Hi everyone! Well we survived camping enough to be heading out for another 3 day stretch today! The fresh air does us all some good and I am still off work so away we go! Pixie was amazing! The happy little soul just chirped and loved the sounds of all the wild birds! I was concerned she might be scared but no way! It was interesting that by the 3rd day we had more birds visiting us than we had during the trip we took at the same site before we got her too. A couple of them came very close and seemed to want to get a look at what was making such odd noises lol! Pixie ate very well too! We had a new cooler fail and it had her veggies in it...what to do! I had brought some Golden Feast Garden Flora and so when needed I dehydrated it in boiling water which worked beautifully! Those veggies take awhile because they are so hard but it did work in a pinch. We also brought a special water supply just for her from home so that we knew it was safe. I make my own mash with either a fruit or vegetable base and add couscous or quinoa. I freeze it in ice cube trays (with lids) overnight and throw the results into zip lock bags. I had some difficulty keeping them frozen but will try another method this time. I will put them into separate small bags and wrap them in frozen packs and then in newspaper and THEN place that in the cooler. With this in addition to her baby bird mash which she still gets in the morning and before bed. I was able to put the frozen or very cold ice cube mash into a cup which sat in a bowl with boiling hot water until warm which did the trick.
We have a brand new tent that is well sealed so we allowed Pixie to be out of her Pac o Bird there several times a day. She was always quiet when the crows came around which was good and her reaction when a plane went by was priceless! She must have wonder what kind of bird it was lol!
We are still working on the harness so will try it this week out of the tent. Pixie hates it but does allow it to be put on because she is so hand tame. I just give her lots of praise and something fun to do once it's on. I think once she experiences going outside with it she will be happier to put it on.
A word about why we are doing all of this.
I was concerned when we got our first bird (Steve the Canary) that a caged bird is not a natural thing and cruel....yea I was one of those people. The reason we decided to get a parrot was on the condition she could go out and see the world outside of the cage regularly. When we saw the look in her eyes at being in the forest, we knew we had done the right thing. That look is something you just can't deny. I just can't wait until we can train her to fly on the harness! We did run into cooler, damp evenings and solved that by placing a heating pad on low around her pac for about an hour before bed and then covered her with several blankets. We put the pac on a camp table between our cots at the head in the tent and left a spot so she could see me at any time in the night. We also left a low light on for her. The weather has been extremely hot so we had a spray bottle with warm water which we used to cool her off a couple of times per day and always had her in the shade. We also had to take care not to expose her to direct air conditioning in the vehicle.
I think thats about all we have learned! Looking forward to this week's trip!
Shauna
