Hi all,
Hopefully I'm not being too spammy with these frequent posts. I just wanted to give a small update on Mofu's progress along with a couple more questions that I hope people might know the answer to.
Mofu has been with me for 19 days now, she's still very scared of hands but her fear periods have gotten much shorter than before. I have learned that Mofu's way to tell me she's had enough with me is to squint and close her eyes to refuse to look at me (shown in the image below).
Because I back away every time she does this, she's relying heavily on this method to let me know when I've gone too far. We've yet to have any bites which I'm very pleased with, but I'm not sure if that's just because her beak isn't solid enough to actually bite just yet. I know she has a bit of a time picking through her sunflower seeds, and you should be able to see in the pictures that her beak has a very thin edge to it.
We've made excellent progress on her diet. Unfortunately no veggies have caught her interest yet, but she is officially off from sunflower seeds as a staple, and only has excess to them as treats. She's much more attentive towards me for her sunflower seed rewards and more willing to approach me/my fingers for reward. She is already on her pellet diet. We have to crush them into smaller pieces in a blender first, but she's much more active at her food bowl now. We're currently at 30/70 ratio of seed mix (removed sunflower seeds) and pellet food mixed with a tiny splash of wheatgerm oil, and less and less seeds are being offered by the day. I'm very pleased she's getting onto a better diet so quickly.
She is still having digestive problems however, I can only hope her new diet can have a better effect on her digestive tract soon as I have to give her very unappreciated bum wipes on the regular, as her vent is still continuously dirty.
Contact is still a no go, and there is still no progress on flying whatsoever. I'm actually a little concerned in this aspect because for the past 4-5 days she hasn't come out of her cage. I leave the door open for about 3 hours in the afternoon when she's most active, but lately she's just been taking naps instead of wanting to have a wander on the floor. I worry she might be getting depressed, but don't know how else to stimulate her outside of treat training (which isn't working to encourage her out from the cage anymore). She has toys but doesn't interact or touch them, and the tennis ball I was originally using seems to have lost her interest now.
Personally, I think that Mofu seems to have more bald patches on her head than before. She isn't plucking, but does itch around her eyes and head a bit. I wonder if she's going through a natural moult, or if this could be a different troubling sign. Her skin is clear as the bald areas originate from her original head injuries, but she does somewhat look like a plucked chicken.
I also worry that she may not be preening her feathers well. Her feather quality overall looks worse to me in my opinion, even though I'm not finding any loose feathers in her cage (with the exception of a couple tiny ones from her head after she has a good itch). She still refuses to use her water dish I've provided for self bathing, so I have had to resort to spraying her every other day, which she avidly hates.
Finally, onto good news again; we have been making great strides in step up training. My hands are still very scary, but on 4 occasions now (including 2 today) she decided her sunflowers were worth the risk and shakily managed to step onto my finger and off again (as seen in the video link below).
[ame="https://youtu.be/KdzBI4TykSE"]https://youtu.be/KdzBI4TykSE[/ame]
It makes me so very happy to see this progress day by day, but I really want her to braven the odds back out of the cage again. She always seemed more lively having a romp on the floor, but now she is very inactive in her cage and it worries me. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks again everyone for your continued support.
Hopefully I'm not being too spammy with these frequent posts. I just wanted to give a small update on Mofu's progress along with a couple more questions that I hope people might know the answer to.
Mofu has been with me for 19 days now, she's still very scared of hands but her fear periods have gotten much shorter than before. I have learned that Mofu's way to tell me she's had enough with me is to squint and close her eyes to refuse to look at me (shown in the image below).
Because I back away every time she does this, she's relying heavily on this method to let me know when I've gone too far. We've yet to have any bites which I'm very pleased with, but I'm not sure if that's just because her beak isn't solid enough to actually bite just yet. I know she has a bit of a time picking through her sunflower seeds, and you should be able to see in the pictures that her beak has a very thin edge to it.
We've made excellent progress on her diet. Unfortunately no veggies have caught her interest yet, but she is officially off from sunflower seeds as a staple, and only has excess to them as treats. She's much more attentive towards me for her sunflower seed rewards and more willing to approach me/my fingers for reward. She is already on her pellet diet. We have to crush them into smaller pieces in a blender first, but she's much more active at her food bowl now. We're currently at 30/70 ratio of seed mix (removed sunflower seeds) and pellet food mixed with a tiny splash of wheatgerm oil, and less and less seeds are being offered by the day. I'm very pleased she's getting onto a better diet so quickly.
She is still having digestive problems however, I can only hope her new diet can have a better effect on her digestive tract soon as I have to give her very unappreciated bum wipes on the regular, as her vent is still continuously dirty.
Contact is still a no go, and there is still no progress on flying whatsoever. I'm actually a little concerned in this aspect because for the past 4-5 days she hasn't come out of her cage. I leave the door open for about 3 hours in the afternoon when she's most active, but lately she's just been taking naps instead of wanting to have a wander on the floor. I worry she might be getting depressed, but don't know how else to stimulate her outside of treat training (which isn't working to encourage her out from the cage anymore). She has toys but doesn't interact or touch them, and the tennis ball I was originally using seems to have lost her interest now.
Personally, I think that Mofu seems to have more bald patches on her head than before. She isn't plucking, but does itch around her eyes and head a bit. I wonder if she's going through a natural moult, or if this could be a different troubling sign. Her skin is clear as the bald areas originate from her original head injuries, but she does somewhat look like a plucked chicken.
I also worry that she may not be preening her feathers well. Her feather quality overall looks worse to me in my opinion, even though I'm not finding any loose feathers in her cage (with the exception of a couple tiny ones from her head after she has a good itch). She still refuses to use her water dish I've provided for self bathing, so I have had to resort to spraying her every other day, which she avidly hates.
Finally, onto good news again; we have been making great strides in step up training. My hands are still very scary, but on 4 occasions now (including 2 today) she decided her sunflowers were worth the risk and shakily managed to step onto my finger and off again (as seen in the video link below).
[ame="https://youtu.be/KdzBI4TykSE"]https://youtu.be/KdzBI4TykSE[/ame]
It makes me so very happy to see this progress day by day, but I really want her to braven the odds back out of the cage again. She always seemed more lively having a romp on the floor, but now she is very inactive in her cage and it worries me. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks again everyone for your continued support.
