People will always have opinions on animals and how they cohabitate or shouldn't. I am very aware, careful in how any of my animals interact, especially with Viggo and take extreme procautions much like what we do with him being flighted to avoid escape. That all said, we are one family and for 10yrs Viggo had our dog in his life and knew the daily routine with him and he noticed immediatly and it effected him for days after with the loss. We have all felt slightly lost in the days since.
I have been slack for the past two weeks since our boy passed. I have not put Viggo into his sleep cage and what a mistake that has been! All that progress to back track so steeply. Our pets all seemed to take the loss pretty tough. Viggo was pretty quiet, wasn't his normal self and our other dogs moped and cat searched the house. Everyone was off so to try and lift spirits I left Viggo in his daytime cage in our family area to be with us during this time. My bad!
Welcome back hormones! He's back to his bratty hormonal self. Growling is abundant, regurgitating, having his way when out of the cage with anything and everything and...flying at my oldest daughter to strike at her, growl at her and pull at her hair. I do not for the life of me understand why he would go at her of anyone. She is a mini me. It's so odd. He hasn't hurt her when acting like this but I wouldn't ask her to handle him right now as I would bet money he would bite her arm for sure!
Viggo is also molting as you can see in the picture above...it's slow and steady but he's starting to look better. Basically it's just the edge feathers around his wings and some on his neck that need to molt out and grow in, as well as a few big flights. Yay for new handsome feathers.
Time to get back on track with his hormones!!!
I had previously mentioned a little fella in a pet shop with a red tip on his tail...Did I mention I was looking at Viggo's baby pictures just the other day and guess who had a Red tip on their tail? My boy! It molted out as I had mentioned in the post that some of these unique feather coloration tend to do. Interesting though none the less. I wonder if any of his brothers had the same red tip now....I'm always curious! Below is a picture of Viggo's parents, Fred & Dusty, two small baby pictures that show his red tip and then a picture of Viggo around age 5 or 6.
Speaking of old pictures and molting or rather feathering in...I found a few pictures I thought I would share. Diet and journaling helped immensely. My recommendation...when you have a bird that plucks 1. Get a vet check and blood work to get a baseline and see if there are any medical reasons behind the plucking. 2. Journal! Learn personality, behaviors and when hormonal times are and if that seems to trigger worse plucking 3. Diet - feed fresh raw and mainly vegetables. Cut fruit back, pellets and seed back. Lots of sprouts and fresh! 4. Watch weight! Weight seemed to be a trigger for hormones and plucking with our female. The heavier she was the more hormonal she got and the more she plucked. 5. Combine and journal so you have something to look back on. It really helps to be able to look back through trial and error and see what worked and didn't.
This is what journaling/diet/weight control did for Sula. When she came to us feathers were few and far between on her chest and she would snip at the feathers on her wings. After a couple years the below results followed. It takes time, so don't expect any over night miracle! Even feathered you can see on her chest a few snipped feathers. It must become habit forming much like biting nails...
Our boy Meisha on the other hand was not quite so easy despite journaling. While we did see progress there was never really a trigger I could pin point through journaling. So the best we got to was this picture.
This picture shows Meisha and my oldest daughter years ago and how he was for the most part. Viggo stands watch.
I never tried the socks, or other covers for the two that plucked. Meisha did have a cone and collar though he was a different bird when he wore them. He was unhappy so I removed them and got a happy bird in return albeit a naked boy. I found the collars and cones and such all to be more of a band aid. They didn't fix the underlying issue. He did feather in however when removed what do you think he did right away? If ever again faced with this I would only use a collar or cone if there was a concern about mutilation.
Anyways not much has developed around here since our old boy left us to rainbow bridge. We have not done the sleep cage, harness or clicker training. Spring is around the corner and I feel inner pressure to get my stuff together. Hopefully the next blog post will be more productive.
RIP Thunder
