Hi Maggie,
I have two questions. A friend of mine told me about this gal she works with who has a grey. He is 8 years old. Anyhow, she just adopted another 16 year old grey from someone who came in to her store looking for a new home for her two birds. She said this 2nd one is a female so she has thought about possibly breeding them if they like each other. I guess my friend said she noticed that the bands on both birds start with the same ID letters so she actually thinks they may have come from the same breeder. I told my friend if they did, there could be a chance they were siblings and I would think this would be an issue if she tried to breed them. Is this true? Wouldn't breeding sibling greys be an issue for the offspring? Or am I wrong about this? I told my friend that she may want to have this gal try to find out if they are, in fact, realted before she tries breeding them. She isn't an actual breeder but thought it might be nice to see if the two of them are even interested in each other. I would hate to see this person try to do this and then have the babies have health issues or worse because they are "inbred". I know in many animals this is a big no no. There is a chance that the fact that their bands start with the same letter combination doesn't mean anything I suppose. Ironically enough, the bands start with the same letters that Cupid's band did. She doesn't know how to contact the breeder either. My friend already asked for me.
My other question is, how often will greys hatch babies or lay eggs? I'm not sure of the correct terminology. Is this a once a year event or do they reproduce more than once a year?
Other than the two questions, I am hanging in there and slowly dealing with my darling little Cupid being gone. It will be two weeks on Wednesday since I lost him & this Sunday is the two year anniversary of when I brought him home. I still hate the silence but I'm getting there bit by bit. It's going to take a long time before I feel I have healed from the loss. I had to pick up his ashes over the weekend which was more difficult than I anticipated but at least he's home again in a way. I think eventually, having him here will help give me some closure. At the very least, it made it more final & made me really see that he's not coming home the way I expected he would. I've noticed keeping busy helps and I'm still trying very hard to find this breeder, Ed Lubens, he came from with little success. It's too bad because I really would like to have his true hatch date for his plaque. I've even tried to figure out a registry or organization that breeders have to report their vaccination/testing results to by the band number but I'm thinking that doesn't exist either. And I truly have enjoyed reading the postings of other grey owners, your responses and hearing some of the stories they tell. Keep up the great work!