Sunday, April 12, 2015

April 12, 2015 - Phase 3 Progress

Mango has been pulling his feathers quite a bit recently.  He looked about the same as when he started.  However, this new phase 3 seems to be doing better.  He has a lot of feather growth right now.  Hopefully he'll let them stay in.   I think the upcoming warmer and humid weather will help too.


April 1, 2015 - Warm Day

We had an unusually warm day for April today, 80+ degrees.  We took advantage of the warmth and took the birdo outside to enjoy it.  Had him out for about fifteen minutes, and when we went back inside he went right back into his white cage again.  He apparently wasn't done yet.


Wednesday, March 11, 2015

March 11, 2015 -- Par for the course

Mango is about to start on the next phase of his diet.  We are finishing up the 12 weeks (since December 20).  He has another bag or so left of the current food.  Here is his current feather situation.  He definitely pulled / barbered a bunch in the past month.  Best I could tell is that it was cold weather correlated.  I'm hoping that spring / more humid weather gets him on a streak of not picking.



Friday, January 30, 2015

Jan 30, 2015 - More Progress

Mango continues to let his feathers grow in.  The ones on the back got a bit barbered but he's doing fairly well on the pulling.  Though I did find one of his chest feathers on the floor of his cage this morning.  These are pictures from last night (He actually pulled one of the center green ones on his chest this AM).  We haven't given him a full soak shower in a couple of weeks.  He gets some light epsom salt spray from a bottle in the mornings.  Though we aren't getting a whole lot in as he tends to fly off.  We coax him with treats, but he's not that keen on getting sprayed yet.

Full Frontal!

Back side

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Jan 19, 2015 - One step back

Another week goes by.  Mango used some of this time to go on a bit of a barbering fest.  He mangled a few of the feathers on his back and he pulled out a bit of fluff too.  However, he's still showing progress and is net positive for feathers since starting the program. 

 

The feathers on his front seem alright however.





Monday, January 12, 2015

Jan 12, 2015 - Glutton

Mango is still decimating his food supply.  He went through 2lbs of the specialty bird food in only three weeks.   He can't deny it either, since he's a naked bird we can clearly see how full his crop gets.

Case and point.




Here is the status of his back feathers -- he's been generally leaving them alone.  He tweaked one of them up a little bit as you can see.




Sunday, January 4, 2015

Jan 4, 2015 - Poop factory

Mango has been on his diet for two weeks now.  He already went through a whole pound of it, and we ordered two more.  The only additional food we give him is dried mango and papaya, and sometimes some cooked egg white.  He's been filling his crop to amazing balloon like levels.  He's making far less mess with the food, and more mess with what he leaves behind.  He has pulled a few feathers over the past two weeks, but he definitely seems to be more calm.  He's been doing more proper preening than destructive.  Obviously two weeks is far too little time to notice much, but that's the progress so far.

Here are some more photos from Jan 4.


Dec 20, 2014 - Mango starts a new diet

On December 20th, we started Mango on a new diet.  We are only feeding him a specific elimination diet that we are receiving from an online group that does nutritional rehabilitation for feather pluckers.  We had to remove all of Mango's other food to ensure he keeps consistent, and to get him to actually consume this food.  His stubbornness lasted for about 24 hours before he finally gave in and tried eating.  Now we can't keep him from being a glutton.  He's sneaking off and eating this food any chance he can get.

Part of the reason for this post was to keep an online journal of his progress as he goes through the program.  Here are some of the photos from Dec 20.