New Addition to the Family... Again!

I found out something BIG yesterday. I talked to our breeder, and we will indeed be able to bring home a baby Congo African Grey when I get to Idaho! WOO-HOO!!! We're getting a wonderful bird, for a wonderful price... and from a wonderful breeder. She's very careful, and very selective with who she sends the birds home with, and I feel honored that we've been selected. She currently has just two left. They're not DNA sexed (with birds, there aren't visible parts, and the only way to 100% differentiate is with a DNA blood test) but as best as she can tell visually (there are some small distinctions) one is male, and one is female. The little boy has a feather pattern on his legs that's just like his daddy, and the little girl is basically our breeder's favorite. She will definitely hold on to one for us for sure, but they might both be there when I come up. If that's the case, I'll get to hold them and get to know them before choosing one. I am SO very excited about this, it's ridiculous. If you want to see pictures of our soon-to-be baby, you can go here. That's the website of our breeder, Christina. One of those birds in those pictures is ours. :-) Not sure which one... but one of them! Oh I'm so pumped.

YAY! Now we just need to settle on a name. If we end up with the boy, we're thinking either Tim (think Tim the Enchanter, from Monty Python) or John Henry... or maybe just plain 'ol Henry. I personally really like Tim. I mean, c'mon! If you've seen the movie, you know Tim the Enchanter is just about the coolest guy around. Doesn't hurt that it's a John Cleese Character either. AND as if that wasn't enough, in Spamalot, Tim was played by Hank Azaria. I mean, seriously. That's one cool character... for sures.

As I mentioned, the other option would be to use Henry, or John Henry. We're both huge fans of the old west. We love tall tales. As kids, we both equally adored the movie Tall Tale. You gotta admit it, John Henry is pretty much the coolest Old West hero around. And, truly, he was as real as you or I. That's pretty awesome. I think it would be pretty awesome to name the bird John Henry. Or... again, Henry works too!

The point being, we just want to make sure this little birdie has a freakishly awesome name. I mean, Greys live anywhere from 30 on up to 80 years. That's a lot of pressure to put on the person picking the name! Do you have any idea how many stupid names for parrots there are in this world? There are about fifty million (that's an estimate, of course!) Polly, Tweety, Petey, Paco, and Oscar birds out there. Not that those are bad names, they're just the Mary, John, and Joe names of the bird world. We don't know of any other Stratford birds, and I have only heard of one other Kaya bird... but many Kaya dogs... so, I think we're doing okay on originality so far.

At any rate, it's a ton of pressure. We just haven't figured out a girl name. I was toying around with "Shadow" for a while, but really, how unimaginative is it to name your GREY bird SHADOW? That's not much of a stretch at all actually. *sigh* What a tough decision. At least when it comes down to it, we already have our human kid names picked out... No worries there!

So, the way things are looking, I'll have the new baby by the week of April 6th. We've got a cage that we'll be getting (used, and freakishly cheap! SUCH a good deal, wicked excited) from Oregon. I'll pick up supplies before I go pick up the baby, and I'll have the cage pretty much ready to go when he/she gets home. We already have a few toys and treats and things that the new bird will be able to use too... Kaya likes slightly larger toys, so they'll be able to share. It's going to be really exciting, and now that it's official, I can start counting it down.

Woo-hoo! By the way, if anyone has any killer suggestions for girl names for a parrot, let me know in comments! Thanks!