Jilly






Jilly is cute as a button. We got her at one of our bird club's fair's. She'll be a mate for Peanut. When I was trying to think of what to name her, the first thought was "Jelly" --Peanut & Jelly. But Jelly didn't seem like a pretty enough name for such a cute little female parrotlet. So then I decided to name her Jilly. She's named after Jill, my best friend growing up and after Jilly Coppercorn in Charles de Lint's novels. Jilly Coppercorn is my favorite character. I decided that was perfect and so she's Jilly:-)


We are amazed at how friendly Jilly is. Jilly was not handfed so she isn't used to people handling her. But she doesn't seem that afraid. She's really very sweet. When I do have to pick her up she doesn't bite. She may not be "tame" but she isn't wild either. Mostly I make it easier on Jilly by using her swing from inside her cage to have her step up when she's out. Like if Peanut & Jilly are out for the afternoon and I want Jilly to go back inside her cage, I use her swing to get her to step up. This places less stress on her, and works really well.



Update: Jilly is now almost 6 years old. She's had several clutches with Peanut. You can see their babies here. I've received a few letters from visitors to my site asking what happened to Peanut. Peanut died when the last clutch was born. It was an unusually large clutch. Jilly laid 11 eggs. Something happened to Peanut then, something we don't know. He lost all energy and started spending all his time sleeping. He stopped going into the nestbox which is totally unlike Peanut. He just wanted to sleep. I had noticed this for about a day and a half. I rushed him to the Vet. The Vet didn't know what was wrong. He decided to take a blood sample from Peanut's neck to see what was happening. I didn't know it would be taken from the neck. The Vet had taken Peanut out of the room and into a back room to do the blood sample. I waited in the examination room. I assumed it would be taken from his foot. When the Vet brought Peanut back into the room, I noticed Peanut was still bleeding, it was on the towel the Vet had him in. The Vet set him down and Peanut never recovered. He threw his head back in a way that isn't normal but it was in my direction so he could see me. Peanut died right then from the injection. I think it was shock. As I was leaving with my little Peanut who was gone now, the Vet said he wasn't gonna run the bloodwork since Peanut was dead. I think he was trying to save me the expense since I didn't have a birdie anymore. I said no, run it. I told the Vet he died having that done, I want to know the results. A few days later, my Vet called with the results. The results came back fine. Nothing obviously wrong and the Vet said he might not have been able to help anyways since nothing was apparently wrong that he could see. We'll never know what happened to Peanut. And both Jilly and I miss him terribly. I did show Peanut to Jilly after I got back from the Vet so Jilly would know he was gone. I thought maybe that would help her understand.)

I helped Jilly with the babies after Peanut died since her mate wasn't there to help. We took turns feeding them. Jilly allowed me to feed them and would tolerate hands in the cage and by her babies. That alone was amazing. But to ease the burden on Jilly raising the babies without a mate, I made a decision to remove all but the very youngest baby from Jilly. Normally I pull the babies at 10 days to begin handfeeding. But this time I pulled all but the youngest one early. I handfed the majority of the babies myself except for that youngest one. I left her with just that one and we alternated feeding her (sometimes Jilly would feed her, sometimes I would) and named her littlest one "Jillybaby Walnut" (Walnut because its a type of nut and she could be named after both her Mom and Dad that way. Also because she looked like a walnut, LOL)

Jilly was really depressed and lonely for quite awhile. A long while after Peanut was gone and after the babies were all grown. She knew Peanut was gone. But she didn't understand. Originally I kept her with her youngest baby (Jillybaby Walnut) in her cage. I thought that maybe her youngest could just grow up with Jilly. But Jilly was still too depressed after losing Peanut and she wasn't snapping out of it. Months went by. Jilly wanted to be with a boy --she began picking on her baby-- and Jillybaby was a girl. So I paired her with her son Nutty (named after Peanut) so she'd have a companion since I didn't have any other males to put with her. Peanut has been gone awhile now. Jilly still knows his name (we can't say Peanut around Jilly to this day or she starts looooooking and its just hard on her) and remembers him. Its true that parrotlets mate for life. I'd heard that. Now I've seen it. Nutty keeps Jilly from being alone and that is helping. But Jilly is still attached to Peanut even tho he isn't here anymore. To Jilly, Peanut was her mate and always will be. I don't know why things happen the way they do. Its all part of the grand scheme somehows. But it wasn't fair to Jilly at all. In my mind, I can sorta understand that thats the way it is with life. No guarantees right, we just have to accept. But the one thing I'll never be able to understand or forgive is what it did to Jilly. Why hurt a little bird like that?

This is Nutty. This was taken when Nutty was out all day into the evening with Pippy and the two of them fell asleep while out. Before they fell asleep, Nutty chewed himself a hole through my curtains. Pippy was behind the curtain too, hanging upside down asleep near Nutty. Before I put Nutty with Jilly, he was with Pippy for awhile. Now he's a companion for Jilly.


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