Paquita and Rajah: A Love Story ?

[Pajarita]

Improvement is always a very slow affair and it's always two steps forward and one back but we are in molt and rapidly going into the resting season which helps with plucking.

[Wolf]

As already stated I can see some improvement. The thing is that with it being the time of molting, I can't actually tell how much improvement at this time.

[Wolf]

I normally have the birds all fed and have taken Keeta out for her morning play time with me before I have any visitors, but this morning things did not work out as usual so I had a neighbor over this morning, before I had her out. So I had the neighbor sit down on the other sofa while I let Keeta out to play with me. We pretty well take over the entire larger sofa when we are playing, so I wanted her to not feel crowded while she was playing. She was all happy with this arraingment and we played for close to an hour as usual then she climbed up on my shoulder and launched herself into the air and flew over to the neighbor much to his and my surprise. Normally, she only does this to attack the other party and I had already warned my neighbor of this possibility so that he would remain calm and allow me to get to her if she attacked him. Well she was very well behaved and just wanted to see the new person, well he is not exactly new as he has been over several other times while she was in her cage with Rajah. So I had him move over to the big sofa where she normally plays and watched while she played with him for close to 45 minutes. This was one of those first in her life and I thought that it was significant enough to share it here. Surprise, surprise, surprise !

[liz]

That is great socializing progress but it can turn like it did for Myrtle. It doesn't matter who the man is. He could be the plumber but Myrtle will land on him as soon as he comes through the door. Unless I have time to close her in my room, I have to go outside and warn the man before he comes in.

[Wolf]

That would be fine with me, everyone who comes over is told about the birds and how to react in the advent of the bird landing on them. I do this to keep the bird from outright attacking them, plus the bird get shafted if the person is new as inmost cases I will put them in their cage while the person comes in so that I can see the birds reaction to their presence. It is not fair to the birds as this is their home, but it is the safest thing to do for the protection of both the birds and the human. Fortunately, my neighbor has been over on several occasions and Rajah and Keeta are the last of the birds, other than the budgies to be free when there is a human here that lives elsewhere.
I would love the birds to be more socialized, but I don't have that many visitors or opportunities to socialize them as I rarely take them out into the world at large.

[Pajarita]

Awww, what a good girl! I have found that birds that are content and secure in their lives are not aggressive to strangers at all... it's more curiosity than anything else. Of course, if he had tried to take her that would have been another story

[liz]

Chuck came over to tell me that Jake's tarp blew off and he was in the sun. I was going out to help him when I realized that he was at the end of the deck with Myrtle still on his shoulder. She got quiet so he would not notice. He did not know until I called him back. He went to the door and told her "get back in there" and she did.
She does not want to be outside but she wanted to stay with Chuck.

[Wolf]

I have not updated this in a while So I will do that now
I have been working on having Keeta out of the cage and with me while either Kiki,Senegal or Kookooloo, CAG are also out with me. It is a little bit risky as either of these birds are so much larger than Keeta is and one slip up on my part could easily result in massive injury or death for Keeta. This is not made any easier when you stop and consider that all three of these birds are bonded to me and you don't know who is going to need to be distracted to keep them from attacking the other. Still I have made a fair amount of progress with this. Currently this is now on hold and I am hoping that they will remember when I get to continue with this process.
Keeta and Rajah have finally started to eat from the same dish, while perching side by side on the perch in front of the dish. They were both eating from their own dish or Rajah was feeding Keeta so this is a good development.
About a week ago I found some new balls that were a great size for the parrotlets as well as for the budgies. So I put a couple in with the budgies and placed one of them in with Keeta and Rajah, I also added a foot toy that was actually a good size for Kiki, Senegal to Keeta and Rajahs' cage. This was a great idea and it has worked to give them something more to do. There has also been a down side to my adding these two toys in their cage in that Keeta enjoys playing and attacking them so much that she has refused to come out to play with me since I put them in the cage with her and Rajah. While it is fun to watch her play with these two toys, I miss the opportunity to play with Keeta in the mornings.
Well that pretty well brings us up to date as to what these two are up to. I will try to get some new pictures to share with you in the next couple of days.

[Wolf]

Well I did get a couple of pictures but didn't like them so I didn't post them. But that is not why I am here today. I have been intending to update this thread for some time but everything was going fine with them without any real differences that I could tell. That is until yesterday morning. I fed the birds as usual and looked them all over as I always do and then ended up busy with the neighbors for a while, I was still in the same room with them and had gotten Kookoolooa a couple of nuts and looked over to see how Rajah and Keeta ware doing. Keeta looked funny to me so I went over for a look see and most of her head was plucked bald and there was a blood spot on the end of her upper beak. I removed her right then and checked her out closer and everything else appeared ok. I set up a new cage for Rajah and set it next to Keeta's cage and moved Rajah to it. So they are now separated, but next to each other.

[Pajarita]

Give him something that resembles a nest and see if he chews on it (they would chew around the opening and such). He might be feeling the change in light schedule and needs something to entertain himself...