A blog about my beautiful budgies.
In my last post on this subject (click here) I reported about Perry’s ‘turns’. We have had further developments.
On the 4th July, Perry had, what I would describe as a ‘Twitchfest’. He twitched, though not violently, off & on all day, but settled by bedtime. I was on edge the whole time, anticipating that he would get worse.
Perry
Perry’s next, more significant, episode was on Saturday, the 22nd August. At around 11am, he began twitching, & a couple of those were major enough to propel him off the perch. At one point, he was hanging from the perch by one foot. He seemed okay after about 15 minutes. However, about two & a half hours later, the twitches began again, but this time they were throwing him off the perch, on average every 30 seconds (sometimes the frequency between was longer, sometimes shorter). Lennie was sensible & went into Dalai’s cage, so I locked him in there for the duration.
For about an hour the twitches continued, at varying levels of intensity. Each time his movement was from his left to the right, so I could predict where he would go/land. Sometimes he would have a few minutes where he was just twitching & able to stay on the perch. He pooped throughout, but a watery substance. Through it all, he did not make a sound. He was completely aware & scared as he clearly did not know what was happening to him. The times he landed on the bottom of the cage he immediately made his way back up. By 3pm they were subsiding & he was able to preen & behave a bit more normally, by which time, Lennie joined him again.
Things had settled down by the Monday, but nevertheless, I spoke to the vet, & she suggested adding calcium to their water as they were both still moulting.
New cage set up L to R: hospitalisation cage, ‘home’, Dalai’s cage
The next episode was Saturday the 12th September (I am starting to dread Saturdays!). He seemed extra quiet that morning & when I offered him a spinach leaf, he had to turn his head at a strange angle to eat it. This alerted me & I decided to dust off the quarantine cage & prepare it for possible hospitalisation purposes. Later that day, he spasmed, fell to the cage floor & was rolling around. I carefully picked him up & put him in the spare cage. He came out of the spasm & I placed him on a perch, where he was very still. His balance was very off & he fell off the perch a few times but at least did not have far to fall in the newly set up cage, & the bottom has extra padding. Occasionally, he would turn his head from side to side & his eyes were flickering.
As you know, from my earlier post (click here: Three near-flightless birds), we are having a pretty bad moult season. Since that post, Lennie has lost more flight feathers resulting in one wing being, well…. not much use as a wing.
It has not stopped him from feeding Dalai:
To add to that, Dalai decided to grow his beak…
…that the vet trimmed down yesterday. She also investigated a strange thing beside his beak that I had noticed a few weeks ago. At first I thought it was a stuck seed, then I wondered if it was a strange feather. The vet confirmed it was fleshy & attached to him, similar to a skin tag. She whipped it off pretty smartly. Hopefully, whatever it was, it will not grow back.
Phineas came into our home on this day, 4 years ago.
I would like to share a video with you of him regurgitating to my thumb. It was also during his brief quick, side-step phase. Some people go, “Urgh”, at the thought of regurgitated food, but I always appreciated what he offered me, & I always thanked him.
Missing you, our little man.
Always in our thoughts.
♥♥♥
Since Dalai has joined Bezukhov & Phineas, I have seen both of them regurgitate for him.
Bezukhov feeding Dalai:
Phineas feeding Dalai:
These actions must surely make Dalai feel welcome in our flock!
Phineas is randy again.
Phineas
Towards the end of October, Phineas lost the urge to do the jiggy-jiggy hand jive. Along with this, he also stopped regurgitating. This coincided with his moult. Last year, the hiatus lasted around 5-6 weeks. This time it lasted just over two months. He broke it on the 28th December with a jiggy-jiggy that he progressed, with a flourish, to the final deposit stage. Since then, he has begun regurgitating again & is demanding more of my attention.
Phineas is back to his version of ‘normal’. It is early stages but this appears to mean that ruffling of cheek feathers is now not acceptable. When he started letting me ruffle his feathers, I looked for an opportunity to do this each day & so we developed a routine. Now, when I try to do this he does not respond – he just moves his head away. It is entirely possible I may have to wait until his big moult next September/October before feather ruffling will happen again!
Phineas still regurgitates to my finger, or thumb, a lot. Many times a day, every day.
Recently he made some changes & regurgitated blue seed:
Blue regurgitated seed
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“What’s going on here?”, I wondered!
A little investigation revealed he had been chewing on the blue munch ball of the chewy toy arrangement on top of the Manor.
Phineas chewing the blue munch ball
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With inedible things, I often tell them to chew & spit but clearly Phinny had not been listening to me & had been ingesting instead of spitting it out. He moved onto the red munch ball after that so you can imagine how colourful his regurgitated seed looked then. 🙂
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Phineas still likes to regurgitate to my finger or thumb. There are several locations where he prefers this activity to happen. One location is on the open door of the Ferplast. This flat area showcases nicely his habit of interspersing regurgitation with side step speed footwork.
Phineas blew an impressive bubble the other day. It came out whilst he was regurgitating onto my finger. It was so big & strong it stayed on my finger long enough for me to take a photo:
The Bubble
Well done, Phinny!
The Bubbler
When I am working, I sit at the table in the corner of the room. I have my back to the wall & face the room, with a good view of all the feathery goings-on.
Cagney, Bezukhov & Phineas also have a good view of me sitting there. This only appears to be of importance to Phineas. He knows exactly where I am if he requires my attention. The attention is usually for one of two things: a regurgitation session or a hand jive session.
In the video below, you can see Phinny hanging off the side of the Manor, willing me to go over. The reason he keeps running off to the right is because he wants me to go to a specific regurgitation/jiggy-jiggy location.
You will also notice he flies towards me at one point. This happens if I am not quick enough to attend to him. He does repeated flyovers until I succumb to his will.
Over time, I have noticed a gradual arc of poops in my working corner, corresponding to his flyovers. I have found poop on my papers, on my laptop, around the wall & on my pictures. I am amazed that of all these poops, not one has landed on me. Yet.
Who? Me?
2½ hours in the life of Phineas.
As told through the medium of
photo…..
regurgitated seed…. &
regurgitated celery:
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(Click on photos to enlarge)
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Puddings & Toyboys 