I first met Tippie when he was only about a week old

It was love at first site!

At the time, I was working at a pet shop that specialized in birds. Birds of all kinds, but mostly parrots. There were no other pets in the store. Strictly birds. I was working the nursery doing hand feeding. Tippie arrived with two of his siblings and was put in an incubator along with them. How ugly they were to people that aren't use to seeing newly hatched baby birds. All naked, no feathers, they seem to be mostly heads and bellies. But I thought he was beautiful.

It wasn't long before I realized something wasn't quite right with Tippie. He wasn't sitting up like his siblings were. He began to feather out and kept flapping his wings, trying to sit up. He flapped so hard that he beat them against the side of the incubator until they bled.

He was taken to the vet to see what the problem was. It was discovered the Tippie had had his legs broken by his siblings sitting on them during the first couple of days in the nest box with his parents. They had healed improperly and he could not stand up. I must explain that he was the last of the clutch to hatch, and therefore the smallest chick. His siblings were much larger than he was...and a lot heavier to boot.

The vet re-broke and reset his legs. He came back to the shop in a cast on both legs with a bar across to hold them in place.  The cast wasn't plaster, just a special adhesive material that would be easy to remove and didn't stick to his feathers. He was put in his own incubator by himself and seemed to be doing just fine. I had my two days off from work. When I came back I discovered that another worker doing my job on my days off had removed his casts.....because they looked so uncomfortable. The damage was done, permanently! The shop owners refused to take him back to the vet because putting that much money into a crippled bird wasn't worth it to them. I asked if I could take him home and see if a little therapy might help with the stiffness and at least get him to move his legs some. I toted him back and forth from home to work in a laundry basket every day. He didn't seem to improve at all. But I loved him more each day he was with me.

More problems. Because of nerve damage when the casts were removed too soon, he didn't have any feeling in his feet. So, he chewed off one whole toe on his right foot. It really scared me because he bled profusely and I thought he would bleed to death. I took him to the vet at my own expense. No sooner had that healed when he proceeded to chew of the tips of 3 toes on his left foot. It didn't hurt him, remember he couldn't feel it because of the nerve damage and he just thought they were something to eat. I did a silly thing then, I took some small pill bottles, drilled small holes in them for ventilation and wrapped his feet up in them so he couldn't chew them any more. That did the trick. No more missing digits and he finally got some feeling back so I was able to remove the bottles. There was talk at the shop of putting him to sleep as he was un-sellable. I begged to keep him and was allowed to do so. He was officially mine!!!

I took him home for keeps. No more going back and forth to the shop. I made him a little ring, like a nest/bed. A donut, all nice and padded. I made flannel covers for it, lots of them because they needed to be changed several times a day. He also had to have a daily bath, sometimes 2 or 3 of them. Remember, he could not stand up, let alone perch like normal. And, he would never be able to hold his food with his feet or be able to scratch his head. He was growing and finally graduated to a cage after deciding to chew up the basket and pull himself up the sides. He loved to sit in his ring in the middle of the dining room table and play with toys. Just like a kid, he loved to toss them on the floor and wait for you to pick them up. He may be physically challenged, but certainly not mentally. He started to talk and began to acquire his huge vocabulary, and he still keeps adding to it, even now. African Grays are wonderful talkers. Time passed, and he learned....and learned....and learned.

He learned how to pull himself up using the side of the cage instead of always sitting on the bottom. So, I put a perch in his cage. He hated it and wouldn't go near it. I put it close to the bottom of the cage, about 3 inches up. Eventually he thought it was at least good chewing material. If I put him on the floor and he wanted to get somewhere, he learned to roll over and over till he got there. Every time he fell over in his cage he learned to say "Oh, Oh" or "help, help, call 911" He learned to swing by his beak on a rope in his cage yelling " Wheeeeeeeee!" What a character he is. If you gave him a toy he didn't like, he would attack it with zest yelling "Get it! Get it!"  If his feet were dirty and needed washing, he would look at you and say "feet, feet". Of course, you would have to pick him up and wash his feet for him and then he was happy again.  Every day he seemed to learn something new, and every day I loved him more.

Tippie is four years old now and he has learned so much. He finally accepted his perch after I covered it with some soft fabric so he wouldn't get sores. Because, you see, he did learn to sit on it. Not like a normal bird, but like a person in a chair. He sits with his bottom on it and his feet dangling in front of him...all the time either hanging on the cage side or leaning against it. He learned to straddle one side of his donut and actually stand up! He could fly, but I keep his wings clipped because he wouldn't be able to land if he flew. His favorite pastime is to sit with me and look at bird toy catalogs. I showed him a page once that had toys but no birds and asked him to find a bird. He just looked at me like I was a nut. I did the same with a page of birds, but no toys. Same reaction. Now he does it on his own. We will be looking a pictures and if there are no birds, he will say "No bird" if there are no toys, he will say "No toy". He greets me every morning with "Good Morning",  "Brrrrrrrr, it's cold in here" Even in the summer, hehe. He meows and calls the cat, yes he purrs too. He sings, and has conversations with my other birds as well as imitates many sounds around the house. And, he doesn't think he is the least bit physically challenged, just ask him. He is just soooooooo special!

And so, I will end Tippie's story here even though there's so much more I could write. I just wanted to tell you not to overlook a pet just because they are physically challenged. They can be such a joy and give you just as much love as a "normal" pet.

Here is a little picture of Tippie right after his bath, all wrapped up in a towel. Yes, he is laying on his back. He loves being blow dried with a blow dryer