Lincolnshire Wildlife Park - Wild Conversations

Taking a Funeral Directors advice...Or not!!

• Steve • Season 1 • Episode 7

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Episode 7 of Wild Conversations is a joy to listen to. Join your host, Jess, as she sits down with the ever-entertaining Steve, who's ready to unleash a torrent of jaw-dropping tales from the murky world of unscrupulous parrot traders where you will be astounded by the sheer horror of the tricks these individuals employed to offload their innocent feathered friends.

But it's not all doom and gloom! Steve, with his decades of experience, and Jess a zoologist with nearly a decade under her belt share their wisdom on general parrot care, with a special focus on the majestic (and sometimes demanding) cockatoos. 

Then, things take a delightfully bizarre turn. Steve explains the utterly disastrous advice he received from a funeral director, leading to a series of hilariously awkward situations. 

And just when you think the episode couldn't get any more chaotic, Steve recounts the time his own pet parrot decided to use a millionaire's priceless watch as a chew toy. Picture a room full of stunned silence, a destroyed luxury item, and Steve desperately trying to figure out where to put his face. It’s a moment of pure, unadulterated comedy gold.

So, if you’re ready for a mix of shocking revelations, practical parrot advice, and laugh-out-loud anecdotes, tune in to Episode 7 of "Feathers & Fiascos." You won't want to miss this feathered frenzy!

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Steve:

Good afternoon, how are you all?

Jess:

Good afternoon.

Steve:

Hi TikTok, hello Facebook and hello, twitch.

Jess:

Welcome to episode 7 of Wild Conversations. I'm Jess.

Steve:

And I'm Steve.

Jess:

And today we're talking about the park. I think we left off last time, with you quite obviously saving the enclosure before it blew away, because otherwise we wouldn't have any enclosures, I guess.

Steve:

Saved the entire sanctuary that day yeah you saved the entire sanctuary that day.

Jess:

Well done, steve.

Steve:

That's okay, that was the aviary that was for the cockatools, yes, and for any of you guys that come to visit us now, that aviary would have been where the lemurs are, the browns, the brown lemurs and the marmaduke oh, so like the first enclosure you come to when you walk in yes, but it was a long thin aviary, but very long and about 10 foot high.

Jess:

Oh, right when did it get changed into the smaller one?

Steve:

when we got the lemurs you know, when we actually think about it, you know it would be some strange things happen. So when we very first started, you don't know. Well, I don't know anybody. I couldn't go to anybody and say, have you built a zoo before?

Jess:

no, it's not.

Steve:

There's not like a handbook for me, I guess is there so we I did a plan, I got a nice plan done, okay, and then it was based on we build enclosures for different animals or for different birds, so small birds don't need as heavy duty, so they can be a lot more fancy. Yeah, and I do genuinely understand why zoos like mainstream zoos don't have a lot of parrots they destroy everything they destroy everything.

Steve:

They're quite dirty, they're quite messy and they're probably one of the very few animals that people don't realise that you have to wear protection a lot of times.

Jess:

Yeah, you do especially with like the cockatoos, especially the bigger species you have to go in with like full armour on. We've got A chintz or helmet. Yeah, they're forestry helmets, aren't they. With the visor and the earmuffs and the neck brace yeah.

Steve:

So it's basically it's fun. It's definitely fun. And some of the parrots I remember can you remember? Kazal used to work for us. She once got a bit on her face and we always shouted to her and said, well, you must wear your head protection and she said I did. But the parrots have learnt to lift the visor up and bite under the cockatoos especially, were in love with that.

Jess:

They'd learnt the mechanism worked. So they did, especially Frank. Frank was known Frank's, a lesser sulfur crested cockatoo. He's still with us and he is known to be a face hugger. He used to, especially with Kaz. He used to get right under her visor and sit close to her face here, and every day that I'd see her do it I would say to her I'd be like Frank's going to bite you one day If you're not careful.

Steve:

And one day he really did, didn't he? Yeah, and when they bite you, there's usually a reason for it, and that reason usually ends up giving you a proper haul. The thing about cockatoos is, what we used to call them in the olden days was foot tappers. Right. So, cockatoos, when they get angry, they tap their feet.

Jess:

Right.

Steve:

And it's a well-known thing that they do it. The palm cockatoo does it for a different reason. The palm cockatoo is probably the only solitary parrot that there is. Oh really. Yeah, and they're the big black parrots, so they're the really fantastic looking ones.

Jess:

They are gorgeous. I'm going to bring up a picture.

Steve:

And they literally live on their own. And what they do at once per year when they come to breed, they have quite a funny habit. What they do is they actually go to the top of a tree that's got no leaves or anything, it's just a stump at the top and they stand up there and they get a nice stick about six or eight inch long.

Steve:

that's hollow right and they stand and bang it like a drum and they'll bang it, attracting, obviously, drum liking ladies. So there's another cockatoo, another female cockatoo, somewhere in the jungle, and then she'll just hear this, and when she starts banging it back, that's when there's love in the air.

Jess:

So they like drum into each other.

Steve:

Yes, and that's what? Oh is it that's in love, but this is what a palm cockatoo looks like.

Jess:

So that's a.

Steve:

Goliath palm Gorgeous, and they are Again.

Jess:

They're unusual in the fact that a july palm is different to normal palms only the fact that they're bigger oh okay, uh, but the uh, the thing that I found about them.

Steve:

I've had a couple of mates, a couple of colleagues, that's actually owned them and the. The real strange thing about them is I've never known one to be a biter really they're the only parrots I mean. I've only been bit once with the hyacinths, yeah, and that's because they're quite possessive. They're quite boisterous. Yes, they are, they really are. They're quite possessive and they've grown up. They've been with us since they were tiny babies, haven't they? They have, yeah. And so they get a little bit, even play.

Jess:

Their beaks are so blooming big they really are and it really hurts.

Speaker 3:

I want to show you what a high school parrot is, whereas the Porn Cockatoo.

Steve:

I should not see one because they're quite special oh yeah, I mean, they're one of the rarest parrots in the world and they're definitely the biggest parrot in the world look they're lovely they are proper blue and yellow parrots, aren't they?

Jess:

They? Are very odd looking for a parrot. I think they're very clown yeah they're like clown-fied.

Steve:

You look at the face and it looks like a clown. I don't know why they would have the yellow. There's only the Vasa parrot that we know that has that kind of yellow underneath its feathers. But they are very, very, very lovely animals. But when they bite.

Jess:

Oh my lord, do you know about it? So anyway, so they like to stand on one leg and they like to.

Steve:

But foot tapping ones is when they actually get uh threatening, then they will literally they'll dance like a little bit, like a little kid in the supermarket. They want something.

Jess:

They'll do the little foot frank used to do that a lot to be fair.

Steve:

He used to be fair.

Jess:

He used to look at you and think I'm going to get you today and then do a little dance and then try and get you.

Steve:

I always thought I could override that. I always thought I could. It's how I contained that.

Jess:

I felt like I could, especially with cockatoos. I tend to prefer cockatoos over any other species of parrot. I just get on with them really well. Um, but frank was frank's an exception. Frank and me, don't get on he just doesn't want love.

Steve:

He wants to bite your face see, we have different feelings about cockatoos. You'll. You'll love cockatoos for cockatoos, yeah and you and they're very dangerous animals. They really are I. I'm into cockatoos because I think cockatoos were only put on this planet to be the bane of my life. I think they're one of the most intelligent animals. They are.

Jess:

They're also one of the most loving I find out of all the parrots.

Steve:

Well, we used to have many, many years ago we used to have a chap here called Neil, a cracking lad, and we did a spectrum. So we did like a rainbow spectrum and it had all the emotions on it. Right, it had all the aggression, it had the noise, yes, it had the lovingness. And African Grey is like a mutilation. African Grey used to come like in little bits around, so they're never really noisy, but they can be annoying. Yeah, they're very rarely really loving.

Steve:

Yeah, no, but you'll get one or two that are they're very rarely really loving, but you'll get one or two that are yeah, but not overly talking brilliant ability, whereas cockatools were always on both extreme ends. If they wanted loving, they wanted 24, 7 loving. If they wanted to bite you, they were going to kill you, yeah, and if they wanted to scream, they wanted to deafen you, yeah. Yeah, there was no. So cockatoos were always, and I always thought that that's one of the reasons why they wouldn't make good pets.

Jess:

No, they definitely don't make good pets. Cockatoos in general don't make good pets at all. They are just so, so extreme. Yeah. They are. You can over love them massively.

Steve:

Well, I think that this is the issue. I mean and this is what we try to say to a lot of people I mean, over the years and the amount of times that people say things that they don't realise how true they are when they say I love it to death and that's what they actually do. Yeah, because when you try to, in the early days, when you were trying to study parrots and explain parrots to people, you realise that a six-month-old parrot with a little bit of character to it is like one of the best creatures. It's a little bit like a 10-week-old tiger.

Jess:

Yes.

Steve:

You look at it and think, oh my Lord, that's amazing.

Jess:

That wasn't like a, that wasn't a relatable example, though.

Steve:

No, no, no For us in the zoo world.

Jess:

I thought you were going to go like it's like a 10-week-old baby, and I was like okay.

Steve:

No, okay, no, it's like a 10-week-old.

Jess:

We all have one of those.

Steve:

No, because where I'm going is this is that one day you walk into that 10-week-old tiger, a 10-day-old tiger or whatever it is, and you look and think, oh, this is now a dangerous cat? Yeah.

Steve:

So you don't go in anymore. Yeah, and what happens with parrots is exactly the same that and that there's more people get bit by parrots and tigers. Uh, so what usually happens is you've got this unbelievable bundle of feathers that will do anything and and play, and be nice and and talk and everything, but then they just hit this certain age and things become very unpredictable. And what I learned very quickly was where parrots are very, very clever is parrots will and I don't want to stick up for parrots and be anti-people here, but when a parrot's in a cage in a house, they haven't got much to do.

Jess:

They haven't no.

Steve:

And no matter what you put in that cage, parrots are so intelligent, they very quickly work it out.

Steve:

Yeah, there's only so much you can stimulate, and then what they do then is they're very, they have acute vision, they're fully alert to all their surroundings and they notice things on us. So if you was to go to, uh, feed a parrot and a lot of parrots when they go to step up on you and we used to say this, I mean when I was laughing and joking about Graham on a couple of episodes ago saying that they hang on- yeah, and they bite him, they do.

Steve:

Hang on, and if you'll trust your parrot, you can put your hand out and he'll put his beak down, first onto your hand, yeah, and then step up, yeah, and that's fine because you can trust him. But what happens is one day you, he does that and he's feeling a bit rubbish and he bites you, and when he bites you it triggers a whole new, something he's not seen before, and it's usually obviously that's where swear words come from. But he sees something and then all of a sudden he logs out and thinks oh, wait a minute, if I don't want to do something, then that's all I've got to do now, because cockatoos are unbelievably clever. If they sat in a cage a long time, they see what happens when they scream. Yeah.

Steve:

They see what happens when they scream at the right time.

Steve:

Yeah, and so if you pick a phone up, or if you're watching TV and they know that if you scream, what they love to do is they want you to scream and more than likely you do so. These birds and cockatoos, they used to watch and they genuinely studied people as much as people studied them, and within a very short period of time they became a pain. So they'd want loving, they'd want to sit on your knee and they'd want to sit on your knee for five hours, and if you did it for four hours and 50 minutes, they were going to… Not good enough, not good enough.

Steve:

They were going to scream for another two hours and they go back in and this is where their intelligence goes straight into the waste paper bin If they've got the Mardis on or if they want. So we found that in the early days most cockatoos were addicted to pine nuts.

Jess:

Oh, okay.

Steve:

And they loved them. And pine nuts have got a little bit of like because you just put hemp seed in as well and they have the same kind of like effect of sends the heads a little bit funny psychedelic. Yes, that's right.

Speaker 3:

So so pine nuts they used to be addicted to and what they were doing.

Jess:

Pine nuts were very expensive. You're telling me that all these properties were like getting high. They're all high here they were.

Steve:

They were ratched. Oh no, you're walking. You see their eyes looking at you think all right, it's been on the end, it's been on the imp, it's been on the imp, it's had an accident on the imp, it's going to get us. But this is where their intelligence goes straight through the window. You would give them a half a ball of seed, and there'd be two pine nuts in there, so they'd throw the entire lot of seed away underneath just to get the two pine nuts, just to get the two pine nuts and then think, oh, that's brilliant, oh, I'm hungry.

Jess:

Oh no.

Steve:

Oh, where's my?

Jess:

food.

Steve:

Oh, it was causing an actual issue, so it was a massive issue and we used to try to say to people I did a lot of studies in the early days and we used to think I wonder how much food is actually thrown away? Yeah, and in a cockatoo cage about 70 food is on the floor on the floor.

Steve:

So then, not only have you got a bird that's wanting your attention, that's been locked in a cage for probably yeah, I don't know 10 hours, 12 hours, yeah, the average parrot, but these are all these. This sounds like a, sounds like the average parrot spends about I would say about let's do it the other way around about two or three hours out of the cage, okay, uh, out of 24. So about 22 hours 21 hours in the cage 22 or three two or three yeah, so there's 21.

Steve:

All right, so there's 21 hours in the cage? Yes, so if the average parrot lists to 24 years old, yeah, he spends 21 years in the cage. Oh, now, now tell me why he's angry, yeah.

Jess:

Now why is he angry, I wonder. So in terms of like I don't know whether anyone's done this, I don't know whether you've looked into it. On average, how many parrots are in cages where they can't extend their wings?

Steve:

Oh well, I think there's only.

Jess:

Do most cages come, built to the extent where they, like a macaw, could stretch its wings.

Steve:

I mean.

Jess:

I guess in that case then they can always stretch their wings.

Steve:

Right. There's a law that came out a few years ago that a parrot should be able to spread its wings by one and a half times.

Jess:

Okay.

Steve:

But that would mean for a macaw. An average wingspan of a macaw is about four foot, so that means it would have to be at least six foot wide. How many cages have you seen that you can buy from the shop six foot wide? There's none, no so, although they've created these laws so when did that law come in? Uh, probably about eight to ten years ago now oh wow, that's a long time ago yes I thought you meant like in the last two or three years.

Jess:

No, they keep changing they keep trying.

Steve:

so they did a pet shop law a few years ago where they turned on and said because obviously there's certain organisations like pet shops and like veterinary surgeries and things like that, they can get away with other things because they might not have them in their cages for very long If they've got a good turnaround of animals yeah, I wonder if they can get away with certain stuff because it's temporary.

Jess:

Yeah, so that's right.

Steve:

So they can turn around and say, like a vet, if we take a parrot to the vet, he doesn't have to have a four-foot cage or a six-foot cage, he can just have a holding cage because it's there.

Steve:

Yeah, it's like, basically, when you're in hospital, you're in bed and that's it. And same with pet shops. I think pet shops are slightly different. There's owned a pet shop before.

Steve:

Yes, because he's a specialist, a reptile, yeah, and he knows the laws. And the laws when they changed a few years ago yeah, because there was some new laws only about three or four years ago and when they changed, give you an example a friend of ours, uh, who runs tropical birdland, richard hopperper. He was an unbelievable breeder and although we don't breed, there's certain responsible breeders out there that are very good. Yes, and he was one of those, and his birds were always amazing. His birds were really well-hand-reared.

Steve:

You also have this lady called Karen who was by far I think she's got around a hundred more birds than probably anybody in this country. Really, she could, actually she was amazing, she really was. She still is, she hasn't gone anywhere, she hasn't died, she's still with us. But the difference is is a few years ago I spoke to Richard and I was talking to him about this and he said I don't do it no more. And I said why? He said I can't because the council, the new laws say that even baby birds have to go in these cages. Well, if you've got 50 youngsters, where are you going to put 55-foot cages?

Jess:

You just physically can't. No, there's not enough room.

Steve:

So he had to stop. So these parrots become frustrated right from day one in the fact that they do live Now. Don't get me wrong, they do get used to it. It's a bit like a big dog living in a small house.

Jess:

I mean some parrots we've seen become agoraphobic.

Steve:

Well, they've become very agoraphobic. Yes.

Jess:

Where they hate being in a large space. We've had to therapise and rehabilitate a couple of parrots who have become very, very engrossed in their own space.

Steve:

And I rehabilitate a couple of parrots who have become very, very engrossed in their own space and I think some of them never get over it. No so which is why we have to always look at when you're assessing a bird we've got to go away from people's opinions. Sometimes they say, oh, that don't look very good in there if that's the only thing that makes him happy yes then it's not a case of what we think.

Steve:

Is that the right or wrong thing? This is? I think this is going down the old story of if you, if you speak to most vets and you talk, and we've talked, we've not actually talked about it. We've, we've skirted around this a few times, but, uh, with the likes of wing clipping yes a lot of vets will say oh no, you can't clip.

Steve:

You can't clip their wings because if you do you'll mentally cause mental problems. Uh, you cause physical problems that their muscles don't develop correctly. Now, that may be the case in certain instances. It's not the case in all instances, but unfortunately these parrots aren't in a natural environment no, they're not born in an environment.

Jess:

They don't even go into a natural environment once in most of their life the majority of them provide as much of a natural life as they could possibly have, but even then, we it's still not natural, it's still.

Steve:

It's all artificial and the issue you've got is is like, when you've got these parrots, that you've got to and this is always sound. This is really controversial. This because it's one of these hard-hitting facts. Forget about science, forget about medicine, forget about feelings. It's a fact if a parrot's going to live, if you buy, if you spend a thousand pound on a parrot and they tell you it's going to live for 50 years, you've got to give it 50 years of life. You don't have to that with your kids no I mean having a parrot is a bigger.

Steve:

It's a big commitment it's not a bigger commitment, it's a big commitment to have and it's a lot more long term in the fact of the, the needs it's got.

Jess:

Yeah, so what we try to say to people. You don't, on the other hand, though, have to pay for the parrot to go to like school. So there is that, I guess.

Steve:

Well, true, but also you don't get paid from the government for having a parrot.

Jess:

No, that's my idea.

Steve:

So when people have got these parrots and they've lived in a time, people's opinions around them are irrelevant. One of the things that we haven't had on these podcasts is if any one of us get the giggles and I think somebody's gonna get one, so that just shocked me okay it made me do this is not gonna be good this is gonna be a 44 minutes of very serious conversation. Yeah, we've had all these daft conversations where I've made jokes and you've only laughed for about three seconds.

Jess:

I know Winnie's made me laugh for ages. Is he all right? I'm concerned. Is he, he's fine, he, literally jumped about 10 foot in the air.

Steve:

He's fine, he's okay.

Jess:

Okay, okay, you were saying.

Steve:

He's just had a. I nearly said he'd just been catastrophised, catastrophised. And then I couldn't think of the word. So he'd just been castrated and I was going to say you frightened the nuts off him, but you can't, because he hadn't got any. But I said catastrophised, and I don't know, is that a word, catastrophised?

Jess:

I think you can. Catastroph, no, is it?

Steve:

There's a catastrophe. Could somebody please Google catastrophised.

Jess:

I'll read as I said, it is a word.

Steve:

Oh, it is.

Jess:

Catastrophised. Yeah, because I think it's when you like.

Steve:

I don't think it's pronounced like that. When you make something too much of a drama, yeah, yeah, so it's pronounced like that, when you make something too much of a drama.

Jess:

Yeah, yeah. So it's like catastrophic, yeah, when you're catastrophizing things, this doesn't sound right.

Steve:

What is it when you're catastrophizing? This word's getting stupid now have you done that? You've said the word so many times. It just doesn't sound like a word. No more. Yeah.

Jess:

I was writing. What was I writing the other day? Small, over and over and over again. Doesn't look right. In fact, now I'm thinking about it, I don't know whether I spelt it right, Wait, no wait. Maybe I was writing smell.

Steve:

Why was I?

Jess:

writing it.

Steve:

Maybe I was dreaming this. I think we've gone down the wrong avenue here now.

Jess:

The smell.

Steve:

Why was I writing smell over?

Jess:

and over again. It's better than writing small no idea.

Steve:

No, carry on this time. So no idea, we don't know where we're going now. We've gone, the cat has thrown us out. So, basically, so what we were talking about? We were talking about wing clipping and what's right and what's wrong. Yes.

Steve:

And it's trying to say to, to like say the vet, come here and I'll not mention his name, although he'll know it is when he came, uh, and and he came, and he used to come to see me a lot and and we got on really well. And when he was here I don't know why, but the subject uh was broached about wing clipping and he says, no, we, we don't want your clipping any wings. So I said, all right, why is that? He says because it's like cutting the legs off a child. And I says, oh right, that's a bit harsh. The legs grow back the week after. Yeah, so right, so this word's gonna get thrown in. Sorry guys, you best get a t-shirt out. I've been catastrophized I've been catastrophized.

Jess:

I've been catastrophized. Just a picture of winnie's face, yeah that's it up in the air.

Steve:

I've been catastrophized okay so and I said no, I think you're being a little bit dramatic, dramatic and stop catastrophizing. And he said, uh, no, it isn't. I said it is because if you cut somebody's legs off, they're not going to grow a bite. It's like cutting your hair. Or, like I said, it's like cutting hair and putting a lead on a dog. Yeah, the instant you take it off, and he says no, no, it isn't, it's right. And this is where this story turns a little bit. So, uh, and we had this big, huge discussion, sat in the diner and I said no, I said you're writing the ethical side of things, absolutely 100. Writing the ethical side of things of it doesn't sound nice. Cutting a parrot's wing? No, because you're taking away the, the facility and the ability to fly. But how many parrots can fly?

Jess:

in a house, in their cages. They're all big enough, they just physically can't so.

Steve:

So we had this discussion and I'm not saying anybody won or lost, but we both believed in what we said. Then fast track about six to twelve months and I got a phone call from this vet's wife. She says if you ever come across a, an umbrella cockatoo, would you? Uh, a nice one yeah that one of these that you said needs people rather than parrots, will you let me know? And I said, yeah, of course. Well, I says, uh, as a mate for yours. And he went. She said, not really, no, ours has died.

Speaker 3:

So I said, all right so I said as it just died.

Steve:

So I said, well no, it flew into the tomato soup on the on the oven on the cooker and I went oh that's horrific that's. That ain't nice at all, is it? And she said no. And I said but you wouldn't have done that if it had been clipped, would it?

Jess:

Don't. You didn't say that I did because we had this big argument. Not with her. She was brilliant.

Steve:

And she says no, that's exactly what I said. So she says if you, as it happened and this is a real coincidence, as it happened I did actually have one and I said if you want to come down, you can come down and pick it up. And when she came down, she said will you clip it? Yeah, and then when I go back I'll just say it was clipped, yeah.

Jess:

And then Unless she had some sense about it. Oh, she would really Flying into a to go.

Steve:

yes, I don't think that actually killed it, I think it was the after bits. But that was the start of it. But I think basically and she was a lovely vet, she really was, she was very nice and uh, so she said, and for weeks and weeks after she'd phone and say I can't remember what they called this parrot, but it was lovely little white umbrella cockatoo. And she'd keep phoning me and saying, uh, he's doing this and he's doing that, he's doing the other. And then probably about 12, 14 months later she said if you're ever driving past, can you nip in quickly, clip it and don't let them know that you've clipped the secret clipping.

Steve:

So it was a secret, a secret clipping, but the idea is, when you're trying to give a parrot a quality of life, which is really, really difficult, no matter what is in captivity? It's incredible, no matter what anybody says, see, because everything works against each other, because we all want this unbelievably demanding intelligent creature until you've got it, and then what you've got is a demanding intelligent creature.

Jess:

And you don't want it to be demanding anymore and you can't keep up with it and you want it to have attention on your own time.

Steve:

Well, unfortunately, dogs fit into our lifestyles. And unfortunately dogs fit into our lifestyles.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, these little critters here fit into their own lifestyles and we have to fit into them, parrots, you have to cater for absolutely 100%.

Jess:

Yeah, 24-7.

Steve:

And no matter how many times you think I can trust him and, believe me, I've trusted parrots to my fault so many times the damage that parrots have caused in my houses. Honestly, some of the things that's happened and I remember some of these things that I think and I tell people so many of these different stories, because there's so many stories that we've had where I've just thought for one second I can trust it. I had a chap come to see me, a very, very wealthy chap, and he came to see me about parrots and I was trying to talk him out of parrots and he pulled up on my drive and he had this huge Bentley and he came in and everything about him was just dripping money. And I'm trying my hardest to say to him, honestly, a parrot won't, don't do it. Every single thing. And as I'm looking at him'm thinking god, every, every his ring, his watch, his necklace, every single thing he's got is going to be damaged. Yeah, and I've got eric the umbrella, cockatoo, and then he's. And it's really difficult when, when your life is probably a little bit like the only way I can imagine this is it's like watching somebody like jamie oliver or, uh or uh, james Martin, when they're cooking and they're doing things, we're fooled that you think why can't I toss the pan like that? Yeah, they do that because that's their life. When you try to end up on the floor, yeah, and I've got the parrot and I'm talking to him and I've got. So I'm trying not to say parrots are amazing, but what I'm doing is amazing. Yeah, because I've got this parrot that's hanging about me and I'm doing this. And he says, oh, steve. He says you know I'm going to go and get one. And so I said, well, I'd rather you didn't.

Steve:

And Eric went wandering off and it went wandering onto his knee. So little things started to happen. So he's got this unbelievably expensive suit on and as Eric walked across it, he left this white trail of dust and I'm like looking, thinking, oh, he's got dust all over his suit. And I said you've got dust all over your suit. He said, oh, don't worry about that. As he's doing it, his button had gone off his suit thing within less than a second. Oh my God. And he went oh my God, do you see what he's done there? So I said, yeah, and that's what he'll do all the time.

Steve:

And then he's got him on his arm like that and he's talking away. I'm trying my hardest, like indirectly, to talk him out of it. And while we're talking, he's letting him mess about with his ring and his watch and everything, yep. And as he did it, I heard this, oh, this, and then I turned around he got a rolex watch on and it snapped the winder off it, the winding thing that is on there and it would need to be. You know, I could have actually died. I, I never, ever. I don't believe in animal cruelty, but I could have killed it. And he looked at me steward, he called him, and he looked at me and went that's me, rolex.

Jess:

You know the shivers down here. It's like yeah because you probably thought you're gonna have to pay for it.

Steve:

I didn't know what to do. So it he didn't, uh, he ended up having an african gray right, and he he actually, in all honesty, how many rolexes did he go?

Steve:

through. In all honesty, I don't ever condone people and I've never met anybody that will condone people having parrots as pets. I don't try to. I don't talk them out of it because that's wrong after the amount of birds that we've looked after, but I try my hardest to give them as much possible negative as he can.

Steve:

But this chap, he bought an African grey and he said, right, can I have him clipped? So I said yep. So I said, but what about your daily routine? And everything he says says, right, I've got about, and I think he had something like six or seven hundred student flats and at one of the receptions where every student went in, he had the full corner about this size, a full corner kitted out with branches and everything. So the parrot lived there in the day and went home with him at night time, right, so throughout the day it's all about 600 students every day. So this parrot was so entertained and entertaining it was perfect. Yeah, and part of the deal was I would find him somebody that got baby African greys. I would hand, rear it and then I would go and maintain it. So I go and check it every week, make sure it's all right.

Steve:

Yeah, never seen a parrot as happy in your life and it was so there were so many people in its life. It's probably. I don't. I don't think I've met many fully gregarious parrots. They always like man, woman or somebody. They've got their lives all they like. But this we had probably slightly different when I said that I met two parents once called Woody and Casper Woody and Casper. Woody was unbelievably intelligent, hated people. Casper was thick as they come, loved people and you could do anything to them. Woody knew about 500 words, casper knew about 20. Right, but one of the best words he knew was give us a kiss. So everybody loved him. Woody didn't have that ability. But woody stripped himself down to zero feathers, yeah, and ended up having a. It ended over it over years. Casper might still be going now because he was the big, thick oar that were like don't want to do it, don't need anything.

Jess:

You tend to find that the more intelligent parrot species self-harm more.

Steve:

Oh, definitely yes.

Jess:

Which kind of correlates to the same thing as in humans, the higher your IQ is, the more likely you are to have a mental disability. Yeah, and suffer from stress because you seem to know what what's coming I kind of remember why we started talking about cockatoos in the first place.

Steve:

I think we were talking about cockatoos, because we're talking about the aviary that I built, which was oh yeah so the aviary was for cockatoos and then we just we just ventured off.

Steve:

So let's, let's go away from that, let's go back to the aviary, let's go back to. Should we go back to the sanctuary? Yeah, let's go back to the sanctuary. So so what we did is, uh, that was one of the very first aviaries that were built, uh, and that's the one that the roof tried to blow off on, the literally on the couple of nights. But then from there it was like what do we actually? It's so difficult. We've learned so much since then, because when we started building, we thought we knew everything. Yeah, and we actually didn't. And so it was like what do we build and where do we build things?

Jess:

So did you use steel panels?

Steve:

Yeah, so there was a chap in Louth called Rob and you meet some of these diamonds every now and then and he was a bit like Vin that we've got now. Yeah, you can talk to him, and as you're talking to him, you are trying to think of something that he knows. You know, like we're just designing a new brooder now because we have another problem, and that is when you do an intensive care brooder for a parrot, when it goes in there it's really ill and really like dying, yeah. And then you bring it round and you gain it better and the instant it gets better it stops. It just destroys everything. It just destroys the brood that you put it in. So we have made a steel and then we try to fabricate things around them to try to make them solid, because nobody's ever done one. We've just been looking at it that way.

Jess:

We have, yeah, we've been looking at trying to buy a pre-built brooder specifically for parrots and, to be perfectly honest, there's no one in the country doing what we're doing to this scale. No, there's only a handful of places in the in the world that are doing what we're doing. So the actual need for a parrot specific brooder that can heat, that can also like do things like nebulize and regulate and you've got to clean it it's cleanable and it's hyg's hygienic and it has parts on the inside that can't break off Like it's hard.

Jess:

It's just we're asking for an impossibility.

Steve:

Well, we bought one. This is a strange thing because Jess actually said to me she says can't we just have the same brooder as we've got?

Jess:

Because we've got a mismatch at the moment. Just because, like, obviously time has moved on since the 20 years that you've built a sanctuary.

Steve:

Yeah.

Jess:

So we've got our original brooder.

Steve:

Yes.

Jess:

That is from.

Steve:

It was from Italy and they call it Lions.

Jess:

Lions and it's amazing, it's stood the test of time. It's still standing today. It works perfectly.

Steve:

I wonder how many parrots have been in it Too many.

Jess:

There's been, there's been, there's been, it's seen every parrot under the sun.

Steve:

Yep.

Jess:

And it's just amazing. It's a great brooder. However, the company doesn't exist anymore because it's 20 years on. Yep so the next set of brooders that we got were Brinzee.

Steve:

Brinzee and unfortunately I mean they're a fabulous company. They are, and the product is amazing for a bird, but a brooder is what a brooder is a baby bird.

Jess:

Yes and we're not harbouring baby birds. No, we're looking after ill birds sometimes as intensive care units. Yeah, they're intensive care units, so they see all sorts of different things in all sorts of different states. So I mean, they're good for what their intended purpose is, but what we want to use them for they're too flimsy.

Steve:

Yes.

Jess:

Essentially.

Steve:

Yeah, there's things on them that I mean, like we said, when you put a parrot in, that's ill, it is ill, and parrots are very dramatic, aren't they?

Jess:

Yeah, they are, they, really are they?

Steve:

let you know when they're ill. They go down ill really quickly and they let you know about it. But then what they don't do, they secretly like come back alive again and come away and don't let you know until you put your hand in. Uh, but then it really hurts, it does, yeah, and you can't do anything because it's already ill we have one of those today.

Steve:

We have yeah it's just got me, I've got blood. Look, I've got blood and everything all over, because it was dying and I picked it up and it said, no, I'm not really, I just look like I'm pretending, so, but then when they come around, they've everything, as you know, is made of this plastic today, and it's either extruded or blown or molded, and it doesn't last five seconds with a parrot beak nobody actually works out what you can do with a parrot beak, no, and we find them like upside down on the filters, you know, like ripping the hinges off yeah, you've got to open the door up and then realize that this side doesn't open no more.

Steve:

It's that side because it took the hinges off. So it is very, very difficult.

Jess:

You're dealing with an animal, that is yeah, so recently we've upgraded to having our our own type of brooders sort of made we had some made, yes, but even they weren't perfect no, they're not perfect. They come with their own problems.

Steve:

We've just never found the perfect thing for and we've looked at everything I once looked at, uh, I once, and this is a terrible story, but it's something that, oh, I've just thought of another story as well.

Jess:

Oh no.

Steve:

You know, when you do something. I've just thought of something. Come on, I'm going to tell you this is not going to do you, this is not going to make things. I hope you're not eating, oh no, this is a long time. So, anyway, I've just remembered where I was. As I was talking, so about 25, 30 years ago, I got called by the RSPCA and said we are parting with some cages that we use in our hospitals, and I know, every time I speak to anybody I always say what's the best cage to use?

Steve:

You know, for intensive care and things like that. What's the best thing? Well, again, the RSPCA. They're mainly mammals, it's a lot easier and anyway. So, if you imagine, it's like a cage, from a good size, a good depth, and it was made out of really tough fiberglass Okay, but they were perfect in the fact, they were dead easy to clean and it was white, and they were all white and they said we're just changing out our facility. Do you want all the others? I thought definitely. Yes, I think we're about 12. So I had all these and I fitted them all onto the walls in. So where I lived in sheffield, I had uh oh, this is pre-sanctuary oh, this is pre-sanctuary. This is yes, okay you'll see why.

Steve:

So so it's got four levels. So, on the and it sounds a bit strange, but the level that you went in off the road, uh, so you went in. Yeah, so you've come off the road, so you come off your driveway.

Jess:

I thought we were talking about going into cages.

Steve:

No, we're going into sheffield, I'm going into my house. I'm trying to explain my house to you right?

Jess:

okay, so we're going on a detour, you're going a bit of a detour.

Steve:

So your level that you're coming off your house, yeah, off the road was like the living room and kitchen right, and hallway and dining room, and then you had three floors upstairs and a floor downstairs, so it was quite a tall house, okay. Yeah, the one downstairs I kitted out as my office, yeah, and my hospital, right for any emergency birds, okay. So what I did is I thought, well, what I'll do is so it was underneath the living room and the kitchen, yes, and I thought what I'll do is I'll actually build a, uh, a hospital unit. And they gave me these 12 hospital units.

Jess:

I thought wow, that's brilliant so.

Steve:

I fitted them all in and, in all honesty, it looked quite amazing, did it? It looked brilliant and I thought yeah.

Jess:

I know what I'm doing. I think.

Steve:

I'm going to start an RSPCA up.

Jess:

Watch me go.

Steve:

Watch me go. So I got a couple of parrots and one was ill, so I put this parrot in. I mean, sadly this didn't end very well, so this person didn't end very well, and so I put all the parrots in. That was lovely. And then about two hours later I came down and I was working in my office and I got a big glass panel so I could see in the hospital and I looked and I thought I'm really proud of them units, and this is where you know when your mind plays games. Oh no.

Steve:

And I'm working away and I looked across and I thought they look lovely, them units, and I love how they're shining, and I can't remember polishing them that and I'm sure they was white. Why are they shining? And then I really don't laugh because it ended up disastrous and I'm looking and thinking, oh, they were plastic coated, all their mesh panels, and the cockatoo that's in there has took every bit of plastic off and eaten it. Oh no, so don't laugh because I'm sat there. Oh, did he die? Unfortunately, he died yes, from plastic.

Steve:

Yes, and as I'm looking through, he'd just got this huge golf ball thing. He just kept putting them in.

Jess:

Why are parrots stupid?

Steve:

And that's what I'm saying when we're talking about intelligence. So it's not even edible, it's nothing.

Jess:

Why has he eaten it?

Steve:

But it's stripped, so you imagine a dog, that's actually quite rare.

Jess:

Like a lot of our parrots do destroy a lot of things, but they don't tend to eat what they're destroying, unless they know it's edible, like with wood and stuff in the branches they don't tend to eat it, I think what it is.

Steve:

I think when a parrot's ill so a lot of parrots, so we're used to budgie people and pigeon people they always put grit in the food. Yes, because it's a mineral that absorbs and it gives off good minerals, uh. So what? When parrots were ill, they would eat uh bits of grit right from soil and things like that, and it all had the to boost up their immunity to boost their immune and also help them, as it makes their gizzard a lot firmer, so it makes life a lot easier.

Steve:

Now what we did know in the we learned in the early days that if you actually give them a bowl of grit, okay, a lot of them would eat it all, and then they'd end up with something called crop impaction.

Jess:

Yeah, where they can't get through their crop. So it just literally got solid.

Steve:

Well, this is what that did, but it did it with plastic. And we shot up to the vets, went up to Andrew Greenwood, who was Andrew Greenwood is a special person on his own. He's quite old now, but me and him used to rub up against each other. He was brilliant, he was a brilliant, brilliant vet. But we did have one or two really close, you know, like opinionated catastrophes. We both catastrophized once or twice. And so I rushed him up to Andrew and he said, like I know what he's done, but I just cannot get it out. And he said, unfortunately there is so much that's gone into his system.

Steve:

And this is where, when, when we're talking about parrots and things like that, when people say, like if a dog eats something, you wait for a few hours and it comes out the other end, yeah, if a, if a child eats something you wait for, you have to sit outside the toilet and wait for the chinkle on the side of the toilet and say the ring's fell out. If a parrot eats something, it's different. What happens with a parrot? Parrots suffer from things like heavy metal poisoning and things like that, because what happens? It's got a couple of stomachs, so you've got your normal crop.

Jess:

I'm going to bring up a picture on.

Steve:

Twitch, yeah. So you've got your stomach, then you've got your crop, and then you've got your crop, and then you've got your proventricular, which is basically like your stomach. Then you've got your gizzard, and that's where it breaks everything down, and the gizzard is really oh, we've got a nice picture coming up here. I have. So the bit in the middle there, the gizzard, is where the actual everything ends up there and it's a huge muscle that is just constantly wearing it down. Yes, so if you put a pound coin in there, it's going to….

Jess:

Oh no, I closed it. That's my bad.

Steve:

If you put a pound coin in there, it's going to just try its hardest to break it down to zero, and so it literally keeps trying to….

Jess:

I think of it as like a cement mixer that also grinds.

Steve:

Yeah, that's what I think of it. It and it comes out as liquid. It comes out as liquid and urethra as urethra and fecal matter. So, but basically so, if you actually put a uh, so what? When people used to give them chicken bones, which is a brilliant thing, yeah, that's right. So that becomes part of the uh down facility that they actually have inside. So literally what it will do is, if you put some eggshell in there, that helps break down the normal food because it becomes aggregate in there, but also you get the benefit that, as it breaks down the actual eggshell, you get the calcium out of it.

Jess:

Right.

Steve:

So what happens with grit? When they put minute bits of gritting and it's working as like an aggregate and it's rubbing against the food and breaking it all down.

Steve:

Yeah, it's also breaking itself down, so you're getting the minerals out of it, which is brilliant right if it's a plastic cage, that doesn't happen no, it doesn't so there you can see that, you can see the crop, you can see the crop there, and then the gizzard uh, and it's down, it's down there, and that's where it all ends up, and once it breaks down there, then it goes through the digestive system down and then into here that's right, and then this is the.

Jess:

That's the digestive system.

Steve:

Yeah so anything you put in there. So obviously once giving them a bit of grit is no problem in the food. But a lot of vets will say, oh, give them a bowl of grit, but when they feel ill? They'll just instantly go into it, and then you've got another problem. So, going on to this, so it's obviously I'm so remember where we are. We're underground, we're in the bottom basement he's eating a lot of he's eating the cage and he died.

Steve:

Yeah, uh, the poor little chap, uh, and, but it won't do so. They all literally had to take them all outside, heat them all up, jet blast all the plastic off them Still ended up being okay. But that's my early days of expensive living, of realising that it cost a poor parent's life, because I didn't think for one second.

Jess:

Yeah, that he'd stripped the plastic off.

Steve:

Because they'd had it for 10 years and it had never happened, and all of a sudden it had done it. So you learn these lessons very, very quickly, however, the very, very quickly. However, the next lesson I didn't learn as quickly, so so I guess a telephone call in sheffield again, because I used to travel all over the place so to get one in sheffield was lovely yeah but I got a and I don't I definitely can't remember this chap's name a really nice chap and he said he lived in a place called darnel in sheffield.

Steve:

It's if you come down to darnel, uh, pull up underneath the bridge and I'll come out to meet you. And I thought that's a bit unusual way into just come to my drive and knock on the door. Yeah, didn't think anything, and he wanted me to go and look at his african gray. So drives down into darnwell and uh gets to this place, onto this bridge, and I thought all right. So I phoned him, I said I'm under the bridge and he said, all right, there's a big wall at the side, right, and this little door opened on this wall and he says right, you can park there. You're okay, come through here. And as I came through, I thought this is a bit weird.

Jess:

Well in the bridge.

Steve:

Yeah, at the side of the bridge, yeah, so the bridge was one way and as it went like going into some little secret thing and shiny cars, and it was a funeral director's, oh yeah. So I were like, oh, I've never been to one of these before for this, for this purpose. So I goes through and he says, right, come through. And instantly I'm thinking I wonder if he's going to take me through the dead bodies. And they don't.

Speaker 3:

But he may have. Yeah, it could be not allowed to I wouldn't but this chat.

Steve:

So I got, I had a drink with him and he had a problem with his afric, but we sorted that out and we got everything sorted out. And this is still pre-sanctuary this is way pre-sanctuary and I'm talking away to him and he was literally. He started telling me about his job and I said like because I was under the belief that if you wanted to open a funeral diaries, it had to be something passed down in the family.

Steve:

Yeah, it kind of seems like one of those professions, yeah, and I thought that's how it were, and he was telling me about the laws and everything and he said well, I'm splitting too. He says what I do is I do this, he says, but my other job is, he says, you know, when you see a special thing with the police uh, like a scene of crime, and they've got the tent and they have to exhume bodies, it's well, I'm the exhumer, I'm the one that has to dig the bodies up and check them for them. Oh my God. Well, I was fascinated. I was proper fascinated Because we haven't talked about it on here in case people thought it was weird, but I once went to be a pathologist assistant.

Jess:

You did yes. Why didn't we talk about that?

Steve:

My colour blindness got me, and I couldn't do that either.

Jess:

When did you do that?

Steve:

I was about 19, 20. I wanted to be a. I used to read, but Dawn's mother was so frightened she worked because she used to come to my house and I'd finish work and I'd be sat reading the Bernard Spilsby pathology books how to get shut of a body and she'd say he worries me. She'd say whenever he's reading, you'll make sure you phone me every weekend because I want to make sure that it doesn't turn up. So she went on holiday and I used to be fascinated.

Jess:

That's good I absolutely loved it.

Steve:

I used to love the pathology side of things, especially criminal pathology and forensics, so when he started telling me about this, it was like oh, this is amazing, my long lost obsession.

Steve:

So he starts talking to him and he was talking about some of the bodies he's exhumed and when he was just down to bone, I said so when they're down to bone, what can you actually see? He said not a lot really. So they get very grainy and very dirty. He says we use a mild acid, any bits of tissue that the forensics have to take off to use a mild acid of it. So I said if I wanted a skeleton of a parrot, how would I go about that? What could I do?

Jess:

He says well, Holy moly, I've been attacked by a cat.

Steve:

He says well, you can. Actually, what are you doing? You can use a very, very mild acid. Yes, he says, but unfortunately one of the biggest problems is parrot bones, he says. From what I can gather he says, because I've done a lot of study on my parrot is they're very thin and very hollow, which is what they are, because they're obviously flying creatures. He says so the acids….

Jess:

Yeah, it wouldn't do them well if their bones were also heavy. It wouldn't help them fly, would it? No, that's right.

Steve:

And he says like way to do it is use the old-fashioned way. And I said what's that? He says just go and buy a pint of maggots, put them in a box. If you have a dead animal, a dead bird, just put them in a box, leave them for a couple of weeks and then let them do the job he says and try it.

Steve:

He says the hard part is when they're in this box. Make sure there's air for them to breathe, leave them for a couple of weeks, but then the hard part is you'll be amazed how many bones there are, right? So having a stuffed animal is one thing, which is what you see, but having one that's a skeleton, yeah, is a nightmare, because you literally have to know where every bone goes. Yes, however, this got my little cogs ticking.

Jess:

I thought right, the next time a parrot dies, I'm because unfortunately, we are not gods, and parrots do, in fact, pass away.

Steve:

Yeah, sadly they do die. They do. They're not immune. And unfortunately I had another cockatoo that died and he did die. And as soon as he died I thought, hmm, I wonder, yeah. So I got a container and I laid him I I had to pluck him. So I plucked him that's a lot.

Jess:

That's a lot.

Steve:

That was an experience, I'm sure not a nice experience, but it's very quickly, because I'm fascinated, like I've been, with vets when they've done post-mortems things, yeah, and when you're talking about death and when you're talking about things like that, you very quickly have to disassociate yourself.

Jess:

You do, yeah, I mean, you have to learn um, we've had the largest collection of tigers in the whole of the uk and obviously quite a few of ours have died from kidney disease and we've had to do the pathology right there. And then, because obviously you can't transport a tiger, no to to a facility.

Jess:

Uh, it becomes very logistically difficult and it's amazing that initially, if when they're prone to sleep yeah, everyone's crying everyone's crying everyone's really upset, um, and then, as soon as they're like okay, we need to do the, the next bit. Now everyone switches off and it's like okay, what do you need?

Steve:

and we are very quick turnaround we are very, very fortunate that we have our the vets. That's done. Our z and b is he's amazingMB is brilliant and he's so sympathetic, he's so personal with them, yeah, and he's so very careful in everything he does. But then he'll explain everything to us. So when he takes a kidney out and we have to because obviously we took on a.

Jess:

Yeah, he doesn't mind me asking a thousand questions and we take.

Steve:

We had a sadly. We had a family of diseased tigers that we knew ultimately they were all going to die of the same thing, so we had something to compare with. Yes, and it was so. When you're talking about, unfortunately, with livestock comes death, yeah, and I mean, we are going to be talking in the future about things that do make you cry and sad things, because you do become emotionally involved with them.

Jess:

But when it's, I hate to think of the day that we start talking about Dara. I'm not sure I'm ready, I don't think Dara and Jackson.

Steve:

I'm not sure.

Jess:

I'm not sure you're ready for Jackson because you still want to talk about him now.

Steve:

You will get that story, but I don't know how, we might not have the cameras on and you'll have to just listen. So we've got this poor parrot that died and I phoned him up and told him and he says right, we need to take all the feathers off, lay it in a position where, hopefully because what they'll do they'll eat all the cartilage and everything, so obviously they'll eat the cartilage.

Jess:

Sorry I was trying to get my words out then, but they won't eat the keratin of the feathers.

Steve:

No, no, no. They won't eat the feathers or anything like that. They won't touch that at all.

Jess:

They touch that at all. They're mainly going for the soft fleshy meats and things like that so could you? This is this is going to be a bit grim actually. No conversation, sorry if you are eating um. So if you had left the feathers on, would they have eaten around the feathers? Yes would that not have been easier?

Steve:

it's been messier, because everything has been hidden underneath it, so I want to know what was there oh, let's tell you the truth like in terms of like bone structure it would have been harder to put everything where it needed to be yeah, because obviously your skin is wrapped around everything your feathers are, then your feather buds come through that, so it'd become a. In all honesty, I just did as he said really it's so true and so I set it up, got it all there, lovely big box. Got it all set up, got a pint of maggots, put it in there, left it Just get a casual pint of maggots from the local fishing shop.

Steve:

That's all I did, yeah, and then left it, and then left it.

Jess:

For how long?

Steve:

I forgot about it Wait.

Jess:

how long did he tell you to leave it for?

Steve:

He just says keep checking it, right? Because he says obviously I don't know how quickly he ate through all the meat and everything. He just kept checking it. So for the first few days I was nosy and checking it, but then you get a bit fed up, don't you? Because you've seen the same thing. So then I forgot about it. Now where, For how long? You'll see in a minute when this room was, that I'd done it in bang. Above there was my lounge, right and Right. Where did you put this box? In the basement? Yeah, just on the floor. No, I'd got it all kitted out with shelves and things like that, so it was on the shelves in the basement, right, because that's where I used to do all my work as well. So I'd do lots of work there.

Jess:

And you didn't smell it.

Steve:

No, no, there's no smell. Oh no smell at all. No, that's. I'm actually sat watching TV one evening about half past four, five o'clock, finished work when Probably 1996, 97.

Jess:

Summer, winter I need details.

Steve:

It was summertime, it was lovely, the windows were open. Okay, sat there, a little fly, just a fly. Okay, didn't think anything about it. Okay, that't think anything about it. Okay, that's that gone. Still didn't think anything about it, honestly. And I'm watching TV and then I don't know if it was Laura or Dawn said seems to be a lot of bloody flies here, don't they? You know, the instant they said that, I thought oh yes, they're mine. There's 5,000 maggots down there. I wonder how long they took 5,000?

Steve:

Oh there was masses, because you know what I'm like. You don't want to get a handful, you want to go back to being a gallon. Oh my God.

Jess:

So I thought I'd best go and check. You didn't open the lid did you?

Steve:

I didn't have to. I opened the door, oh, and I couldn't. I thought the light hadn't worked, and then I realised that they were flies, and I mean thousands and thousands of flies just flying around in this room and I thought, ooh, what am I going to do here? How do I tell Dawn that we've got a?

Jess:

When was the last time you went in the office?

Steve:

Well, but how do I tell Dawn that we've got a? When was the last time you went in the office? Well, they only take about four days to actually hatch and sort out, so it doesn't have to be very. I didn't know this. Flies don't last very long, but they seem to last a lot longer if you've got them in a supply of food. So I had to go. We lived very close to Morrison's, which were just down the road, so me being me, I was so good at this I went back up, never mentioned them, didn't say a word, Sat watching TV for about 10 or 15 minutes and I said to the kids anybody fancy a bit of chocolate or an ice cream or anything like that? Oh, yeah, Dad. Yeah, that'd be brilliant. Come on, then we'll go down. Goes down to get some. Dad, why are you buying like a case of fly spray? Summer's coming love. Well, summer's coming love, and they always sell out, so they thought all right, okay, then he's never thought anything, I'll have believed anything, that's okay.

Steve:

So I had to then wait for dawn to go into the bath, right. And then I went downstairs and I thought, as much as I'm gonna hate this, I've just got to dive in, put something over my mouth.

Steve:

I'm assuming there were no parrots at that time no, there were no parrots down there and let's just spray like mad. So I sprayed like mad for a good as long as you could get through some fly spray until I didn't know what we're going to go first, the flies or me, because we were all spinning on the floor. We were all like, we were all in such a state until eventually they were all over the floor just moving about and it was like oh, so I had to leave it. Then I didn't touch anything else then, because I think this is why my lungs are shot now. And then I probably left it overnight.

Steve:

And then the following day, when Dawn went to work, I should have gone to work, but I said I was going a bit late today and I went downstairs to clean it up oh, you've never seen anything like it. I and I went down to clean it up oh, you've never seen anything like it. I wouldn't like to say, but they must have been. I'm not exaggerating if I say 5,000 flies and there was all that was left is a pile of bones there was no sign of a skeleton, though I didn't even know what to do with them.

Steve:

So I contacted him and told him and I think he didn't stop laughing for a while. He said I've got to do funerals. He said now I'm going to be thinking about you when you're armed with your two-candles spray. And I took him down to him and he had a look with his acid and he said no, they're just too thin and they were just burning through. So from there I thought Not worth it. And you know where I got the idea from is when I think it was, uh, in Andrew Greenwood's place. He had the university did him one and they did him one, but they put the wrong head on it how do you do?

Steve:

that I don't know, I don't, I don't know. I think they've got all the bones and everything, but I don't think so. I think they just thought this must be an African grey, because I used to sit in his waiting in his reception and I used to like look at this skeleton and think it is lovely that but there's something strange about it. But I couldn't argue because I don't know if that's what they look like underneath. So when I went in in those days they used to sex birds. Yes.

Steve:

And it was a horrible procedure sexing birds in those days, oh really, oh it was.

Jess:

If you wasn't used to it, it was horrendous right now it is a feather yes take a feather from their chest, yep, or a couple of and they just do a DNA sample.

Steve:

And they just do a DNA sample off of the feather, so it's nothing like today it's nothing, but in those days they used to have to use. They used to use a there'll be a name for it. So basically what they used to do, they used to puncture their stomach with this like steel pipe that had a camera on it and he would look in and he'd look for gonads and he'd look for things like that that's horrific that's what they used to do in them days now.

Steve:

Harcourt Brown. When he used to do it, he used to put a slight bit of sedation round and then he'd put a stitching afterwards. Same as he used to put a slight bit of sedation around, yeah, and then he'd put a stitch in afterwards. Same as he used to do that with microchips. Yes, he used to put a stitch in afterwards, but a lot of vets didn't. No.

Steve:

I mean some of the vets, and this is where it was horrific. Some of the vets in the when he used to go to parrot shows I wasn't, I think I people, but I used to say my piece and I used to go to these parrot shows for no other reason than to see what people were doing. I'd never condoned them because it was like a cattle market. It wasn't very good. There was hundreds and hundreds of parrots and a lot of the parrots were drugged. There was hundreds and hundreds of parrots and a lot of parrots were drugged. Uh, they used to sedate the parrot. So there used to be a particular parrot in those days called a red-bellied macaw. Uh, you don't, you very rarely see them now. Fabulous, absolutely fabulous little bird, but renowned for, uh, dying of heart attack if you slam the door too hard. They were so nervous and stressful and all they used to do is scream if they saw humans, because they were all imported well before 2006. And they used to hang upside down on the cages. And I once went to one of these shows and there used to be a big display of people in down south and they'd brought a big display up and I saw all these red-bellied macaws all sat on the perches. Never seen one sat on a perch before. And they're all sat on perches. And I like looking and thinking, wow, they're nice.

Steve:

And I was like looking at someone, I'm looking, thinking there's something strange about these birds, and the guy who's uh got them, he was talking to me. He was quite interested. I was asking where he'd gone from everything and I became I must have had a good half an hour, three quarters an of an hour, with him. And then he went round the back to make a drink at his stall and as they were doing it he'd got a little bottle of Valium that he was putting in the water and he'd got them all sedated with drugs. The instant the Valium came out they obviously turned back into that. Oh my God. Then I realised how horrendous the world was in the animal world for anything to do with… yeah, world was in the animal world for anything to do with.

Jess:

Yeah, because that's just to make money. 100, that was just so that he could sell them all of them.

Steve:

I mean there's another one and there's a little story?

Jess:

who bought them? Who then got home with the wildest power, who couldn't handle the stress?

Steve:

ridiculous yeah, this is the last story of today, right gosh, I know we're talking about the same thing and it what it is to show you how people's opinions of certain things. And I've just thought of this because it was like amazing how it was so in these parrot shows. I was not in awe of these people. I used to love the idea that you'd got all these people with parrots so I could learn more and more about them. Yeah, and I got a good group of people that used to go around with me. We'd start at Parrot Line and we were doing all the advisory things and everything and people in the parrot world, like I said, they either loved me or hated me. Nobody liked me.

Steve:

No, you either love Steve he's brilliant or I want him dead. Bill and Marmite yeah, and I'd be walking around and you could hear people either whispering yeah, that was him wanted to make their way towards me and there used to be inside the parrot shores, inside Stafford, there used to be a huge aviary and you used to have these fabulous. You used to take dozens and dozens of baby parrots flying about. Macaws, all macaws.

Steve:

And it was quite a stunning enclosure exhibit. You'd spend a lot of time looking there and never thought of anything other than that's who they are and that's what they do. Uh, and then many, many years later, here I, out of out of the, literally out of the blue, I had a chap contact me and said I wonder if you could help me. Uh, I'm trying to relocate a big group of parrots. And I said yes, of course I can.

Steve:

And he came to see me with his mother, this young chap who happened to be an amazing young chap. He was only very young and his story was that while he was young when he was about 17, 18, he was going to university. He had a macaw and his mom said you'll have to take macaw with you. And he said I can't take it to the university because he won't have it. And so he said I can't take it to the university because he won't have it. And so he said that he would have to. She says well, why don't we go and see the breeder where we got it from and ask him if he will keep it until you come back out of uni? And he said yep, that's a good idea, I'm assuming she didn't want to take care of it.

Steve:

She couldn't look after it. The parrot was very him, and so he says, yep, no problem at all. And so that's what he did. And then he went to uni, fortunately and unfortunate unfortunate for the parrot, but fortunate for him. He was a bit of a genius, oh right, and he was unbelievably clever, oh wow. And he ended up being invited, or I don't know if he got invited or if he just went, but he ended up going to Australia for a short while, yeah, but he then invented something that became worldwide renowned.

Steve:

For people with money, oh right, and it made him a very, very, very wealthy, and when I say wealthy I mean proper, proper wealthy. So I'm sat talking to him, uh, and there was something strange about him so wait, where did you meet him? He just phoned me all right just for me. I said, well, uh, and he just said he just wanted help with these parrots. And I was just talking to him. And when you talk to him I thought what a special guy he is. I don't know why. Yeah.

Steve:

But what a special guy he is. And he sat with his mom and his mom were lovely, absolutely lovely, and I said to him I said you're going to have excuse me, but I'm always nosy with these kind of things. What do you actually do? Yeah so his wife, his mom said oh, I'm glad you asked that she was so proud oh bless her so he said, uh, uh, he started telling me, but his mom was determined to tell me what it was.

Steve:

So basically, he invented him and his uh mate in australia. They invented an app and this app I believe it converted money for you. So it was like if you got $1,000 and you needed to move it into shares, it would have to convert the money. So he did it and all he did was take a minute percentage from every single thing. So if you was doing £100, he'd probably charge you a penny. Yeah, so for you it was nothing, so you'd just use it.

Steve:

But millions and millions of people used him for millions of transactions and very, very quickly it became unbelievably wealthy, to the point where I think I'm sure you can google him, but I'm sure he became something like the young businessman of australia and he won the entire thing. He was so good, so it was brilliant because he was so nice and he was worth an absolute fortune. And so he starts telling me about this parrot. I said that's amazing, he says, and they came from this big place. And he mentioned this name and I thought, all right, that that's that really nice place. And he said you've never seen anything as barbaric in your life behind the scenes was horrendous. Yeah, oh, where the parrots were and he said I just need to get them out of there. I've got to find a place.

Steve:

So is that where his parrot was, that's where his parrot was and he's been there all them years and he'd come back and he'd wanted to get it back. Yeah, he made contact saying I'm going to see how such and such is. Yeah, and unfortunately, was the chap's fault Well, it is his fault in the fact that he was greedy and he wasn't part with them. Yeah, but I think he'd done the same thing as what some of these small rescuers had done and wouldn't stop and got so big, yeah, got too big, and everything being locked in this barn wasn't very nice or very healthy for the animals. And he ended up doing something that not a lot of people have done. He rewilded some green wing macaws and got them, took back to south america, which is there's not many people done that in the world at all. The world parrot trust helped him right to get him over there and then he built a, an amazing enclosure down in I think it was in buckinghamshire or somewhere. I think the queen mother was his, his neighbor.

Jess:

It wasn't um the guy who had all the parrots that rewilded them. It was him that rewilded them. Yes, right.

Steve:

Yes, he actually took all the birds off the guy, yeah, they literally took them all, yeah, and relocated them and ended up taking some back home to South America and the ones that couldn't do that. He built a fabulous aviary down south. He's still got all his pictures from what he did and he literally said that if nobody else can look after him properly, then I'm going to look after him and he built this amazing place for them. I don't know, it was always fascinating because I'm sure and I might be wrong when I'm saying this, but I'm sure his mum will still keep because she still follows us quite a lot, so I'm sure she'll let me know that she bought a big place, bought a house Somewhere near royalty, and I don't think they realised how loud these parrots. So it'd be interesting if he got a noise complaint From the royal family or the king, and that's the story about him and that's literally so how did he need your help?

Steve:

Well, what he wanted to do, because we was the national parrot sanctuary, he wanted to know if he could bring them here yes, uh but we just didn't have the facilities we couldn't take on, because I think there was 200 macaws, yeah, and it was like looking and saying I mean, well, that's why I designed the place called macaw world, yeah, but unfortunately we couldn't get it built in time because they needed to help it.

Steve:

It was so determined no, I know there's been other things that we've had to do, but he was so determined to help these birds he was so he there's no way could he wait for anything and so much. So he did it all himself, which is brilliant, I mean, which shows that his success in business uh passed on to doing other things, and that was helping the parrots. So for me that was brilliant. That's good. And I I kept in touch with him right up until COVID, yeah, but unfortunately COVID caused all sorts of hassles, didn't it, and we all went different ways. So if you do hear of this I'm not going to mention your name, but if you do hear of it, you know who you are give me a bell and we'll say hello again. Other than that, I think we've come to the end of another one.

Jess:

We've not talked about anything we wanted to talk about.

Steve:

Don't we say that every time now.

Jess:

Yeah, we do.

Steve:

I wanted to talk about Abigail. Abigail's only a tiny little parrot, but we'll talk about her on the next time, okay? And I think what we should probably do on the next one is shall we? Oh, I didn't tell you this. Oh, we've got going to talk about. You know, when we sat down today, we were so busy we said, oh, we forgot what we were going to say. Yeah. And then we babbled on about nothing for the last hour, and obviously it's not nothing.

Jess:

No, you've still got more.

Steve:

Thank you very much everyone. I hope you've enjoyed it. It's been another episode with somebody who keeps me in check, which is Jess, which is very good, because without her I'd just be talking to myself in two claps and that'd be even weirder. But other than that, I'm going to say thank you, Jess, and it is goodbye from me.

Jess:

And a goodbye from me.

Steve:

And we'll see you in episode eight. We will Take care. Thank you so much for being here, no problem, see you all later I wasn't thanking you oh.