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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

A year gone by

Just a quick little shout out to our little bugger, who's been with us for a whole year! At times it seems like so much longer, and we still have to remind ourselves this was a big change for him - he's been with us for only 6% of his little life!  

Love you, Mango-bird, your daily antics always keep us laughing. Here's to many more years with you! 

("Here, let me help you!")

(Love bites for me. Typical) 

Selfie Sunday

Mango is enjoy our beautiful (currently, 70*) Sunday outside! 

Happy Easter from us!!

Birdy Kong

We've had little luck with getting Mango to play with many toys. He tends to just want to sit on our shoulder or a chair nearby and just hang out. However, Calie recently bought Mango a plastic ball that has piqued his interest pretty thoroughly. I refer to it as the 'Birdy Kong' due to its similarity to the red rubber kong toys you can give dogs. We fill the ball with extra confetti paper and wrap a few pieces of nuts in parchment paper. They sort of look like wrapped candies. Mango then pushes this ball around on the ground pulling out paper trying to get to the nuts. Disclaimer: we definitely presented him nuts in wrapped paper for a few weeks before hand, so now he expects all paper-wrapped things to contain food. Anyway, here are some pictures of him having at it.

One nut devoured, working on the next

Almost got the next one...

Yoink!

Rubber ducky, you're the one! You make bath time so much fun!

I mean, in this case rubber ducky = Brian, but still - bath time is a favorite!

We have noticed he is very particular about WHEN he will take baths though - not too early in the morning, not too late in the afternoon. After 10am and before 3pm though - and you can barely keep him from flying into the shower without you!

Johnny Appleseed

I received some apples and caramels from my office this week. Mango decided they were for him! 

Brian and I were both surprised when he jumped on the counter and walked over to the box. He tested the stem first, then he dove in! 

It amazes us that he a) knew it was something he could eat and b) figured out how to eat it without us cutting it up. I mean, I know they do this in the wild - but he isn't a very "beaky" bird - as in we don't often see him try and take bits of foods we offer him before we cut them up. 

Does this count as birdie enrichment??

Once you pop the fun don't stop!

Mango is spoiled, and gets (healthy) treats and snacks from us - so I thought I would share one he loves!

Popcorn!!

We have an air popper, so it's not covered in the bad (read: good) stuff like butter and salt - but he loves crunching it with his beak - and we love the beard he gets! He could give ol' Mr. Claus a run for his money somedays :)

(He also loves walnuts, almonds, dried fruits, pom seeds and coconut - which are all part of his everyday diet, too)

A Whole New World!

The past few weeks have been quite exciting for Mango!

He is now an outdoor bird!

We have a smaller cage now, that we use to bring Mango outside with us. Here he is for the first time enjoying the new deck!

We're hoping he gets some of the benefits of fresh air and sunlight to help him with his lack of feathers. He doesn't stay out too long, and not in direct sunlight - but he really does seen to enjoy it! He just seems to enjoy being around with us as we do yard work, BBQ with friends and family or relax (and make commentary or laugh with (at) us!). 

How to combat your household seed thrower

Since we've been giving Mango his new diet, we've noticed a particular issue. When he was on a pellet diet, the crumbs just drop straight down. Now that he is on a pureed sweet potato and seed diet (in the afternoons) he has become ballistic nightmare. Sweet potato covered seed projectiles cover the surrounding area. We came up with an idea however that has helped cut down on the amount of wall-washing we perform on a daily basis. We went to Menards and bought a piece of plexi-glass and hung it with some adjustable links on the side of the cage where he eats. Now he can safely (mostly) test his seed whipping ability without plastering our walls. We just have to take off the plexi-glass occasionally and wash it.

(Bird) Food for Thought

So I realized that I said I would share Mango's menu - don't judge, he eats better than Brian and I do.

As far as birds go - Eclectuses (Ekkies) are not "normal" birds. Short version: they have a different digestive tract - it's much longer than most other birds, and it is very efficient and getting nutrients out of whatever they eat. Also, Ekkies spend most of their days in the tree tops - so they don't eat a lot of standard "seeds" in their natural diet. A lot of the bird food out there is either seed based, or pelleted - which for most birds is great, since it is fortified with nutrients that they need. For Ekkies, that can cause problems because they can get too much of a good thing (nutrients).

After a bit of researching, and talking with experts - and this is what they recommended:

BREAKFAST:

1/4 cup "fruit salad"

mango, papaya, pineapple, kiwi, pomegranate seeds (that's the "constant" - if something else is fresh when we go shopping, we add that, too)

1/4 cup "veggie salad" - warmed

corn, peas, butternut squash, chickpeas/garbanzo beans, zucchini, yellow squash, northern beans, brown rice and some sort of "green" (dandelion is recommended, but we couldn't find that, so it's varied from kale to brussels sprouts to broccoli)

 

1 capsule of Flax Seed Oil

(his breakfast)

DINNER:

1 TBSP mashed sweet potato - heated

 

1/4 Volkman's Eclectus Mix

 

10-15 Roudybush rice pellets

 

 

All of this seems like a lot of work (and don't get me wrong - it is!); but we are hoping it will help him be a happy, healthy bird (with maybe a few more feathers - that, or he gets a sweater this winter!).

 

It's been going pretty well for the past four and a half (!) weeks - we tend to go grocery shopping once a week, and then spend Sunday afternoon cutting up all our food for the week (his, and ours for our lunches).

(Mango taste-testing his veggie salad for the week)

 

He always looks forward to meal times (evidenced by his seed "beard" below from dinner tonight)!

 

(DISCLAIMER: there are a million different opinions and ideas on what's best out there (like parenting) - this is just what we're trying based on thoughts of our vet and a friend who has worked with Ecletuses and feather-pluckers)

New Friends

Mango met a new friend this weekend - Maggie!

 

Maggie (and Pebbles) my parent's dogs; came to stay with us Friday and Saturday. As Maggie came to the door, I was standing in the kitchen (Mango on his cage), and as I said "Come here!" - so did Mango! It was the first time Mango has really said anything, with anyone in the room.

 

My parents came following in, and Maggie ran to the couch to see what this talking "thing" was (much bigger than the little cockatiel at my parent's house!). She could hardly contain herself jumping on the couch, wanting to get as close as possible, and either could Mango. He kept looking at Maggie saying, "Come here" and "Whatcha doing?"

 

The rest of the weekend was good. M&M continued to get some beak-to-nose time (on the floor), and they really seemed to enjoy each other. Best of all, Maggie seemed to help Mango break out of his shell - because he is now becoming a talking machine while we are in the room. It's been very fun listening to him. He definitely has shared some new words we hadn't "heard" before (from listening in the other room). "Shower" "uftda" - and lots of "garbling" where you can tell he is trying to say something - but hasn't figured it out yet. He has also taken more interest in toys (his purple ball on the floor and little boxes to chew up).

I'm sure we have more to share.. be patient with us :)

Mango Monlogues

It's a well known fact that parrots like to practice their speech when you're not around.  The problem is, they tend to break out of their monologue when you enter the room.  I wanted to get a recording of his talking just to hear some of his words, but I didn't want to have to record gigabytes of data on my iPad to be able to accomplish it.  Thankfully to the ever expanding application space on the internet, I found a an app that has an 'auto pause' function to ignore periods of inactivity.  So I was able to set my iPad next to Mango's cage on record, and get a condensed version of a bunch of words he said while we were gone.

Enjoy :)


Download music file directly

Mango and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day

Well, that's a little extreme... but today was definitely a very "off" day for us. We don't know if it's because Brian was up at 4:15 this morning to bring Jamie to the airport, so he got woken up early, or if he's missing his old home, or if he is just trying to test the boundaries with us as he gets more comfortable - but, we're glad it's over. Tomorrow is a new day, and we can't wait to see what it brings! 

Mango, you were a punk, but we still love you!

(That's a sneak peek of Mango's new diet.. We'll mention more on that later since we are using this as a "diary" to track changes, progress and this crazy adventure!)