The short version is I swapped cages for Bella and Pacho. It was only an hour or two before I noticed the way Bella was grooming herself. When I checked closely I found two down feathers in her food dish. I got the strong impression she felt I was punishing her. I had to swap them back right away and everything was ok after that.
The details.
Pacho’s cage is large because it used to house 2 parrots (Plumas and Pacho). Bella’s cage is at best a medium sized cage. I’m not going to go into measurements here it’s not the point.
Since the loss of Plumas, Pacho (a rather small amazon parrot that is older and not very active) has this big cage all to herself. It made sense to me to give the larger cage to the younger and more active African Grey Bella.
I completely cleaned both cages, swapped the toys and first put Pacho in Bella’s cage. That part went fine.
Knowing Bella is a bit more sensitive to change I slowly put her in the entrance to the cage and left the door open. She flew out right away.
I sat with her for about ½ hour where she could see the cage and then tried again. It looked like she accepted it so I closed the door and watched. She climbed around and around (not unusual for her) and then settled down.
She settled down and started pulling out down feathers.
So both birds are back where they started from and appear to be happy with it. It’s just me that’s unhappy about the amount of room Bella has.
The details.
Pacho’s cage is large because it used to house 2 parrots (Plumas and Pacho). Bella’s cage is at best a medium sized cage. I’m not going to go into measurements here it’s not the point.
Since the loss of Plumas, Pacho (a rather small amazon parrot that is older and not very active) has this big cage all to herself. It made sense to me to give the larger cage to the younger and more active African Grey Bella.
I completely cleaned both cages, swapped the toys and first put Pacho in Bella’s cage. That part went fine.
Knowing Bella is a bit more sensitive to change I slowly put her in the entrance to the cage and left the door open. She flew out right away.
I sat with her for about ½ hour where she could see the cage and then tried again. It looked like she accepted it so I closed the door and watched. She climbed around and around (not unusual for her) and then settled down.
She settled down and started pulling out down feathers.
So both birds are back where they started from and appear to be happy with it. It’s just me that’s unhappy about the amount of room Bella has.
. It makes sense to us humans. If Bella only knew that she'd love the bigger cage if she'd let herself get used to it, since Pacho is wasting a lot of extra space. Are you sure she was pulling the down feathers out? Not just preening and they were falling out?
