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I am sure you are all tired off hearing about my boy, but it has been such a difficult time that i really need to share good news with as many people as possible.
i took Pesto to the vet again on Saturday. He had to trim his lower beak again. It is growing soooooo fast, BUT the top one is also growing beautifully. Not that fast, but beautifully. Really happy about that. This morning, my Pookie had some of my rusks! Too sweet, he could break it up into crumbs and then eat his favourite treat. We have encountered another snag thou and this might be something that everyone can learn from. Pesto has developed abnormal feathers. They are papery and brittle and actually look like he has stuck tissue inbetween his feathers. The vet said that it is a reaction to the stress and physical trauma that he endured. Equivalent to humans having to go an operation, or child birth and then our hair falls out or our nails break, or both! He said that once the bad feathers have fallen out, they will be replaced with normal ones again. In the meantime he has put Pesto onto a special diet. It really is amazing, cause this vet also develops his own food for birds and rabbits and sells it all over, including large department stores. So, he has these amazing ranges, from parrot meusli through to soft food for birds with beak problems and feather problems. Their rabbit food is also amazing and Elvis (my house-rabbit) LOVES the food.
So, good news and OK news this time round.

We are never tired about hearing about Pesto!
This is what this forum is all about hearing from people about their birds and sharing info
That is very interesting about the feathers. Gee, your vet sounds great.
BTW what is a "rusk"?

Boston Budgie is SO right! We love hearing about Pesto. Keep the news, stories and pictures coming!

Sounds like your vet is a treasure

Kathy and Kura

Pesto, you MUST tell us in which country you live but what I consider rusks are hard round savoury biscuits, sort of airy and crumbly but then I am actually referring to Dutch rusks (called "beschuit") that you can get over here in Oz, those rusks are what I grew up on
Other rusks you have over here in Oz are baby teething rusks, long hard biscuits that soften when babies suck on them

OK, OK! We live in South Africa! Ja (Yes) a rusk is a beskuit (Afrikaans - close to Dutch), but we don't generally have it very savoury or round for that matter. We bake them with muesli and bran and stuff like that. I don't know if that qualifies as savoury. And then the louves are cut into thick finger shapes, but THICK and then dried out in the oven.
My vet is an absolute treasure. Don't know what I would have done without him.

Wow..South Africa It looks like cockatiels are everywhere!!!
And Pesto is such a pretty colorful one!
i haven't seen much variation of tiels in the Boston area. Mostly regular grey ones, some pearls, some white faces and lutinos. Once in a great while I've seen some pieds at the bird show in NH.

WOW!!! You guys sure use a lot of expressions we use here in Oz (such as mozzies )
Funny about the beskuit/beschuit thing too LOL
The Dutch ones are definitely round though and they are normally eaten for breakfast with cheese, jam or whatever you like on them
I love 'em but don't buy them that often, too dear over here
Will get a chance to fill up on them soon though, we're off to visit my rellies (oops, sorry, relatives for you Americans ) in 3 weeks time!

How easy is it to buy cockatiels over in SA Pesto?
By the way, we call them Weeros over here in Western Australia, funny eh?
And over East they sometimes get called Quarrions........

Our rusks / beskuit you have with coffee or tea and then you dunk it and eat it like that. Very traditional here and really very lekker (Afrikaans for nice).
"The Dutch ones are definitely round though and they are normally eaten for breakfast with cheese, jam or whatever you like on them" - are thy dry or moist? Cause this sounds like an English muffin to me.

You can buy a cockatiel in every petshop on every corner - basically. We have some really good breeders and then some really bad ones as well. Cockatiels are very popular as housebirds and so are budgies. If you want a hand-reared tiel, you have to pay for it though. Not nearly as much as the parrots, but still. A heandreared tiel can go between R200 and R350. For that you can have a 3 course meal at a 3 or 4 star restaurant. Our one prison in Cape Town has a raring program. it is really great for the inmates and the quality of birds that they produce is amazing. They rear from lovebirds through to your big parrots.

I think the things with the Australians and the South Africans having the same expressions is because we are two countries made-up out of various others!

I don't know what R250 equal to US dollars but I am sure it is expensive. How interesting your expressions are!
It is funny though here in the US depending on what state you live in is like little countries of their own due to various cultures, climates and traditions. Folks "across the pond" (so to speak) sometimes lump all Americans as being the same but we are clearly different.
I remember traveling to Ohio. I was amazed at how super friendly people in Ohio were for one thing but I had the hardest time deciphering their accent. They had no idea what I was saying either and they thought I was a bit of a stiff (Bostonians are not known for being the warmest people ha!) I actually thought I was being "friendly" but the old expression here is : "what is colder than New England weather?" answer: the people
Cockatiels are priced about $60.00 to $125.00 here in the Boston area depending on the shop.

A lot of European based cultures have similar products to rusks. Germany has something called a zwieback, Jews in northern-eastern Europe have Mandelbrot (sp), the Italians have biscotti. They are basically the same thing - a cookie of sorts baked in a loaf, sliced into individual pieces (thickness will vary) then baked again to dry and crisp them up a bit. Some are sweet, some are not. Some have added fruits, nuts, seeds, and whatever else comes to mind - I've even seen them with hot peppers!!. Here in the states when one refers to a biscuit, it is a round, soft, piece of bread baked with baking powder not yeast. Depending on what part of the country you live in dictates the normal means of consumption. In the southern states it is common to enjoy them breakfast sausage and a white gravy, or with butter and jam. In the northern states (my experience)
they are enjoyed with dinner - usually some type of stew or soup and used to soak up the liquid - yummy indeed!

For those of you not in the U.S., Bostonbudgie hit the nail on the head about the differences here. I'm originally from New York (Long Island - yes that is different from "upstate" north of New York City) and now reside in Texas - talk about culture shock when I moved here The first 10 years were the hardest In my area the price of a cockatiel ranges from $30 - $50 from a breeder and $60 - $180( ) in a pet shop, while the bird only shops are $70 - $95. The lower prices are for normal greys, then go up to pieds - we see them a lot and then pearls and lutinos.

Jo

Pesto, the Dutch rusks are hard and dry

The price here varies greatly, a "private" aviary cockatiel will be between $10 to $30 depending on mutation, handreared ones between $40 - $100, again depending on mutation.
Aviary birds from petshops range from $35 to $75 and handreared bird sold through petshops are ridiculously overpriced and start at around $120 and I have seen some close to $200
(1 Aussie dollar is approx 70 US cents)

I was thinking last night how I can explain how much R350 is. If you work according to the exchange rate, it works out to $3430! Not really a true reflextion of how much it is. So, the best and universal way of explaining this is to work in Big Mac meals!!! For R350 you can buy about 13 Big Mac meals (the whole thing, burger, chips and a drink, but not super sized!!) I don't know why I know this as I don't eat McDonalds.

In SA we have people from litteraly all over the world. And I live in Cape Town, the most incredible place in the world. A little bit of punting from my side. Go to www.capetown.travel and see what I am talking about.

20 years ago, I grew-up in a street where we had Brithish English, Italian, Greek, Portugese, SA English, German and Afrikaans (my home language), neighbours. And there were only 13 houses in our street!! Today it is even more diverse with large populations of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, African countries (Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Angola, Kenia, etc), European, etc. It is wonderful to walk in the streets and hear Xhosa and English mixed in with Afrikaans and German and all the other languages. South Africans tend to be very friendly and welcoming, in general.

That said, my one sister lives in Germany and my other sister lives in Michigan USA!

When I got Pesto 6 years ago, I paid R150 for him. (About 6 Big Mac meals in today's terms) I don't think the person who sold him to me really knew what he was selling, cause he was 2 weeks old and his mutation hadn't shown (turns out he is a cinnamon, pearl pied and from what i hear, they are the more expensive mutations). I then hand-reared him.

LOL in regards to monetary conversion via "big macs meal deal"s! ha hahahahaha! McDonalds is the universal global language!!!!!hahahaha!
Beleive it or not there are no McDonalds in my area for MILES! I live on the coast appx 60 miles away from the big city where most of the "restaurants" are local restaurants (not chain restaurants) I haven't eaten anything in McDonalds in years. Last time I ate french fries in Macs was actually in London!
sooo.......I am guessing a big mac meal is probably about $5.00 (US dollars) a meal so 6 big macs meals would equal $30.00.
$30.00 is pretty cheap for a cockatiel. I paid about $125.00 for Button 7 years ago.

I think I may have figured it out... going from Pesto's prices to American

R150 = $15.81 USD
R200 = $21 USD
R350 = $36.91 USD

http://www.google.com/search?q=150+Rand ... tnG=Search


Now, if we go by Claudias prices, I'll do the reverse

Aviary $10-$30 USD = R94.81 - R284.45
HR $40-$100 USD = R379.27 - R948.19
Aviary PetShop $35-$75 USD = R331.86 - 711.14
HR Petshop $120-$200 USD = R1,137.83 - R1,896.39


Which goes to show how much our countries vary! And if it's of any interest, our Big Mac meals probably are $4-$6 USD (R37 - R56) while a Big Mac in Africa is about $2.63 USD (R25).


The "average conure" here sells for $400 USD (R3,792), but 20 years ago, they were $25 USD ea (R237). However, that's due to the band on wildcaught birds. The point being though, is that prices here, now, are not the same as they were 20 years ago, let alone 10 years ago! A bottle of soda sells for $1.30 or so, and I remember buying them for 98¢ ea. Candy bars are $3-$5 and I remember when they were $1 ea. I'm not even very old, so to think the prices of items 40+ years ago, well todays standards those items would probably be considered cheap nowadays! Even if they weren't back then...

MFIDS, you are a smart little cookie! I guess the price of tiels are a little more expensive in the US than in other countries judging by those calculations. When I was visitng relative in New Zealand I found the price of tiels comparitable to the price of tiels in the US. Everything else was outrageously expensive In NZ.
I think for the most part American are willing to spend more on their pets in general. Despite this economy, people have not cut back on pampering their pets (at least in my area)