Fat birds.

[kittyhazelton]

Well, had to trim Alliah's toenails last night (never a fun project) and while I was holding her she felt kinda "squishy" She's been getting a lot of treats lately since the arrival of Chica cause I try to be fair about training & offering treats.
She is allowed to free-fly indoors when I'm home and she's certainly an active little monkey, but I just noticed that she's getting fat... so now I have to cut back her treats (and deal with the consequences of a jealous bird while training my macaw)
Time to make her fly more too. Maybe I could train her to fly against a fan like a wind tunnel kindof like a bird version of a treadmill. hahaha.
Anyone else have chubby birds?

[cml]

Are you sure she's getting fat? Thats why weighing them weekly and comparing it to a benchmark is a great way if knowing. Otherwise its mainly guesswork!

[kittyhazelton]

Are you sure she's getting fat? Thats why weighing them weekly and comparing it to a benchmark is a great way if knowing. Otherwise its mainly guesswork!

oh yeah, she's getting fat... unfortunately my gram scale broke recently so I haven't had the opportunity to weigh her against last time (about 4 months ago she was at about 112grams) She's never been a shy eater & I do know that her treat intake has increased since my training regime with the macaw has gone up.

[Shelby]

I just noticed that she's getting fat... so now I have to cut back her treats (and deal with the consequences of a jealous bird while training my macaw)

All of the trainers I have talked to and read about, who have multiple birds, say the birds generally know whether they are the one being trained or not. Try using separate training times so your IRN has to work for her treats too. You could try training the IRN first so she still feels like a priority to you.

[kittyhazelton]

All of the trainers I have talked to and read about, who have multiple birds, say the birds generally know whether they are the one being trained or not. Try using separate training times so your IRN has to work for her treats too. You could try training the IRN first so she still feels like a priority to you.

Good point. I will actually be able to do this much more easily now, Alliah & my macaw are no longer kept in the same room.
I recently moved Alliah's cage to the reptile room due to noisiness issues cause my boyfriend works later now & needs sleep during the daytime. Alliah has never been a "quiet" bird & her daytime calls were starting to cause a significant amount of stress and anxiety. So far having her in the other room during the day is working out quite well & this will also mean that training time with her will of course be a "seperate" session time.