Scritches for Everyone!

After a whole year of watching Mika enjoying head scratches, Stewie has decided that he’s going to allow me to touch him. Not just touch him, but rub his neck and pinch the keratin off his new feathers! Pin feathers are itchy and uncomfortable and, in the wild, parrots engage in allopreening to help each other get rid of the hard substance that protects the feathers as they grow in.

In our homes, where they don’t have other parrots to preen them, they have two options: either live with the icky pin feathers and wait for them to fall off on their own, or let the humans help.

For two years, Stewie has not wanted me to touch him. He was all about preening me — trying remove moles from my neck, pulling on hairs, removing errant schmutz — but has not wanted my hands on him. Don’t get me wrong, Stewie is very affectionate. He gives me kisses, lets me smother him with kisses, crawls into my shirt… but he let me know that he doesn’t like hands coming at him or touching him and I always respect his personal space. Not respecting his no-touching rule would mean getting bitten, but more than that it’s a matter of maintaining trust and open communication. No hands invading where they aren’t wanted.

But for some reason in the last couple of days, Stewie has welcome neck and head rubs, scritches and help with his pins. Not sure why I even tried — I stopped trying to touch him long ago — but something about how he was all fluffy with his head down just said “scritches please”. After all, that’s the position Mika adopts when she want scritches.

Breaking pin feathers is a delicate operation; even if you’re careful, you could rub that feather the wrong way, which hurts. But Stewie has been very tolerant and patient with me.

Because of the fact that Stewie is kind of a bitey bird, I’m careful to watch his body language very carefully and always stop long before I think he’s getting antsy. I only break up two or three feathers at a time, at most and then take a break. When Mika is done with scritches, she just pushes me away, but I think that if I were to irritate Stewie he’d let me know a little more forcefully.

This foray into helping Stewie preen is a huge leap for us. These types of breakthroughs… with a bird who was aggressive and distrustful for months after I got him … is really the best part of working with a rescue parrot.

Scritches for everyone!

Frivolous Photo Friday

This is Stewie. Inside my shirt. It’s his new favorite hangout.

That is all.

Wet Birdie Wednesday

Nothing sillier than a wet parrot

Here’s Mika looking like a wet chicken after a shower:

Here’s Stewie sporting a faux-hawk.

Mika loves her showers, always getting good and soaked, while Stewie prefers a more gentle misting (or a bath in his water bowl).

Shhh, Don’t Tell Him Snap Peas are Vegetables

Stewie is eagerly eating his treat… a snap pea! (Shh, he doesn’t seem to realize that peas are veggies). So far, beside corn, these are the only fresh veggies he likes — and both are kinda high in sugar, more like fruit than veggies in terms of nutritional value — but I’ll take what I can get, considering that Stewie was on a very seed heavy diet when I first got him.

So far, Mika doesn’t appear to show any interest in fresh food whatsoever, but she does seem to enjoy the Just Veggies brand of dried peas. Interestingly enough, Stewie does not like the dried peas, although he does like some other types of dried veggies, especially the dried carrots that come in the Just Veggies dried vegetable mix.

If I remember correctly (and it’s possible I’m deluding myself on this detail), Stewie was pretty easy to convert to pellets, and he took to a couple different kinds of fruit after a while, although fresh vegetables continue to be a challenge.

At least he’ll taste most things I offer him now (especially if he thinks I’m eating it too).

Mika, on the other hand, seems like she’s going to be much more stubborn about giving up her seed addiction. The food she came with does contain high-quality pellets, but as far as I can tell, she doesn’t actually eat them — she just picks through the mix to eat the sunflower and pumpkin seeds. And she won’t even try anything new, not even “treats” that Stewie only gets as rare rewards.

When it comes to converting birds to a healthier and varied diet, patience, persistence and creativity are key. Stewie recently started really loving his Beak Appetite, something he wouldn’t eat when I first introduced it to him, so there is hope to changing their minds. Just gotta keep trying…

Mr. Monk and the Sun Conure

I’m watching TV today — an episode of Monk (Mr. Monk and the Red Herring) — and imagine my surprise when they feature a sun conure! On the show, Monk goes to a pet store and notices a bird. The geeky pet store clerk says, “You can have him for free. We can’t get rid of him, people keep returning him.” When asked what’s wrong with the bird, the guy says “he depresses people: he doesn’t talk, he just sits there and cleans himself.”

Aughh!!! This is such a huge pet peeve of mine (pun totally intended). An animal is not a toaster oven!! You don’t just return them because they aren’t as “fun” as you thought they’d be. When bringing home a new pet, you make a commitment to him/her. You don’t just exchange it.

This attitude isn’t just writers’ license on a television show; I see people say things like that all the time on the Internet. “Oh, he didn’t bond with my wife, he likes me better, so we’re thinking of returning him and getting a different bird.” Ugh!

Makes me very unhappy. Some people take the decision to bring home a bird much too lightly. (Good reasons NOT to get a parrot)

Oh, and that cage the bird was in (in the fictional pet store) was WAY too small. A conure cage should be at least 20″ in the shortest dimension. Stewie’s cage is 21″w x 32″l x 35″h and I’m actually of the opinion that it’s a little too small (even though I can fit my whole body in it). Once you put toys and perches in a cage, it really starts looking small, fast.

Here’s what a cage that size looks like; notice the conure standing on the door.

Weighed My Sun Conure Today

Got Stewie to step on the scale today, finally, after many months of getting him used to the idea (yeah, I wasn’t in a hurry). He weighs 104 grams. Down from 106g last time I took him to the vet for a nail trim, and up from 103g when I took him to his first well-birdie visit after I picked him up from the animal shelter. That type of variation isn’t that unusual, especially since I’m not measuring his weight at the same time right in the morning – a few grams here or there can be attributed to what food he has stored in his crop and/or the last time he “emptied out.”

He’s on the small side for his species, so I’m not worried that he’s a little under average weight for a sun conure.

Here he is on his bird scale (the perch is covered in vet wrap):

p.s. Having trouble getting your bird weighed? Download Barbara Heidenreich’s video on how to train a parrot to step on a scale.

Our Big Adventure

I’ve been housesitting and dogsitting for some friends this holiday, so I brought Stewie with me.

His regular cage was set up in the guest room so I could keep the dogs away from him, but he just pitched a fit. Much more than he ever did at home, he screamed every time I made a move to leave him alone. Ordinarily I just ignore him when he screams for attention, but this just seemed different – he was in a strange place after all. So I felt I had no choice except to put him in his travel cage and bring him out into the den. I put the little travel carrier on top of the counter where the dogs couldn’t reach him, set up my laptop next to it, and peace was restored.

Don’t worry, I’m super careful about not letting the dogs near him. None of the dogs seems particularly interested in him, but I still watch them all with an eagle eye.

Stewie seems much happier being out with the rest of the “flock.” I can even leave the room without him screaming.

I even took the little critter into the shower – my friends have a much nicer shower than I do, easier to bring him in with me – and he took his first real shower. Usually he just takes little half baths in his water bowl, or I mist him, which he doesn’t get into. He plasters his wings to his body and basically “puts up with” getting wet with the mister.

But this time, after a couple of minutes of not being excited about the shower at all, he started getting really into it. He spread his wings, shook his tail feathers, walked toward the water, lowered his head … and started enjoying it! He got soaked, really soaked, for the first time since I’ve had him.

I’ll post photos as soon as I get home and download them.

Video of Stewie McSkittles, my sun conure

Video of Stewie on his best behavior.

More Bird Trick Training (with props)

Stewie got tired of the the “put the ball in the cup trick”… not sure why, but he just doesn’t want to do it anymore.

Here’s a picture of him when he was still eager to do it:

We’ve been working on “put the ring on the peg” but this one has been difficult. To tell the truth, I’ve sort of abandoned the clicker. I’m terrible with it… my timing is off, I’m inconsistent, I’m uncoordinated (I need three hands to handle the prop, the clicker and the treat at the same time). So I’ve been trying to do clicker training without the clicker. It’s slow going.

Here’s the prop:

I originally got him the small version of the toy (I can’t help it, I keep thinking of him as a small bird, not a medium-sized bird), but it was too small. This is a picture of him with the medium-sized Ring Toss prop.

He’s still not very good at it, but he’s done it a few times where I was holding the peg and helped him get the ring onto it. Today I spent a bit of time playing with the rings and peg, picking up the rings in my mouth and putting them on the peg like I want him to do (rather than doing it with my hands). And he did it a few times by himself!

He also likes to throw the rings off the side of the cage, which is cute too (but doesn’t earn him a treat).

Update:
Stewie has gotten much better at putting rings on the peg. He’s not as good at it as he is with some other tricks, but he knows exactly what he’s supposed to do.

Check out this post for a list of cool parrot trick training toys and places that sell bird training props.

No Longer in Love with the Happy Hut?

A month or two ago, my conure loved, loved, LOVED his Happy Hut. Wouldn’t let me near it. Here’s a picture of him in it (isn’t he cute!) Apparently conures really like their Happy Huts.

But lately I’ve noticed that he doesn’t seem to be using the Happy Hut to sleep anymore. Stewie still crawls into it at night to signal that it’s nite-nite time, but when I’ve peeked under the covers later I see that he’s come back out.

And in the morning when I uncover him now, if he’s not already climbing around, he’s on his perch leaning against his Cozy Corner. The Cozy Corner is made of the same material as the Happy Hut, but it just hangs on the side of the cage for him to lean against (basically a blanket except it has a little hood-like thing).

Here he is with his fleece blankie after a bath:

I have yet to catch him on film as he’s sleeping with it, but trust me, it’s adorable.

Anyone else have a small parrot that has both of these? If yes, which does it prefer, the fleece tent or the fleece blanket tied to the side of the cage?

If your bird doesn’t have either, I highly recommend getting at least one or the other.

Get the Cozy Corner

Get the Happy Hut Hideaway