A North Dakota
Allstate agency has given a home to four orphaned parakeets after agents first discovered and then grew attached to the lively birds.
Jeannie Peter, a senior insurance producer at the Grand Forks agency, discovered the birds near a dumpster while on her way to lunch. The parakeets were kept in a page and were without food or water, so Peter loaded them into her car.
“I don’t know how long they had been there,” Peter told the
Grand Forks Herald. “Maybe someone dropped them off earlier that morning, I’m hoping, but I just didn’t know what to do with them.”
Peter took them to her Allstate office where she was greeted with surprised looks, but much excitement.
“It blew me away at first, but we didn’t have anywhere to put them so I said bring them on in,” said agency owner Travis Nadeau. “She’s always been a kind-hearted type of lady. I call her Mother Allstate because she takes care of all of us.”
The agency originally planned to find a home for the four birds, the employees grew so attached to their feathered friends, they’ve become what Peter calls a “permanent fixture.”
Three of the birds now have names: Mayhem – after the Allstate spokesman – Billy, and Houdini. The fourth parakeet is still without a name, however.
“You can’t just name them randomly,” said Peter. “It has to fit.”
The office is planning to start a public poll to choose a name for the green parakeet. Regardless of the outcome, employees told the newspaper the birds make a “fun addition” to the office.
“I never expected to have birds, but it makes everybody a little more cheery here,” Nadeau said.
