It was about 1988. The summer between 6th and 7th grade for me. Our female tended to win bird shows, so we took her to one. She didn't win that year because that was the start of when we started seeing 'tiels being bred for shows specifically and mine was just a very nicely put together randomly bred bird. A few months later she had babies. First she and her mate died. Then a couple weeks later her babies died. Necropsy didn't show anything other than an enlarged heart, but that was right before really good vet care and disease testing became available. I did have one survivor. An adult female that didn't have physical contact with the pair or their babies. She lived to be 16 years old. I had her and the male I later paired her with tested and blood work done before I brought Ariel home in 2001 just to make sure there wasn't any remote chance of a carrier state. I'd love to do a little bit of fostering and rescue, but that experience pretty much put an end to carelessly bringing new birds into the house.
