We have been enjoying watching the different birds here on the deck especially early mornings and evenings when it is cooler. The days here are really too hot for us to be outdoors do to the high humidity as well.
I got to thinking-in years past when I held down a full time job with Illinois Bell (at the time-now merged into a different name) I also worked allot of hours in our bird business-About Birds that was in Hebron Illinois-the back of our property was a stone's throw away from the Wisconsin border.
We had two large indoor aviaries and a small store on our farm property selling to the retail pet bird trade and also wholesale to the ma and pa pet stores, and mainly to other bird breeders We had our business for many years thinking close to 20 years or so. My husband learned allot from hands on experiences working at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago, Il in his younger years. He was asked to speak about bird husbandry and more at large bird groups when we had our business. It was interesting times and for me personally I learned allot. We bred many species of birds, and worked with the Milwaukee Zoo raising rare and endangered bird species to help keep those species alive.
We did get a first world breeding award from the American Federation of Aviculture for the Celebes Hanging Parrot, and just missed by minutes getting the first world breeding award for the fig parrot.
Here is an article we wrote after accepting this award-sadly they spelled our last name totally wrong. Larry had designed the breeding box along with the very large and long cages for them. Sorry the link to the magazine article pdf will not work and that one had several photos. (if interested just type in breeding celebes hanging parrot by Larry and Kathy-and that pdf will come up)
The Celebes were sweet little birds-here are some photos I found on the web
Our aviaries had special full spectrum lighting and I also set up those garden waterfalls along with soothing music.
That's my blast from the past that you probably did not know about me-Do you have a blast from the past to share??
