Pat

All the results of the blood and poop tests are in now and it’s really good news to know that all is well. One result was a bit of a surprise though, after six and a half years of being Benny, it turns out that it should have been Penny! Penny is doing well, she has learnt to follow a stick for a piece of grape, still no sign of her stepping up yet without shredding skin but that’s not a problem, I’m sure she will be fine but she will do things in her own time. Penny has a huge new cage and spends a lot of her time finding her way around it, she has loads of toys in there and this week has actually had a bit of a play with a couple so things are moving forward. She is a very good eater and because her cage is right next to Charlie’s they tend to eat together which is nice, so plenty of chop mix and I saw her eating a pellet today just the one but it’s a start. All in all she is doing really well, her feathers are growing although occasionally I see a little bit of nipped feather on the floor, since being in the big cage with more toys and things to do, she hasn’t done it quite as much. I am waiting for the day that her flight feathers grow back because she clings to the side of the cage, inside or outside and flaps like a demon, one day her feathers will be there and she will take off and that will be brilliant, it will probably frighten her lol.

Well, what can I say, Ben has had a clean bill of health so far, we are just waiting for one more result to come through and his DNA to establish whether he really is a boy or whether he should be Penny instead of Benny!

He’s doing ok, he’s bad tempered, bites a lot, doesn’t want to play with any of his new toys, but he’s a little darling and I’m sure that in time he will let me get within a foot of him without lunging at me hahaha. He’s on a better diet now with lots of chopped up veg, fruit and nuts. He is also eating Tidymix but I am really trying to get him onto Harrisons pellets.

His Calcium Iodise level was dangerously low, the average is 1.02 and Ben’s was at 0.46 which meant that he was in danger of having seizures, but hopefully that has risen a bit now that he has been on Calcivet liquid and powder.

All in all, it’s been a hectic time for him with moving house and owner, visiting vets, moving from upstairs to downstairs and meeting Charlie but he’s taken it all in his stride and I’m sure his feathers will be growing back soon. I think he was clipped on one wing as well, so those might take a time to grow back, but if he carries on doing his flappy exercises, then one day Ben could well be flying around the house with Charlie.

Ben’s first touch of a rope toy hanging in the kitchen.

I picked Ben up on Thursday from a lovely lady and her daughter. They think Ben is around six years old, he has plucked his feathers quite badly on his wings.

Ben is settling in quite well and we now know the ringtone on their telephone and the cheery “Helloooo” way that the previous owner would answer the phone lol. It was a major struggle to get him to eat anything at all for the first couple of days because he had been used to table food which isn’t any good for birds, so I was determined that I wasn’t going to give in…unfortunately, so was Ben. It was a battle of wills, but I won, he is now eating Tidymix and a few pellets, with a good chop as well.

We took Ben to the Vets on Friday for a check up, the vet has referred us to a better equipped Avian vet because she thinks Ben has a fatty liver and feels that he is quite thin, so he is off to the Avian vet tomorrow (Tuesday) to have the works done to see what is the cause of his plucking. I will let you know the outcome of that. Trying to get Ben in a carrier is a bit of a task because he is far from tame, he lunges and tries to bite my hand every time I put my hand out for him to step up, so once again it’s a battle of wills. Once sorted and tamed, I’m sure Ben will be a lot happier and he will make a lovely companion.