A Girl Named Winston




The news is in. Our cockatiel Winston is a girl. But we hate the name “Winnie” and, since she has not objected, we’re still calling her Winston.

Winston went in for a spa day. What is a spa day for a cockatiel? Let me tell you it’s getting her wings clipped so she doesn’t crash into mirrors, windows and walls, and break her neck. There are pros and cons about clipping the wings of birds. Nasty arguments. The same about getting your cats declawed. I don’t think a bird with clipped wings will have behavior problems like they say cats will.

And if they do they will deal with it. It’s better than yours truly having a nervous breakdown over it.

After watching Winston fly around the house, hitting everything in sight and then disappearing one evening, my old heart had it.

She was at the top of our dining room buffet about 2 inches from the ceiling watching us run around the house calling for her. She went into house arrest immediately and was kept there until she had her spa day. They don’t totally cut the wings off they just trim them so she can fly low. This way she can make a low landing not a crash landing.

It was at her spa day we found out that she is probably going to start laying eggs. Did you know female cockatiels lay eggs? We city folk don’t know anything about that. Plus, not having a mate, I didn’t think that she could do it alone. Wrong. So here’s the deal on what to do with a female with an unfertilized egg.  You let her look at it and lay on it for a while, and then gently take it away.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if a woman could just get pregnant on her own and have a kid? That could put these bossy men in their place.

Anyway, if you take the egg right away from a cockatiel she’ll want to lay more. My husband is going to take this on since I don’t want to touch the thing. My smart son said we could use it for scrambled eggs but I said I would give it to him and let him have the honor.

Well I read online that if the egg is fertilized, I guess you all know how that happens and you don’t want baby birds, you can stick a pin in the egg to destroy the embryo. No I’m not going to get political here but I certainly could not do that.

So any thoughts of us getting a second cockatiel to keep this one company have now circled the drain. Winston will remain an only child.



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