Plucking sennie experiment

[liz]

He will eventually win her over. In the mean time he is not plucking.
Don't you just love it when words come out all of a sudden that you have never heard before. Rambo still surprises me.

[Pajarita]

There is progress. Not exactly what I wanted but progress in the right direction... He is now living in the same cage as Zoey. And even though Zoey has not accepted him as a mate or even a companion, she now sees him as a flock mate and no longer attacks him or even tries to run him off her cage. He was the one that insisted and insisted in going into her cage by waiting for me to open the door and quickly sneaking in so I started letting him do it for a few minutes and slowly increased the time until they were spending the afternoon together and about a week ago, I allowed him to sleep in it - so far, so good, no problem whatsoever (they get separate dishes, produce, treats, etc). Zoey doesn't come out early in the am because that is the time that Codee, my GCC, is on me and she hates Codee because of this so she stays inside her cage until I put Codee back in the canary room, where she lives cage-free with her boyfriend, and close the door to it (because Zoey knows she is in there and would fly in just to attack them -she doesn't like poor Pablo, Codee's boyfriend, which is severly handicapped) so I open her cage to clean it and he would be waiting by the door for me to open it so he could sneak in (he is so smart!).

As to his plucking... well, it's hard to tell. It seems to me that his belly is fuller and I certainly have not seen him plucking, barbering or have found any plucked feather anywhere but although you only see the tiniest bit of skin on one side of his neck (where there are no feather tracts and the contours are missing), there are no other 'holes'. What he does have is this moth-eaten look with spots where you see the down peeking out so his plumage is far from perfect, of course. But, going by my experience with other plucking birds, I know that it takes years for them to look good so I am in no hurry and, as long as he is happy (and he certainly seems to be), I am fine with it.

[Wolf]

I hear that! Paquita plucked when she came here to live and she is much happier and although she has made a lot of progress she still has that moth eaten look about her. Since she just got her new boyfriend, I will be somewhat anxious to see how this affects her once they know each other better.

[Pajarita]

Yes, that was the reason why I wanted Sweetpea to bond to Zoey: because I figured that he was doing it out of loneliness and his having a mate would remedy it (he started after he lost his second mate in two years). Of course, it's not a given because the habit could be already so very ingrained that even when the bird is finally happy, it continues to pluck OR it could be that the follicle damage is already there and the feathers will not grow back. But one can hope...

[Wolf]

Always !

[shiraartain]

Glad to find mostly good news in these threads now that I'm catching up. Glad to hear they're getting along well!

The vocabulary IS a delightful surprise. It's especially wonderful how properly he's using it. All our parrots now give kisses, sometimes completely out of context (Lemon gave his wood and rope toy very exaggerated kisses the other day). Still struggling to decipher Clover and Lemon's vocabulary- they don't use it very much in context.

Poor John, though! Must have driven him crazy being called by a bird AND a human all the time

[Wolf]

Hey, when you have a beak on the end of your face and no lips, you gotta practice those kisses where ever you can.

[Pajarita]

He actually says even more things -off the top of my head: Johnie - Hey, John! - Get in there! - Get in! Get in! Get in! - Kiss me! - Kiss me, daddy! - Big daddy - but there are more. He has a HUGE vocabulary and is a genius at communication. Now he is practicing "Get off the computer!" which he knows exactly what it means because he does it when I tell him to (he likes to perch on the top of the laptop screen) although sometimes I have to tell him twice - but, I tell you, I wish my kids and grandkids were as obedient as my birds, dogs and cats are!

[marie83]

This is wonderful and sweetpea sounds like such a character. I do hope he wins her over eventually.

[Pajarita]

Me too! It would enrich both their lives immensely if they bonded. But, I tell you, although he obviously likes her a lot and wants to win her over, he is not madly, head over heels, in love with her as he was with his first mate, Tobita. Right now, he is climbing from my leg to my lap to my shoulder, going over to the other shoulder, climbing down, jumping on the table, etc (he tends to behave a bit hyper every now and then) while Zoey flew off my shoulder and is perching on the top of Isis' cage and, if that had been Tobita, he would have flown after her a split second after she took off.

And, yes, he is a character. My husband calls him 'el feito' (the little ugly one) but enjoys his chatter immensely.