Kiwi, a two-year-old Indian ringneck parakeet from Dartmouth, N.S., is an internet celebrity, and his climb to fame happened by chance.
The talkative parrot first found stardom when owner Tamara Mercer posted a video of him that went viral on TikTok.
“The first video I posted of him was the first time he told me he loved me and that went crazy, and so from there we got the TikTok up to 2.5 million followers and then I just started a few months ago my YouTube adventure,” said Mercer.
Their YouTube channel, Tamaras Blue Chicken, has 300,000 followers and has earned them a YouTube Creator Award.
Mercer said their content brings fans an immense amount of joy and believes people will turn to their social media pages when having a bad day.
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“Just because he’s so positive and loving and it definitely puts a smile on their face and that’s just ideally what we want to spread is positivity and love,” she said.
Kiwi can give high fives, call their family dog, and most recently has learned how to wave. His impressive vocabulary boasts roughly 100 words.
“He’ll come close to my mouth and he’ll put his beak on my lips. Just like that and then I’ll speak and he’ll typically eventually pick up the words,” she explained.
Mercer has recently started selling Kiwi merchandise, which has been wildly successful. Kiwi plushies and keychains with some of his sayings are sent to places including Malaysia, Spain and Australia — to name a few.
“It’s exciting to see the amount of places where people would watch Kiwi to the point that they would get merchandise from Kiwi,” said Mercer.
She said she fills orders daily to keep up with the requests, in what has now turned into an unlikely business venture.
— with a file from Global News’ Rebecca Lau
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