In Search of Mozart's Younger Brother
Mozart on
the stairs
Posted: 2006-12-15
Recap: We lost our Triton Cockatoo companion "Mozart" and decided to obtain another male Triton Cockatoo from the same parents -thus a "younger brother." After waiting a year we had obtained a Triton Cockatoo from another source, but there still was that possibility of finding Mozart's younger brother. Could we handle two cockatoos?
In May 2006 our Triton Cockatoo companion "Kaipo" had been with us for 6 months. He was a wonderful addition to our household. After Mozart's death our home been missing something, even though we still had Pele the Eclectus. Kaipo filled that empty spot and we thought that one cockatoo was enough for us to handle. However, we had been visiting with Pat Boros of the American Bird Company to make purchases of bird toys and supplies. She was still telling us about Mozart's parents and the possibility of them having a chick that would be, in effect, Mozart's younger sibling. After waiting for more than a year it did not seem likely that it would become a reality and we had purchased Kaipo from the Featherheads store in Sterling. We did not plan to have two cockatoos, one is plenty, but we were captured by the idea that we might be able to get a cockatoo that was related (a younger brother) to Mozart. I was concerned about Kaipo being alone with the Eclectus without any other companionship.
Our first Cockatoo
This is a long story. Let me begin how it started in August, 1990. There was not much information available for the general public about Cockatoos, no Internet pages to search, and not much printed information. We decided to check out the store near the University of Maryland in College Park, where we had purchased our previous Parakeets and a Cockatiel named "Valentine". After five years of caring for the Cockatiel, it seemed like a Cockatoo might be in our future.
For want of a deposit
The College Park store had been breeding their own stock of parakeets and cockatiels, but the Cockatoos in the store had been wild caught, and were quite fearful of humans. So we requested a captive bred bird. We were told to come in and place a deposit. When we arrived at the store, the proprietor failed to show up to collect the deposit. While waiting we had been looking at the cages that were in stock. They were all old fashioned wrought iron. Sturdy, but old fashioned, and appeared to be hard to clean. The store was not very clean, although the birds seemed healthy. On a spur of the moment I decided to drive all the way around the Washington "Beltway" to Falls Church, Virginia, to check out a store called "The American Bird Company". We could always come back another time to put down the deposit. I had seen a small classified ad in the Washington Post from the store advertising that this place had bird cages in stock and on sale. Off we went with the idea that if we could not put down a cash deposit on a bird, at least we could explore the possibilities to obtain an appropriate cage.
We only wanted a cage
When we arrived at the American Bird company we found an extraordinary store. First it was very clean. The store was located in an old 19th Century building, a "Travelers lodge", with a number of separate rooms. One of the rooms was the "baby room" filled with incubators, new hatchlings and cages with young birds. Other rooms contained supplies and cages. Still other rooms contained cages with other birds for sale. The floors and cages were all very clean. Despite all the birds, there hardly was a stray feather anywhere.
Love at first sight
At first we only wanted to look at the cages that they had on display. The cages were much more modern and seemed to be better quality products than what we had seen elsewhere. We picked out a large Macaw-sized Preview-Hendrix cage and then were drawn to the baby room. Out of the cages came two young cockatoos and in an instant they were on our shoulders. They seemed to be competing to get us to take them home. One was a Citron Crested Cockatoo, the other was a Triton Sulphur Crested Cockatoo. We fell in love with the Triton immediately. What beautiful blue eye rings he had! The financial transaction was completed and we went home with a cage, toys, accessories and food in the back of the car and a baby cockatoo riding in Susie's lap -the cockatoo was not about to let anyone stuff him into a cardboard box for the trip!
First Steps
We named that bird "Mozart" and on subsequent trips to the American Bird Company we learned that he had been hatched in California and shipped by air to the store. Our "Mozart" was not bred by the American Bird Company, but by the breeder in California. A few years later that breeder in California decided to retire and their entire stock was acquired by the American Bird Company. Pat Boros operated the store in Falls Church, the breeding stock were maintained on a farm elsewhere in Virginia. Pat had been in the bird wholesale business for a number of years before opening her own store in 1989.
In the early 1990s, owning a cockatoo was a self-taught operation. We read everything we could get our hands on. We received some advice from a Veterinarian in Bowie, Md, named James Stunkard who had written an article about breeding cockatoos for the Department of Agriculture avicultural handbook publication. Then along came "Bird Talk" magazine which helped immensely for questions about diet, caging, training, etc. (I'm not sure when it began publication and I cannot remember if we discovered it before or after we purchased Mozart.) But having a Cockatiel for a number of years before helped to prepare us because Cockatoos are a lot different from Budgies.
I think that we were very lucky with Mozart. We avoided many problems and he was a very adaptable bird. We made some mistakes and he forgave us. He developed some bad habits and we helped him to change his behavior. A lot of the luck was due to his intelligence, Triton Cockatoos seem to have a lot "on the ball" and are very good natured. Of course take my evaluation with a grain of salt, as my experience is based on only 3 birds. I thought that Mozart would be my first and only Cockatoo, but life changes.
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