 So now here I am with these two birds thinking, wow, these birds just are not what I thought they were to each other. Hello my fellow snippers and flighters. My name is Marlene McCohen. This is Nellie Mumbling beside me. This is Monty and today we are going to be doing an update video on Nellie and Monty. But before I get into that I want to do a shout out to Caitlyn Martinez who sent me a beautiful letter and I want to thank you for it because it honestly made my day. So thank you so much Caitlyn. Now you guys know that this is an update on Nellie and Monty, but what you guys don't know is that I'm going to be answering your questions on Nellie and Monty that you asked me in Instagram. So I'm going to try to cover everything and stay tuned. You may be one of the questions and one of the people that gets a shout out. Really. Now there's so much to say about Nellie and Monty that I don't even know where to begin. So I'm just going to begin with how I got them for those of you who are new here and then I'm going to tell you about their characters and then I'm going to go into everything else including your questions. It's kind of a sad story. What happened is I lost my mustache Parakeet Picasso because it was honestly my favorite bird. I know there are no favorites, but I just had like not only did I have a special connection with Picasso, but I just I don't know. He's just the best bird in the entire world and I was really heartbroken. I obviously put posters and information everywhere online and in my local area and I got a phone call from a lady saying, Hey, I have a bird. Would you like to take mine? And now like that's obviously that's not what I was about. And I'm not trying to get birds or trying to have birds. I quite frankly have enough birds. And like I said before, I never want any more birds, but I always want more birds, but I don't like meaning like I always have the heart for them, but I really just don't need any. But what I was afraid of was that these birds needed help because why would someone just be like, Hey, do you want my birds? Long story short, you guys could watch the whole story. I'll put a link below, but long story short, she was sick and I didn't know she had two birds and she got really sick. Didn't know what she had and she wanted to find a home for them. When I went to pick up Nellie and Monty, she was actually a great bird owner. She had these birds. They're very loving and she's just very sick and couldn't take care of them. So I brought them home to find a home for them. Now there's something really important I want to tell you guys about finding a home for birds and I also want to put a disclaimer in. I do not like to promote any kind of animal hoarding in any way. I don't want you to ever think of me as the person that like gets animals for videos. I really don't care. As you guys know, I don't care about any of that. I care about the birds. One day I hope to be able to have a sanctuary and or help another sanctuary and just I had been starting to think about that in terms of being able to help birds on a larger scale, at least because I know that I am a good person for birds to come to. So I'd probably be a good person for birds to come through if you know what I mean. Because then I would be in charge of where birds go and making sure that they do get great home. But I've learned a lot about that with Nellie and Monty and that's why I feel like this video is very important. For those of you who have absolutely no attention span and want quick answers, I mean really if you want to learn anything you got to pay attention because you don't know where the information that I give you in this video is going to be beneficial to you. And I'm going to tell you a lot right now. Not just about Nellie and Monty but also about rehoming birds and what's important and my discoveries with them along the way. The first thing I want to tell you guys about them that I discovered is about their personalities. I call Nellie kind of like narcissist Nellie. I think that Nellie if she was a person she would be a very glamorous actress with a boa. Do you see her over here like upside down? She's like yes, yes. She just does everything for love and then when you pet her head she just closes her eyes and talks to you and she like flaunts herself in front of Monty. Monty is the jealous grumpy old man. When they came to us I only had one cage for them and that didn't work out so well. I mean as a general rule I always want to make sure that every bird has its own cage. I don't care how much you want the birds to bond. I mean unless you're trying to breed birds which is a whole different thing. I think birds really need to have their own territory and I think Monty was pretty upset because you know she got the cage and so I just see him as like this grumpy little bird that's like she got the house, she got the car, she got the love and now she's off getting attention from everyone else. Right Monty? Yes, I know. He's like the more you watch them the more you'll see. So the first thing I want to tell you guys and teach you guys is the importance of the rehoming process. A lot of you write to me and say I want to adopt a bird but they have to do a house check. I find that offensive. Listen guys at this point and at any point in my stage with birds if I wanted to give you a bird I would do a house check too because I have connected with the bird. I feel responsible for the bird. Maybe you aren't as instinctual with parrots as I am and I might go in there and realize that you have crazy cat or an extra large dog that you're just not prepared to handle with the birds or I may go to your house and you know find other dangers that you might not be aware of or I might go to your house and find too many birds. Many things that I think any person rescuing animals owes it to the birds that they're taking care of to investigate. That's the first thing I want to let you know. The second thing I want to let you know is that even if you intend on rehoming a bird it's very different from dogs and cats. People are familiar with dogs and cats. There's lots of information to go around. Dogs and cats are extremely domesticated. Birds are only two generations removed from the wild. They have a certain amount of unpredictability and us as humans we really have to bend to the way they are a lot of times. You can't expect birds to just be these perfect little beings the way dogs can be. I mean I'm not generalizing I'm just saying. So it's very important to understand that before you rehome an animal like a bird you really want to take some time with the birds and in this case with two of them this has been a lot harder of a diagnosis because you're working with two animals that you don't know if they should be together or shouldn't be together if they're better apart or better together and that can take a long time to figure out and make a real good decision that you're confident in. I'm going to go through this and I'm going to prove to you why. When you're rehoming birds it should take a lot longer than just like I I have a cat does anyone in the neighborhood want it um oh you'd be a good home cool or perfect and of course I give all animals respect I wouldn't just give a cat or a dog to somebody but for the most part we're dealing with a very small amount of people in the world comparatively that understand and can deal with birds. Most birds when they get rehomed they come right back to the shelters or the rescue so that's why people do these things. After meeting Rose from Parrots First and really just seeing how often these birds do come back it's just the saddest thing it's just like you're in a position of seeing over years and years and years how many birds come back to you and the amount is just frightening so I understand why all these rescues do things the way they do and you really should go out and volunteer and support a local sanctuary or rescue anyone that you can if you love birds even for the price of coffee I think these things are very important. So let's get into Nelly and Monty that's why I've had them for such a long time and of course I do love them a lot and a lot of you are asking me if I'm planning on rehoming them and we'll get to your questions from Instagram in a little bit. Let's talk a little bit on a technical level of how I came to certain conclusions and changed my mind with these birds over the time that I've had them. So when they first came to me I was told that they are maybe about eight years old the lady who had them had them for four years the lady who had them before that had them for four years so they're guessing that these birds are about eight years old. I was also told that they're fine together in one cage and I was told that Nelly when the only clear thing that she says is Nelly neglected and she'll say that sometimes when she feels like she's been left alone which is absolutely heartbreaking. After I brought them home obviously they were in a new situation they were extremely hypersensitive I bonded with them you'll see in the video both George and I spent time with the birds and they seem to be kind of okay in the same cage but one thing you have to know it's really important when birds experience change or trauma they're going to behave a lot differently than when they get their confidence later on and start feeling comfortable. They're going to be quieter in some cases and in some cases they'll be much more aggressive and territorial but in these cases these two seem to be pretty well with each other because they're both in a process of change so they're both in the same cage and they're both doing a pretty good job. Now another thing that she told me was that they were both very loving birds but I saw she would always pick the birds up with a tool like when she would have them step up she always had a stick or a toy that she used I guess I don't know if she was scared that they were gonna bite but again I don't need that and she's had them for four years and I really don't need anything like that to pick them up unless they are fighting with each other which we'll get to. So these two birds were in the same cage as far as I knew everything was fine my intent right away was to find another cage for them because that's just how I do things with my birds as I told you so that was my plan. Some of you might have seen a comment about somebody who had the birds for a few days and I want to tell you about that too. So these two birds were in quarantine from my other birds because obviously I don't know if they had any diseases or anything like that usually when you get older birds from somebody who's had them for a very long time and they're not sick they're usually fine but she had something that she didn't know what she had and even though West Nile is not contagious we didn't know what she had at the time later on we found out that she did indeed have West Nile which is not contagious to birds or even other people birds can get West Nile if they were let's say if they were bitten by a mosquito but that's a whole different thing. So they were in a process of quarantine and there was a point during their quarantine when I had to go away for a few days very very quickly after probably within a week I think we went away for the weekend for something I don't remember what it was but I couldn't have somebody watch my birds which is usually George's mom she's amazing and these birds and leave any room for error so I had somebody babysit them both of the birds and they had a lot of kids they had four girls their family friends and I did say like if you think you like the birds because you were in they're really good with animals and interested in birds and the father had had birds before if you do think you are interested in them you know let me know but let's just see how this goes. When I came to pick them up the birds were really excited to see me. Nelly was in her carry-on and she told me that she had been neglected which she hadn't been neglected by them there were so many beautiful videos of them hanging out with Nelly but apparently she fell neglected by me and before that when I had dropped them off I was there for hours and hours just checking to make sure that they were okay and I noticed that Nelly was getting very cage territorial and Monty wasn't feeling comfortable sleeping when I came back I made it my priority to put them in separate cages because right away I realized that they started getting aggressive towards each other now here's some of the reasons they could have been aggressive towards one another one they could have always had some aggression issues towards each other and jealousy issues but when they moved to a new spot they were chilled out and what's the reason for her giving me only one cage maybe it was that she wanted to use the other cage because she told me that when she got them they each had their own cage for a bird in the future so that was my theory at the time I thought this is very interesting these birds are not getting along whenever I hang out with them like this they would attack each other Nelly would go up and tag and ice him and they would be rumbling and I'd have to separate them and it was very very alarming because often somebody would get bit so now here I am with these two birds thinking wow these birds just are not what I thought they were to each other because when they came you saw them in the video they were nice and docile to one another they got along they called each other if they were in different rooms and I was just like this is not making sense so either they were just chilling because they were hypersensitive in a new area or when they both got bonded to me I entered into the relationship like a triangle so even if they aren't bonded breeding birds they're bonded as friends as a flock that flies together and now I'm here and they're fighting for my attention so I've kind of ruined the dynamic so every time one is near me and the others near me they get jealous like if you give one attention more than the other and I started noticing that to be true but I couldn't figure out who was the aggressor because it looked like it was Nelly at first then it looked like it was Monty then it went back to Nelly and then I just realized they both just kind of taunt each other but Nelly is more like an old actress she like goes over to Monty and acts cute like she's gonna be cute and then she just like after 10 minutes like goes for him and then they go for each other so then I came to the conclusion that they cannot be together at all and Monty I put his cage upstairs in my room and Nelly she stayed in the office to like go through this quarantine and Monty was getting a lot of good attention because I would wake up and there was Monty and I could really bond with him the thing with Nelly and Monty I realized later is that part of the issue is that Nelly is that girl that's like oh here come here love me love me and he's always kind of pushed to the side left to be misunderstood Monty is misunderstood because he wants love but she's in the forefront always stealing love which you can imagine how frustrating that would be so me having a long time with Monty I realized how amazing he was and if you guys watch my Instagram you would see that I would say wings Monty I taught him all these tricks and he would put his wings up and he just was the cutest bird every time I brought them together they wanted to kill each other I mean I couldn't even have them eat off the same plate it was just disaster so I started seriously thinking about separating them what if Monty went to a home where you got a lot of attention and love and what if Nelly went to a home where she got a lot of attention and love and Monty and I really started bonding and I think that was good for our relationship and Nelly and I we weren't bonding as fast as Monty is that and I but Nelly bonds faster in general so right away she would hug and love me and when I would go downstairs she would go hi Nelly which I loved and she would dance yeah you see she's just like a really loving bird so it's easy to love her Monty was more of the bird that you break the mold and when you break that wall down you just feel so good because you know you like connected with somebody who needed to connect but do you see how she is she's up here and he's just chilling and he loves he loves love too but look he's gonna be a little bit like offended that he's getting secondhand love you know like you could see it in his face I don't know if you guys could see come here you little face who's your little face with his big little big ears so I started thinking about possibly homing them separately but in the back of my mind I was just like that just does not seem right because they've been together all this time albeit I thought that maybe they had been in separate cages obviously because together they were not getting along like she wouldn't let him sleep or anything I mean it's so rare the way we live here in the United States I know other countries have other laws about birds always being bonded but it's too late for that here so just the way you go to a bird store and if you get one bird the chances of you even finding another one are rare because it has to be from another breeder so they can be bonded so it's very hard especially with my birds being rescued see he's mad now to have the chance of these two birds that are kind of friends I really didn't want to separate them so quarantine was over and I brought both of them down into my kitchen to be part of the entire flock and I should say that a lot of the ways I get my birds to bond with one another for Nelly for example to get along with Leo or Jersey is at night I'll take these showers and I put all of them up on top of the shower and generally and night birds are a little more tired and they get a little less aggressive because they don't have the patience to be territorial they're just they're a little easier to work with when they're a tiny bit tired just like a little bit of trick so they just go up there and they feel like they're in the rainforest and I'll put them together but I didn't put these two together because that didn't end well but I would put Nelly in between like Leo and Jersey and just after a while it's like they get over themselves because they're just too tired they just sit there and they enjoy like the mist and they learn that they're not aggressive towards each other because before that I couldn't even put these guys on a stand with Leo he would be so mad about it Leo can be a little bit territorial but after you know them showering together Nelly was able to get along with both Leo and Jersey Monty would still be a little of the aggressor so he was in a separate spot on a little stand in the shower next to me anyway once these cages were out together at first they were very aggressive and occasionally would rumble but I had the two cages together next to each other and now they just sit on top of the cages go visit other birds in the cages and they really don't fight at all I've had them since I can't do the math this quick but I I don't know it must be I like I don't even know what month it is now but I know I've had them since before Thanksgiving so I mean I've had these birds months and months and it took me this long to really see their characters have their characters grow see who is upsetting who who gets along with what bird and I could have made a mistake if I would have just given them up too quickly they could have gotten depressed because they would have missed one another they could have not done well if I would have just given them to somebody in the same cage so there's a lot to yeah see like he's pretty upset because he's next to me right now and he doesn't want her to come into the picture and ruin his like closeness with me so these are things that take a while to understand and they are important but they are really funny birds Nelly talks a lot she says hi Nelly she says Nelly she says no like I'll be like are you a naughty bird she'll go no yeah and he says Nelly they both laugh Nelly makes like noises they can bite they bite a little bit sometimes if you know they're overtired or overstimulated or if you get in the middle of whatever nonsense they're fighting about now I'm gonna go to some questions from Instagram okay and if you guys have any more questions don't forget to leave them in the comments because I'm sure I could do another update video on them and their personalities the first question is from Jana Harn 98 are they ready to go to their forever home at this point I think they are ready now that I know that they should go to a home together but it's gonna be hard to find them a home where somebody is skilled enough to bond with both of them individually hang out with both of them and understand all their quirks and what makes them mad and that they may bite and another thing about them do you hear that voice like not my favorite bird sounds in the world like sure they're not as loud as let's say if rocky screams it can like pierce your soul but the shrill voice of Senagals is something to get used to it really is so yes I think they are ready because I'm ready with the right information jazzy 48 why are they so cute I have no idea they're just the cutest most loving sweetest birds Vithio says are you gonna keep them or will you re-home them so I know I kind of just touched on this right now but I do think because I took them intending to re-home them and it's really important for me that you guys know that I don't just want to keep every single bird in the world although I do love every bird in the world deeply I think I can find you see I think I can find now he's mad come here come here baby it's okay what's she doing to you see I need to find someone that understands this and can deal with these emotions that they have towards one another and giving them both attention Karen Bernard wants to know who is most social Nelly is by far the most social bird but she's also the most obsessed with me like obsessed one times you guys remember Heather from the African gray video one time she came over and I just wanted to see about her bonds with the birds I don't know why I never posted this video we went over so many things with them like she asked me a lot of questions I think I never posted it because obviously it was still around the time that Picasso was missing and I was very overwhelmed and it's this is kind of weird but for every video you see I probably have three you don't see just because I couldn't get it up so that's why I have a patreon now if you guys ever want to support me getting out more videos or more timely videos then that just helps me pay an editor to get info out to you guys sooner because sometimes editing these videos takes a whole day Angel Coco and wants to know how old they are well I would assume that since the owners had them four years and four years and there wasn't any previous info on them that they're probably about eight years old but you know there are some features that they have that and especially in Monty that makes me think I wouldn't be surprised if he was older so unfortunately with rescues you don't always know everything about them here now they're getting like fighting for my attention you can tell they're getting a little angry towards one another and Monty's angry because she's trying to show off our connection and he is feeling left out and the problem with Nellie is she's so loving and easy to love that he could get pushed aside very easily so it's very important that whoever they go to know this hen we rica wants to know other than each other what birds do they seem to like most in the flock well I think Nellie is pretty good with Jersey they're on the same stand Jersey is pretty nice to all of the birds that's what I really love about Jersey as far as like their relationship with Vinny Vinny just kind of does Vinny and ignores them but Leo can get very jealous of them but Nellie see this is what's happening now you know like this is what made me for a time think they can't even be together but I learned that they can see like in this situation if I didn't have the phone like she would need her head scratched so she doesn't go over and antagonize him because what she's saying is like I'm not getting all the head scratches I'm not getting all the love I need so much love I need so much attention I must get rid of him but then other times when they're together and I'll see like if I don't scratch her head she'll start going over to bother him Diana G Gomez wants to know if you could keep one which one would you keep uh at first I thought this would be Monty because I just love Monty so much he's the sweetest look I'm scared him hearing me but then like I would get so excited to hear Nellie's voice in the morning going hi Nellie and I just can't choose one because it would just break my heart having one over the other Nellie gets along better with the other birds in a way she's a little less aggressive Monty can be kind of aggressive towards other birds if he wants to be in his spot so I guess I'd have to say Nellie but I don't want to because honestly he's the cutest I gotta read this out Hick 3421 are you going to sell them no no no no if I re-home them maybe a re-homing fee that's another thing that I learned is like re-homing fees are important because when people feel like they just got things they feel like they could just give up things and um birds are not things they're little souls you know now I'm happy to pay re-homing fees if I ever wanted a bird because I just want to show you that like I will take care of it but in general I'm never going to be in the business of selling or breeding or anything like birds but I don't knock any of that either because I don't knock breeders at all because they know a lot of breeders know and love their birds and breeder could be your best friend if your bird is sick or you need to know something just don't ever forget that same with bird stores but yes do I promote adopting absolutely are my birds rescues absolutely but generally the parrot world they can make themselves dramatic for no reason for me it's all about all of us just loving birds and taking care of them and spreading awareness cashier red panda what are their favorite things oh well nally's favorite thing is love and herself she just loves to like flaunt herself monti he likes um colorful beads monti has a huge insecurity that you'd have to deal with and it's hard to deal it's like the younger sibling that like has a superstar older sibling I don't know monti really needs a lot of love and a lot of affirmation monti he likes toys he likes these like little circular wood pieces that I got for him zdj 606 says do you have a home lines up for them so I have someone that is very interested in the birds and I think they actually would be a really good home I just want to have a few more conversations with them about this and how they behave how they could bite and always want to make sure that they know all the negatives they have birds so it's not something that they aren't familiar with but dealing with a relationship between two birds is very different so hopefully I could find the perfect person for them aliana 66 says why do they want to kill each other so just to clarify two very good reasons one either that they both love me and trying to get my attention and fighting for it or they're both upset that I'm the new mate for each other does that make sense like I feel like monti feels that way obviously cam bam 99 says they want to know everything so I hope this has been a lot of everything about them see how he came to sit next to me such a sweet bird byron floyd wants to know if they're very one person bonded like his bird yeah they are actually nely like as friendly as she is and as friendly as she was when we got her and she was hyper sensitive and open now you put her on anyone she's like that's nice marlene marlene marlene very very obviously very obviously yeah so yeah they are erin oh nine one two two 000 wants tips for taming two bonded birds like nely and monti but this is a really hard thing to do the first thing you're going to need to do is separate them for taming at least and you probably would want to look into getting on their own cage to be you know in as well so it's really hard to tame two birds that are bonded but you got to work with one at a time away from the cage and away from their territory that's the best place to start bobo the amazon parrot says how long do you keep them together well they're just kind of their cages are open so they have two cages next to each other and they're just open for them to hang out or not hang out I think they like it better that way because they're making they're not forced to be on see she's coming closer and he's mad this is because I'm in the equation but when they're alone on their cage or on top of both their cages they're doing better so yeah there's no limit of time I just leave all the birds out to hang out now me parrot one wants to know what do they eat well they have a pellet mix they have a seed mix because west african parrots do a lot better when they have some seeds in their diet I don't give birds sunflower seeds not because they're entirely bad but because they can really act like a caffeine for parrots so I keep my birds off of it especially because jersey like plugs so they have pellets and they have seeds but they love the fruits the fruits in their mix they absolutely love Nellie is obsessed with them that's her favorite thing but obviously Monty loves apples apples are like his favorite they both like mangoes I know one of them likes bananas right they generally love my meal delivery because I get like this gluten-free vegan basically these vegetables so they love eating those with me so those are the questions that I got about Nellie and Monty I hope you guys enjoyed this video obviously not everything is perfect if you guys want to know more about Nellie and Monty leave it in the comments if you feel like I left something out if you want to be included in these videos don't forget to follow me on instagram at marlene mcconan where you can be up to date on what's going on and hopefully get some shout out to yourself don't forget if you guys want to join my patreon the link is below you can help me get videos out faster and sooner and also I can give you guys a very concentrated attention over there which is what's beautiful about it one more thing I should tell you I love to try to have a long time with Monty because I do feel like he needs it whereas this lady she's like an attention seeker so don't forget to subscribe I love you guys so much check out all my other links below I also do like these fun shout out videos there's a link for that in case you guys want anything special for you or anyone that you know for a birthday I do really cool ones they're called cameos if you haven't heard of it check it out mine are absolutely the best go watch them you'll see but seriously guys on a different note forget a cameo with me I just like watch them because like there's these old stars that like it's just so weird to see them in their regular life like I don't know any show that you've ever watched you see them and it's just like I don't know it's weird like you just get star struck in the privacy of your own home that funny I love you guys so much thank you for watching bye