Cairo's First 48 Hours!

charmedbyekkie

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May 24, 2018
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Cairo the Ekkie!
Wow! What an absolute whirlwind! Today is his third day with us, but just the first 48 hours alone were so surprising.

A bit of background, he's a year and three months old. His previous family had him free-flight trained on top of recall trained. Oh! And his name is pronounced Cairo with a CH because he grew up in a Malay-speaking family.

First day here, he was naturally very protective of his cage and his personal space. He was biting and growling if a finger went near his cage, but he would accept food from hands. He was, however, quite open to leaving his cage, climbing onto his perch and flying around the room. He landed on my shoulder, but I immediately made him step off since he was still quite bitey and uncertain of us.

We managed to distract him with a toy (bad guy toy) and release his toe from his S-hook (a big squawk of pain!), but he's able to grasp things again! We also gave him a bath (his owner gave us a tripod with a perch), which he seemed to enjoy - stretched and flapped his wings and wagged his tail. Then we let him dry with a standing fan in the sun. He did fly around again, but didn't seem used to the wind, so he kinda crash landed at my feet. I crouched down and calmly talked to him - he was a bit stunned at the situation, but then quickly rushed to climb into my lap. So since he seemed quite scared, I helped him back to the safety of his cage. He did come out a few more times, but was very upset at everything though he seemed to enjoy his new toys.

The second day, he was more settled. We set up for some target training, and he immediately got into it (his family gave us his favourite treat - sunflower seeds, which were a huge incentive for him as well). After that reminder of his past training, he was eager to step up and acted less scared/defensive. Then he started looking for opportunities to get a treat. The moment an arm came up, even mid-gesture, he'd fly over! Which ended up with him occasionally landing on my unsuspecting head. So we quickly put a stop to that - he was immediately put back onto his stand and only received treats when we explicitly asked for him to step up or come over. But I think everyone was happy to be engaging with each other, since then he started relaxing around us.

We also introduced him to some food toys - bok choy tied from a hemp string and a coconut! He was hesitant with the coconut's size, but after I fed him a bit of the coconut meat, he was happy to tear up the dangling coconut. So while he was distracted, I was finally able to scrub down his cage with white vinegar and water. So much black water from his dowel perch alone!

His only squawks have been when he was confused about his sleep cycle. We had picked him up around 9pm and he was so agitated then that he went to sleep around 2:30am. So the next night, he went to sleep around 10:30pm (you can put a kid to sleep, but...). Then the next evening he squawked quite loudly around 7pm (sunset already but our lights were on). So we put him to bed and he immediately went to sleep.

We're still learning about each other, but I did not expect such a different between two days!
 
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GaleriaGila

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May 14, 2016
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Welllllll... wow!
Your preparation paid off!
Congratulations.
We'll look forward to sharing your journey.
"Cairo". Beautiful name!
 
OP
charmedbyekkie

charmedbyekkie

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May 24, 2018
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Cairo the Ekkie!
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Color me stupid but could you explain the S-hook? I don't know what you are referring to.

Thanks.

It's actually great you don't know what an S-hook is :)
It's literally a metal piece that looks like an S - one side of it hooks onto the leg like a leg band, and the other side sticks out to allow you to hook a chain onto it.
 

TiredOldMan

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Apr 24, 2018
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CAG Hen-Gracie age unknown, U2 Rooster-Anakin 13YO
That's horrible!

Unfortunately I am constantly surprised by the cruelty that is capable of some "humans".:mad:

Thank you for taking time to explain it.:eek:

And a big THANK YOU for getting it off of him.:)
 

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