Good news and some questions
The good news is: Mango, the pearl hen we have been fostering while her owner was out of the country studying, is going to be ours permanently! I talked to her owner on the phone (she's back in the U.S. but not in town) for half an hour on Sunday night, and she said that she wanted to give us Mango outright, that after we had been such good birdie parents, she didn't feel she should ask for anything from us, let alone ask for Mango back. She feels her life is not stable enough right now to take proper care of a bird; she wants to get another companion bird eventually, but not yet. This is incredibly generous of her and a great blessing, as we are short of money. In any case, she will be in town another year and a half to finish her studies at the art institute in our neighborhood, so she can come and visit Mango often.

Now my questions: First, what's a minimum safe indoor temperature for birds? We've had some concern from our upstairs neighbors that when the furnace runs, especially at night, their apartment gets roaring hot--and that's with the thermostat around sixty degrees. I've turned it down as far as fifty-five the last couple of nights (it still fires up once during the night), and last night I left a fridge thermometer in the living room with the birds. It read fifty-five when I came up to do their morning stuff. Is that too cold?

Second, now that I'm feeling more confident about my cooking skills overall *g*, I'd like to make something good for the birds. Will cockatiels eat some kind of mash? I have some dried beans I soaked overnight; the ones that went into soup were still pretty hard, and I was thinking that throwing them in the blender with rice and veggies would make them edible. But is there a chance my crew will eat it? (I know Mango will eat it. About the only thing I've seen her refuse is canned tuna.)

I'd like to say that you all are a lovely bunch of people here--knowledgeable, friendly, and polite. This is the most enjoyable community I've participated in on Livejournal. Love to all from me, Rembrandt, and Mango (and Julian and Charles, da budgies).