A parrot has been put on anti-depressants to recover from a state of manic trauma after being trapped in a garage for three years. Ricco was locked in a dog cage with little food or water as he kept screaming the name of his owner's dead wife over and over again - after the widower's new partner had moved in. In captivity, with little food or water, the Congo African Grey was driven to near-insanity, pecking off all his feathers. The 26-year-old bird is now being treated by my family and me andwe started him on an intensive programme of pills. We treate Ricco the best way we can like he was a little child and we love him.
He’s so traumatised from his years in the garage which he will never get over.' Ricco had been close to his owner Sarah before she died - and would not stop calling for her when she passed away. But Sarah's widower eventually met somebody else, and decided to lock Ricco away until they moved house three years later.