This is Paulie

[patti]

I'm not new to the forum, but I have a new bird so I thought I would introduce him.

Meet Paulie.

Here's what I know about him. He was given up back in March to a store because he bit the new baby. I have had him home about two weeks. He's about 20.

His previous owner mentioned that his favorite food was a feed blend primarily consisting of safflower seeds and sunflower seeds. I found cheerios and nacho chips at the bottom of the cage. Yet he ate zupreem with no problem, so I have my fingers crossed that zupreem was his main diet and all the other stuff was just occasional treats.

He came in a 18x18 cage that is about as old as he is. The cage had two dowel rods and a concrete perch on the outside. He had open sores on his feet. I have been putting ointment on them twice a day and they are almost healed.

He hadn't had a bath in ages, but doesn't seem to want to get wet. I got him to tolerate one quick one and I think I washed off years of feather dust.

From the neck down, his feathers are all mostly there, but picked at. He doesn't pull them out. Instead, he chews on them from the outside in. All black around the edges, with obvious bite marks in them. The ones on his back are just spikes now. I think maybe he eats them or grinds them up in his beak. In a few places on his belly and legs, he chewed so much that he just has teeny sticks poking out of him where feathers used to be.

His cage came with a few toys that were super old and more appropriate for a macaw. My house is full of toys but as of yet he isn't interested... maybe after he is adjusted more.

With all that said, my impression from interacting with him is that he was loved, but just kept by someone who really doesn't communicate well with birds.

He goes to the vet tomorrow. I am concerned about his activity level and clumsiness. The clumsiness is most likely caused by a too-short wing clip and the foot sores. The former is most likely caused by stress. I know that he will be less active because the last two months have been extremely stressful for him. And he is in a new place and something about the way he reacts to my other bird tells me that he doesn't have experience being with other birds, so that is an additional stressor too. So during his time out of the cage I give him lots of alone time to help him adjust.

He seems totally healthy... he got checked out before he got to me, but I don't have the report yet. But I want to make sure I am doing the best for him so we go to the vet to rule out serious stuff and get some adjustment advice.

So that's Paulie!

[ParrotsForLife]

Aww he's such a cutie

[seagoatdeb]

Beautifull parrot!!!!!

[mmeager]

Paulie was so lucky to find you! He looks so full of character!!! Thank you so much for showing us your new beautiful bird!

[Pajarita]

Hello, Paulie! Welcome to the forum and your new home!

Patti, you might want to wait until you do get the records from his previous vet visit so your vet has something to compare the blood values he gets from his blood work.

And, if you are not already doing it, you might want to consider covering the hard perches with something soft (some people use vetwrap but I prefer the super soft kind of paper towels) to help with the healing of the foot sores (poor, poor baby!)

[patti]

thanks, i tried wrapping his favorite concrete perch with some of that foam medical tape but that scared the begeezus out of him. it was kinda comical - he wouldn't go near it! at any rate those old perches are gone gone gone. i got him some soft rope perches and he uses those.

The vet had lots of good things to say today... paulie looks totally healthy, and all of things I was concerned about were just me being overly worried. he thought (as I suspected) that paulie's main problem is the behavioral (feather picking) and suggested 12+ hours of dark for him.

he also said something interesting. apparently, even though conures go through puberty around 3 still act a bit like babies until 7.

[Wolf]

H-m-m-m, There must be some new information out that I am unaware of. Most of the information that I have suggests that most conures go through puberty between the ages of 2 and 3 with the males going through puberty closer to two. them they do not reach sexual maturity until between the ages of 5 and 7, with again the males reaching maturity closer to 5 yrs.

[Pajarita]

I am not for the light schedules that have a specific number of hours of light or of dark. I don't believe they work at all because nature made it so their internal clock is turn on or off by twilight so, when you eliminate the exposure to dawn and dusk, you are, in reality, making it VERY difficult or impossible for the bird's endocrine system to function correctly. Personally, I would keep him at a solar schedule... my thing is to emulate natural conditions as much as possible and it has worked for me throughout the years.

I don't really know what the vet meant when he said that they act like babies until they are seven years old... do you? I've never heard anything like that before but it could be a matter of the words he chose.

[owlyssa]

What a sweetheart! I am glad that Paulie was lucky enough to find you. It sounds like their previous owner just didn't understand their needs, as you expressed, and from what you've outlined, you're doing Paulie wonders already. I wish nothing but continued healing and progress for you and Paulie--keep us updated!

[patti]

I don't really know what the vet meant when he said that they act like babies until they are seven years old... do you?

Oh, sorry about that. He said that in the context of feather picking and it actually made a lot of sense to me.

So he said that feather picking doesn't really start until about age 7 but they are still a bit immature before then. It was a mental maturity he was talking about. If they are like humans, then maybe at around this age they start to figure things out enough to think long term and make connections and figure out how the world works.

It makes sense to me because could say the same for humans... i don't think people are actually "adults" until their late 20s. You know, humans that *think* they are mature at 18 but in actuality they are still making stupid decisions, partying too much, asking their folks for money, and thinking that they know everything about the world (when they really don't) until about the age of 25.

Maybe I am just anthropomorphizing... but it makes sense.

I will love Paulie just how he is and never pressure him to stop picking at himself... but i do want him to stop. So i want to understand - I mean really understand - why he does it.