Devon: 0:27

Hello and welcome back to Kingdom Animalia, the podcast where we cover all the facts about one species in this amazing Kingdom Animalia every episode. I'm your host Devon

Cap: 0:35

Chicka And we're your Chicka co-hosts, Chicka Cap

Chet: 0:37

Chicka And Chet! Chicka this time without Budgly and Chicka Rex hogging all the Chicka glory! Chicka booyah!

Devon: 0:47

We can have a talk about this later. Anyway, this is no ordinary episode, for three reasons. First, this is the third and final episode of our Budgerigar miniseries. Second, this is the first ever interview episode of Kingdom Anomalia! And last but not least, this episode is a part of an initiative called Podcasthon. This week, over 1, 000 podcasts are publishing Special episode highlighting a charity or nonprofit of their choice. You can learn more about it at podcasthon.org. That's podcast H O N.org. There's also a link in the show notes. The nonprofit that I am highlighting is Mickaboo, a California-based bird rescue. Mickaboo is also how we adopted Budgly and Rex.

Cap: 1:24

Chicka Mickaboo. Chicka Mickaboo is the root of our Chicka problems.

Devon: 1:30

What did you say, Cap?

Cap: 1:31

Chicka nothing.

Devon: 1:32

Sure. So let's get into it. Today on Kingdom Animalia, we're talking to Amy Yee, a volunteer at Mickaboo, about pet budgies and other pet birds. Enjoy. What do you do at Mickaboo?

Amy Yee: 2:07

Right now, I don't have an official position, I'm just a volunteer. But for a couple of years, I was on the budgie team, and I was responsible for incoming budgies. So, in other words, if somebody emailed us or contacted us and said they had either found a budgie and needed to place it somewhere, they couldn't find the owner, or they owned budgies and they needed to give them up for some reason—they were moving, they couldn't take care of them for whatever reason—then my job was to find foster homes for those budgies. Before we could take them in, I had to have a place to put them. Let me just tell you a little bit about what Mickaboo is. We're a nonprofit organization, and we don't have any kind of center or office. We're just a loose knit group of volunteers that mostly are in the Bay Area. Some of them are out in the Central Valley area. We all work out of our homes, and nobody is paid. So we have no paid staff. We don't pay any rent anywhere. The only expense we have, aside from veterinary bills, which are very high, is the rental of three storage units where we keep extra cages and supplies and that kind of thing.

Devon: 3:08

Did you do anything related to birds before starting at Mickaboo?

Amy Yee: 3:12

Yes, I did. I volunteered at a wildlife rehabilitation center in the Bay Area, and so I was working with primarily raptors—hawks, falcons, owls—and I also raised baby hummingbirds. That's a species that has to be cared for in someone's home because they need a lot of intensive care. They need to be fed every 20 minutes and so on.

Cap: 3:30

Chicka You didn't work with Chicka any chickadees?

Amy Yee: 3:33

I did have some chickadees at one time. They were just starting to learn to eat on their own. So I actually brought them home from the wildlife center because the wildlife center was very full of other birds and I fed them at home for a while and then brought them back to the wildlife center and released them. They're very cute, very fun little birds.

Cap: 3:51

Chicka Yes we Chicka are.

Devon: 3:58

What is or has your favorite part about being at a bird rescue been?

Amy Yee: 4:03

I love the birds. I love getting to know different birds, different species of birds. You know, every bird, regardless of its species, has its own personality. And it's a lot of fun getting acquainted with them. And then also, I work with a lot of really great people who also love birds. So that's been a lot of fun.

Devon: 4:19

How many pet birds have you had?

Amy Yee: 4:21

I've only had three, and those are the three that I have right now. I have two budgies named Queechee and Coco. They're both males. And then I have an Indian Ringneck, a female named Juniper. I've only had her for about a year, but I've had the budgies for about five years.

Devon: 4:35

Hey, Devon just popping in here. The ringneck, aka ringneck parakeet, or Rose-ringed Parakeet, is a species of parrot native to Africa and Asia. Back to the interview. What's the hardest thing about having budgies?

Amy Yee: 4:51

They're wonderful little pets. I would say the hardest thing for me, and maybe for others, is the fact that they can be messy. You get feathers and seeds and seed shells and mess on the floor outside their cage, no matter how well you try to contain it. So some people are frustrated that they can't keep their floors as clean as they would like.

Devon: 5:10

My parents and I always have to Dustbust numerous times a day.

Amy Yee: 5:13

Exactly. Dustbusting, mopping occasionally. I keep an air purifier. You can buy electric air purifiers; they just kind of run the air through and a filter and keep the air a little bit cleaner. Birds have dander—shedding skin cells—and little teeny tiny bits of feathers. I keep the air purifier running to just kind of get that kind of thing out of the air. It doesn't get the big feathers or the seeds or anything like that.

Devon: 5:36

And then what's the best thing about having budgies?

Amy Yee: 5:39

They're delightful. They're just so much fun. They're amusing. They're inquisitive. They're acrobatic. They're delightful little birds, and I love their little chirps and whistles and"chick-chick-chick" sounds, you know, when it sounds like they're mad, who knows what they're really talking about. But they're a lot of fun and they're just very, very pretty too.

Devon: 5:57

So, how much work is having budgies compared to having, say, a dog or cat?

Amy Yee: 6:02

I think that it's roughly comparable, actually. You know, birds, budgies, they need to have their cage cleaned every day. They need fresh food. They need fresh water. They need fresh greens. And you need to do some cleaning outside the cage, like you say, with a Dustbuster. But dogs need to be walked. They need to be cleaned up after. They need to be fed. They need fresh food and water. Cats have to have cat pans cleaned, if they're an indoor cat.

Devon: 6:24

That's cat pans, as another term for litter boxes, and not cat pants, which would make no sense.

Amy Yee: 6:34

You know, as well as fresh food and water, some dogs have to go to a groomer occasionally. I think that overall it's probably about the same. in terms of the time and effort required to care for them.

Devon: 6:56

What's one thing most people don't know about budgies?

Amy Yee: 6:59

I would say most people don't know what personalities they have. And that's something that's hard to gauge. If you just see a budgie at a pet store, they're all there together and they're probably not very healthy or very happy. And it's hard to realize at the time that all these little birds have individual personalities and different things that they like and dislike. You know, to find out what they enjoy, what they don't enjoy, what they like to eat, what they don't like to eat. It's like getting to know another human being and to earn their trust. It's important to try to earn their trust and that's something that people don't understand is, is how to do that.

Cap: 7:31

Chicka I still Chicka don't trust Chicka Devon Chicka or the Chicka budgies.

Amy Yee: 7:35

Oh, well, that's too bad. You should.

Cap: 7:38

Chicka Those budgies, Chicka they're always trying to Chicka steal our Chicka glory. Chicka We're the Chicka only birds Chicka on this Chicka podcast, and we Chicka should always be the only birds.

Amy Yee: 7:47

Oh, well, you might have a problem there. Probably need to talk to Devon about that.

Devon: 7:58

What should my listeners know if they want to get budgies?

Amy Yee: 8:02

First thing I think that is most important is that budgies are a commitment. You should not just get a bird on a whim, because you're in a pet store buying cat food and you say, Oh, what a cute little bird, I think I'll get one. You need to understand that when you get a pet, and it's any kind of pet, including a bird, that you need to have a commitment to that bird. Unfortunately, budgies kind of have a reputation of being starter birds. or even worse, throwaway birds, because they're small and they're relatively inexpensive, you know, compared to some of the larger parrots. But they're sentient beings, they're deserving of warm loving homes and good care, and they will reward you with a lot of enjoyment. Be sure you know what you're doing, do your research, know how to take care of a budgie, know what your budgie is going to need, and be sure you're going to have the time and the place to put the budgie before you just buy one. So the other thing is, if you get a budgie, you need to get two. Budgies, as you probably know, come from Australia, and they live in very large flocks in Australia. So they're definitely a very flock species, and they need companions. So a single budgie in a cage is one of the saddest things. It's a very lonely budgie. They're used to being with other budgies. And, in fact, Mickaboo does not adopt out single budgies. We only do that if the person already has a budgie, and this one is going to be a companion for that budgie. Otherwise, they're always adopted out in pairs. The second thing would be, don't get one of those little tiny cages that pet stores sell. They need enough room to fly, because budgies will fly in their cage. So what we call it is a “flight cage,” which is large enough for a budgie to actually fly from perch to perch. So we have minimum space guidelines for budgies and the minimum space needed for a pair of budgies is 30 inches by 18 inches by 18 inches. The larger the cage the better. And if you've ever been in a pet store and you see the kinds of cages they're selling for budgies, you know that almost none of them are that size, are going to be big enough for a bird. The other thing about cages is the bar spacing. In other words, the space between the bars of the cage can be no more than a half an inch. Otherwise budgies—you know, they're curious—they can stick their head through between the bars and then they can't get it out. And the results can be very serious. Budgies also chew on things. So you want to make sure that the material that the cage is made of is appropriate, and so what we recommend is either stainless steel or powder coated cages. If you do adopt or you foster birds for Mickaboo, we often have cages, flight cages, that we can loan you for the birds. The next thing would be diet. Pet food stores are going to sell you a mixture of seeds for your bird, and you cannot feed those as a sole diet for the bird because they're too fatty. It's not healthy for the bird to just eat seeds. It would be like if you ate a Snickers bar every day—morning, noon and night—and that was your only diet. It's not going to be a healthy diet. So they need a balanced diet of pellets and seeds and fresh food—fresh greens, primarily, for budgies. And that's more expensive than just a bag of seeds, which you can get relatively inexpensively. So we have recommendations for different products that you can purchase that are healthy diets. Most of those products need to be purchased from a veterinarian who treats birds and sells those to us. In our experience, unfortunately, and I don't mean this as a put down to pet stores, but birds that are adopted from pet stores often are not healthy and they come to an owner and the owner has them and then they're not healthy and the owner takes the bird to the vet and, well, it's going to be expensive to treat the bird and the owner decides they can't do it. So they call us and say, “can you take my bird?” So that is one thing we do is we will take the bird and we will take it to the vet at our expense. And we have a very good avian vet, several very good avian vets that we use. But it's much, much better to adopt a bird than to support the retail bird trade. We have at least 80 budgies on our website. If you go to mickaboo.org–

Devon: 12:08

That's mikaboo spelled M I C K A B O O.

Amy Yee: 12:14

–and go to“See Our Birds” and then click on “Parakeet”. You can see all the birds that we have, what their names are and so on. And those are all healthy birds that are looking for homes. So that's definitely my recommendation. If you do want to get a budgie, do your research and adopt a budgie; don't just go to the store and buy a budgie. So, and lastly, you know, as I said, do your research. Know what you're getting into by getting a budgie. And Mickaboo offers a basic bird class. Even if you're not going to adopt a bird from Mickaboo, you can take the class. It's a basic bird care class. It's offered every two weeks. It's online and it's free to anybody. You don't even have to have a bird or be interested in getting a bird, but if you're just interested in the subject, you can log on and attend the class. And like I say, it's free to everybody. It's about a three hour class and it covers a lot of different issues that a lot of people are not going to be aware of. So that's a recommendation for learning more about what you're getting into before you get a budgie.

Devon: 13:14

What sacrifices could they have to make if they want to get budgies or other birds?

Amy Yee: 13:19

You're going to spend time. You'll want to spend time with your bird and so that obviously takes time, right? And except that they'll be messy and that you'll need to be prepared to clean up not only the cage, the papers under the cage–

Devon: 13:32

Meaning the papers you put under the cage to catch their poop and dropped food.

Amy Yee: 13:38

–should be changed every day, take the old ones out, put in fresh ones. And as we've talked about the floor around will need to be clean. You know, if you go away on vacation or you want to be away for the weekend or whatever, you'll need to find someone you trust to take care of your bird. You can't just throw a whole bunch of food in there and leave it for a couple of days. It's not fair to the bird to do that. So you need to know good people who will come in and feed your bird, or you can take your bird to them and know that the bird will be safe and well cared for. So there is a commitment around time for that, but I don't think it's any more than the commitment you would make if you get a dog or a cat.

Devon: 14:10

Are there any things in the market for budgies or other pet birds that listeners should actually avoid?

Amy Yee: 14:17

Yes, there are definitely some. The metal bells that are on some toys, they need to be stainless steel. If they're made of other metals, the bird can chew on them and it's not safe for the bird. So most of the inexpensive toys that you buy with bells on them in the pet store are not going to be safe. You can get the toy but cut off the bell. You can buy stainless steel bells by themselves from other sources, and birds do like bells. Another thing, though, you should not get for them are those little snuggle caves that are often made of like a polyester fleece kind of fabric. Sometimes there's like a triangle made of fleece and you can hang it in the cage and you think, ”oh, what a cute place for my bird to go sleep,” or something like that. It encourages hormonal behavior because it reminds them of a nest. You don't want your birds to get hormonal. They'll get aggressive. The females will start laying eggs if it gets bad.

Budgies are like chickens: 15:12

they'll lay eggs whether they're around a male or not. You don't want that. Laying eggs is not a good thing for birds because the making of the shell in the female bird's body pulls calcium from the bones. And if the bird is a constant egg layer It's just not a healthy situation for the bird. So don't get those little snuggle huts. Don't get bells on the sustenance steel. Be careful that anything you get, if the bird chews it up, it's not going to get stuck in their mouth or something like that and become a problem.

Devon: 15:58

How do you get a budgie comfortable with you?

Amy Yee: 16:03

Again, it's spending time with the bird. When you're with your bird, you always need to speak gently and kindly. Birds will know if you're yelling at them, and they'll never trust you. The goal is to establish a level of trust between you and your bird. And your bird needs to trust you if you want to do any kind of training with your bird. It needs to trust you. So, don't ever, ever yell at your bird; worse, don't ever hit your bird. Your bird will remember, and you will never develop that trust that you need to have. So, if your bird is misbehaving, just turn around and walk away. If your bird is doing the behaviors that you like, give him a little treat—a little a piece of millet or something like that. But don't ever yell at your bird or do anything to injure your bird. If it's doing something you don't like, like I said, just walk away and the bird will learn. The bird will learn that it's not going to get attention if it misbehaves. So, what I did with my budgies, to get them to sit on my hand, was—do you know what millet is? It's a seed that you could purchase, so it's kind of on a stick. Just take a little piece of millet, like maybe an inch long, and put it on the palm of your hand, and put your hand in the bird's cage. And the bird will look at it, suspiciously probably, if it's never been on your hand, but after a while, and it may take several days trying this over several times, the bird will come down and sit on your hand and eat the millet.

Disco the Budgie (Clip): 17:22

Eat some millet and have a good time!

Amy Yee: 17:25

It may come down, take a couple bites, and then fly back to a perch, and then come back, and so on. But just keep your hand there, and hold it there, and so the bird can come back, and just be quiet and still, and the bird will come eat from your hand. And when he does that, then eventually you can try moving your hand out of the cage a little bit with the bird on it. See if you can get him to come out.

Devon: 17:46

When taking the bird out of the cage, you should do it in an enclosed room without crevices that they could hide in, especially ones that could remind them of a nest. The kitchen is the most dangerous place in the house for animals for obvious reasons.

Amy Yee: 18:01

You could always try getting him to step up, you know, how to put your finger kind of on top of his feet and under his belly and maybe just push on his belly a teeny bit and say, “step up.” That takes a little while to train also, but your bird should learn to do that, especially if you're holding a piece of millet with your other hand and he gets the millet when he steps up. You know, it's a reward kind of situation.

Devon: 18:24

One of my budgies, Budgly, prefers to step up on a finger, whereas Rex prefers to step up on a perch I'm holding. This has actually chained since the original recording. Both of them are now comfortable coming up on my finger. Additionally, Budgly always goes for Rex's piece of millet.

Amy Yee: 18:42

A perch, yes. And some birds are like that. For sure. My ringneck is not a great bird for stepping up on my finger, but she'll always step up on a perch, especially those rope perches that are for larger birds. One other thing about keeping your bird comfortable is if he's outside the cage, always keep the cage door open because that's the bird's safe place. And the bird needs to know that if he's outside, if he gets scared, or if for some reason he's not comfortable, he can go back into his cage. So always keep that cage door open. Anyway, it's just a process of time and moving slowly and being patient. And don't expect to work with your bird for an hour every day. Probably ten minutes a day is great because that's enough training for them for each day. You know, ideally, if your bird gets really comfortable with you and doesn't mind your hand above it, you can try doing ear scritches, which is where you take your thumb and your first finger and just gently rub the back of his head behind his eyes, which is where the bird's ears are, and just kind of gently rub them, you know, kind of like you would a cat, behind its ears, but then gently. If he lets you do that, you can give him a little bit of millet too, just as a reward.

Devon: 19:45

When giving your budgies or other parrots scritches/scratches it's good to be mindful to not scratch anywhere below their neck. Scratching in that area is reserved for mates and will elicit breeding behavior. So, do you have any suggestions for giving budgies baths? Because I've heard some budgies will enjoy being sprayed, but my budgies specifically, they just fly away when I spray them for baths, and they usually mostly ignore a bath when we put it in. This has also changed since the original recording. We no longer try to spray them because they'll bathe on their own sometimes, though they more often use their bath as a water bowl. And sometimes a toilet bowl. And… sometimes… both. Uhh… how about we move on?

Amy Yee: 20:32

Yeah, budgies are like that. I have one budgie who kind of likes being spritzed and the other one does not. So, I understand what you're saying. You can keep trying the bath. Put in just a little shallow bowl of water. You can buy little bathtubs for them that you can attach to the door of the cage. I used to try putting a mirror. Like an old makeup mirror or something like that with the mirror side up so that the bird could kind of step in the water and see himself in it. And that was kind of intriguing to the bird. But basically, they're not going to bathe if they don't want to bathe. And if you make it available to them and they don't want to, then I think they're fine. I wouldn't worry about it.

Devon: 21:17

Do you have one crazy, funny, or interesting story from volunteering at Mickaboo or just working with birds in general?

Amy Yee: 21:25

Oh, I've probably got a bunch of stories. I'll tell you about my very first foster bird. I had an, an Alexandrine. It was my very first foster bird, and that's a very large ringneck. So she's probably about 20 inches from head to tail. So the first night I had her, she was in her cage. I checked to make sure her cage door was latched. And then I had put these two little ring locks on the side doors, which were spring loaded, just to make sure she couldn't push them open. And in the morning, I came down, you know, to feed her and everything. And all the doors of her cage were closed and she wasn't in the cage. And you know, you can imagine how shocked I was, but I looked around and there she was. She was sitting on a bookshelf looking like,‘what's wrong with you? I'm just fine.’ And I realized what she had done, with either her beak or her feet, she had managed to unscrew that ring lock, which is like an oval, and on one of the long sides there's an opening with a screw situation that can be closed or open to make a gap in the opening. She had managed to unscrew that and maneuver it around so that it came off the bar of the cage in the door, and she was able to push her way out. So, that's another example of don't ever underestimate the intelligence of these birds. She had gotten out of that. So, that's just one story.

Devon: 22:44

Yeah, never to get underestimated. Check out us birds.

Amy Yee: 22:49

You got it. You got it, Chet. Yeah. People need to know that.

Devon: 23:11

How many color morphs of budgies do you know of?

Amy Yee: 23:15

Well, the natural color in the wild, in Australia, where they live, is green. But people have been breeding them in the United States for many years, so now you can find blue, you can find yellow, you can find gray, you can find all white birds, sometimes even birds that look a little bit lavender-ish, and there's all different combinations of blue with yellow head, blue with white head, and so on. So those would be the ones that I'm most familiar with.

Devon: 23:42

What are some good resources for listeners who want to learn more about taking care of budgies or other birds?

Amy Yee: 23:49

Again, I would really recommend our basic bird class. If you go to mickaboo.org, you can find it. And it will give you the dates of the upcoming classes, and you can sign up for it. And then you'll get a link of where to log on and when. And they're usually on weekends. I think they alternate Saturdays and Sundays just to try to accommodate as many people as possible. And that has a whole wealth of information about birds in general, not just budgies. But you can also ask questions of the person teaching the class, which is always a very experienced Mickaboo volunteer. So that would be a very good source. The other thing is, if you want to get a budgie, develop a relationship with an avian veterinarian. And you definitely want to go to a veterinarian who specializes in birds. A lot of vets will say,‘oh yeah, I take care of birds too, along with dogs, guinea pigs, and whatever.’ But it's much better if you go to a vet who specializes in birds because they're such a different type of creature. And we have several in the Bay Area that we can recommend to people. But if you have a good avian vet, where you can call their office and ask a question if you're concerned your bird is not behaving normally or something and find out what they recommend that you do.

Devon: 24:58

Is there anything else you want to say about having budgies or other birds?

Amy Yee: 25:02

Um, I think the idea of teaching birds to talk is a really interesting idea, for me. Many people feel that teaching your bird to talk is one way of spending time with them, and it fosters communication and interaction between your bird and you. And then people come over and your bird says, “I love you,” and ‘oh, that's so cute,’ and so on. But you have to understand that the bird probably doesn't know what ‘I love you’ means. But if you've taught it to say ’I love‘ you in a loving way, maybe they will associate the word love with a warmth and affection that you have demonstrated in teaching the bird that, but I also kind of feel that since we are the ones taking care of them and we are the ones responsible for them, that we have some kind of an obligation to learn their language as well. And if you pay attention to your bird, you can often understand what it is they're trying to tell you, at least to some extent, even without them speaking “English” words. They make wonderful, wonderful pets. You just need to know. what you're doing and be prepared for them. But I love mine very much. I've had them for a long time.

Devon: 26:02

So thanks for agreeing to being interviewed for Kingdom Animalia.

Amy Yee: 26:06

You're most welcome. I've enjoyed this.

Devon: 26:15

That was Amy Yee from Mickaboo talking about pet budgies and other pet birds. For more Mickaboo there's a link in the show notes and their website is mickaboo.org. That's Mickaboo spelled M I C K A B O O. You can check out more Podcasthon podcasts at podcasthon.org. Again, that's podcast H O N.org. That is all for this episode. You know the drill. If you want to read along with a transcript, test your memory of the memory quiz, or have a laugh with a miniseries comic, you can find links in the show notes or go to the page for this episode, which is at kingdomanimaliapod.com/budgiesode3(that's three the number, not the word). A lot of the music in this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions, and this amazing outro theme is by the duo known only as Gvidon. You can send in questions, comments, episode suggestions, or just verification that I'm not just talking to the void(seriously, it means a lot to hear from a real person and not just see a number) to animals@kingdomanimaliapod.com or at kingdomanimaliapod.com/contact. Links are also in the show notes.

Cap: 27:18

Chicka If you like this podcast, then chances are someone you Chicka know would too. Chicka You can help us out and give Chicka someone else a great new podcast to listen to by spreading the Chicka word about this podcast. Chicka Tell your friend. Chicka Your cousin. Chicka Your teacher. Chicka Even that roly-poly in your friend's Chicka garden who's totally not secretly a serial Chicka bank robber that's on the run and Chicka depending on me to keep her Chicka secret. Chicka {Gasp}! Chicka Oops, I've said too Chicka much. Or maybe I've said too Chicka little. Chicka I've gotta go Chicka dentist appointment Chicka bye!

Devon: 27:48

But birds don't even have tee– Nevermind, he's gone. Spreading the word means a lot to us (well, me) and makes a bigger difference than you might think. If you want to go the extra mile, you can become a Kingdom Animalia Podasts Plus member for as little as 4 USD a month at kingdomanimaliapod.com/support, joining our one other member. It helps me pay the podcast bills without screaming at you about why your current mattress sucks and needs to be replaced. You'll also get a shoutout here and one week early access to Where Are the Chickadee Brothers? Higher plans get you other perks like second guesses to riddles and behind the scenes content; like for instance, the plans for a deleted season of Where Are the Chickadee Brothers? That's kingdomanimaliapod.com/support for as little as $4 a month (just so you know, signing up on the Patreon iPhone/iPad app costs more because Apple takes a cut). But if you can't afford to pay, just spread the word. There's no riddle for the next episode because it'll be our April Fools' special. That means there will be five crazy animals, one of them will be made up, and you'll have to guess which it is for a special prize. And hopefully it won't turn into a Late-pril Fools' special again. So, until next time, always do your research before adopting a new kind of pet, and do adopt pets instead of buying them, it's much better.

Disco the Budgie (Clip): 29:05

Bird to your mother.

Devon: 29:06

And keep exploring this amazing kingdom Animalia. Bye!

Chet: 29:10

Chicka Bye!

Devon: 29:20

(Blooper) For clarification, she's saying cla– that's cla– that's cat pans, as another term for litter boxes. Not– And not cat pants, which would make no sense.

Chet: 29:48

Chicka Cap's still gone, Chicka so I guess I'll do this? Ahem. Chicka Chickadees are the superior Chicka birds. Hmm, Chicka That was good, right? Good, Chicka Yeah, good. I think it's good. End the recording. Is the recording still going? Chicka Wait, stop it. Stop it.