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Covering Dallas, Monmouth, Independence, Falls City and surrounding areas since 1868
Julie Atkinson and her husband, Bill, cared for hundreds of birds at Parrot Peak Preserve in Airlie for about 20 years. Though she still produces the sought after feed, a handful of peacocks are the only birds that remain.
Julie Atkinson, her dogs and goats walk up a path that leads to the aviary on her rural Polk County property.
AIRLIE -- There was a time when Julie Atkinson's lush eight-acre hilltop in South Polk County could have been audibly mistaken for "a jungle," she said.
Among tall firs and ferns sits an aviary once home to 900 colorful macaws, cockatoos, conuresand other species of parrots for nearly 20 years. During breeding season, the building "exploded" with chatter, screeches and calls, Atkinson said.
The hundreds of cages and quarantine pens inside are empty today; Atkinson locked the doors of the facility six years ago.
And until only recently, "I didn't come in here," she said. "It was just too painful."
Atkinson used to run the appropriately-named Parrot Peak Preserve with her husband, Bill. Together, they raised and sold the exotic birds to other breeders, and dealt a food line of Julie's own recipe.
When Bill died in 2002, Julie tried to shoulder the entire operation on her own. It proved too difficult, however, and she was forced to abandon the aviary and scale down the feed business.
Julie, 62, has kept "Triple P" afloat for eight years now. She maintains a loyal customer base that still clamors for her food, including a hand-feed formula for baby birds that she grinds, sifts, mixes and bags herself in her small warehouse.
"I can average about 16 hours a week to 40 hours, sometimes more," she said. "In the summertime, when it's hot, I come down here at 4 o'clock in the morning.
"It's what keeps me going."
But it takes a toll. Physically and emotionally. Julie's only company atop the hill include her three dogs, some goats tasked with keeping the grass short, and several peafowl that "came to dinner one day and never left."
"I'm still here because I love it," she said. "But at some point, I'm obviously going to have to give it up."
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Atkinson said she became fascinated with parrots when she first saw one kept as a pet at a boarding school she attended in her native British Columbia.
"It would say `hello' and mimic the girls' laughter," she said.
Julie met Bill later in life while working for his construction company in Los Angeles. A parrot-lover like her, they married and eventually moved to Oregon in 1980 to run their own bird-breeding business.
They built an 8,000-square-foot aviary in Polk County, hired employees and raised nearly 900 parrots to sell to other breeders across the country. Determined to eliminate health problems in their animals, Julie also began studying parrot nutrition and formulated her own bird feed.
"I would grumble about what was available on the market," Julie said. "Bill would always say to me, `Don't talk to me about it, make something'... and I thought `Why not?"
She came up with a recipe for pellets that included wheat, soy protein, "and some proprietary ingredients" manufactured for her at a mill.
"If I wouldn't open up a bag myself and eat it myself, I wouldn't feed it to a parrot," she said. "Their bodies are more sensitive to things than a human's.
Julie became something of an authority on parrots. In the 1990s, she successfully pushed for Oregon to allow parrot-breeding operations to be protected under livestock laws.
She also penned a column for an internationally-read parrot enthusiast magazine for a decade, which greatly boosted the Atkinson's "Triple P" food sales.
"My biggest customer would be somebody buying 1 ton at a time," Atkinson said. "Back then, we were selling 4 or 5 tons a month easily ... which doesn't sound like a lot compared to poultry, but for the parrot market, it's quite a bit."
In 2002, Bill passed away following complications from heart surgery. His death was traumatic, said Julie, who has no children, or even family living in the United States.
And it meant trying to keep their dream alive, alone.
Julie continued breeding parrots for another two years, "and then I realized at that point that I couldn't do it all by myself," she said.
Sadly, she sold off the birds so she could concentrate on the more manageable feed business. Delivery trucks still come several times a week to pick up orders.
Julie said she'll keep selling her food as long as she can, but knows it's not indefinite. As much as she misses them, she doubts she'll go back to breeding parrots -- or even owning one.
The interior of her home is adorned with paintings, sculptures and statues of parrots -- gifts from her customers over the years.
"Everytime I look up at them, I have memories staring at me," she said.
For more information or to inquire about Parrot Peak Preserve food, bird bedding, dishes and other products, contact Julie Atkinson at 503-623-5034 or parrotpeak@peak.org.
