that policy since.

On recently losing Perry, being left with Lennie & Moriarty, I knew it was time to increase the flock. Given their characters, I could not see either of them coping well should one of them be left on their own. So, 16 days after Perry’s passing, on the 14th of March, I rehomed two new birds. Lennie & Moriarty were unaware of their presence as they were immediately put into quarantine in my bedroom.

Moriarty missing Lennie on the other side of the swing

As readers of this blog know, on the day I brought the new boys home, Lennie became ill, sadly leaving us three days later. This left Moriarty on his own, still unaware of his potential new friends in the other room. Moriarty has proved to be resilient, but definitely sad to be alone. In times of bereavement, I try to keep routines the same, but it was difficult & clearly nothing was the same. It took Moriarty about two weeks before he ventured into Lennie’s empty cage. He flew less & less. His obsession with mirrors increased to the point he spent most of his time sitting holding onto the purple mirror. It was hard to keep his spirits up. Although he has always been happy to interact with me (liking any attention), he clearly needed feathery company.

My Policy was never needed more. I was glad I had already brought it into play, though quarantine, in the present circumstances, could not be over quick enough.