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I think the egg must have broke inside her and caused some internal damage she couldn't revcove from. When I removed her cage this afternoon to clean it up to return to the Southern Nevada Parrot Education and Rehoming that's when it seemed to hit Poncho that Goldie is gone. Poncho jumped on the cage and complained while I pulled it out of my bedroom for cleaning and stuck to the cage as I removed the perches and toys even though I was turning it over on one end to the other end on the floor. It's going to be a little different here without Goldie. I will miss her. 20230118-Poncho took a nice long warm bath in the bathroom sink today.
20220222-I decided to weigh Poncho because although he can fly more than 10m without breathing hard, he's starting to look like he's getting fat. He's weighing in at 10.1 oz. now. Poncho really loves flying the length of the hall to make the sharp turn into the apartment where he screams as he waits for me to catch up with him.
20210726-Poncho's weighing in at 9.9oz. today. I don't get it, he looks fatter, he's very active and seems in perfect health.
20210320-Poncho got a present from Madeleine Franco of Premium Pine Cones, LTD.
He has short periods of tears and rubbing the side of his head against his perch, his foot or me, but he does want to play with me as usual too. I don't know if he's able to eat on his own. Saturday morning he didn't eat at all, just sat on his living room perch or on top of his cage in the bedroom. Late in the evening he seemed to try eating some of his seeds. I'm going to try and get some strained carrot baby food for him and maybe he'll lick up some from a spoon or fork. He loves cheesy scrambled eggs so I'm hoping later when he's up he can eat some today (Sunday). Normally, Poncho chews on pellets during the night and first thing in his cage in the morning, then chews up corn and carrots and cheesy scrambled eggs first food I put out for the day on his kitchen perch, then works on his seeds and more pellets on the living room perch by the windows. Friday night and Saturday night Poncho plays with me on the bed while I watch a movie before going to sleep ... his normal routine. He likes to pounce on my hand as I wiggle my fingers and wrestle with my fingers until he feels overwhelmed when he runs up my arm under my chin for safety. He also like to fight with my DustBuster vacuum I use to clean my bed after playing with the birds. Again, after a couple of minutes he seems overwhelmed and hides up under my chin to rest before going back to battle. Without the full lower beak he's not getting a strong grip on my finger, but he does still grab it a little bit. I'm worried about feeding him. Since his tongue is well articulated I think he should be able to at least eat soft foods. I sure hope he starts today. I don't want him to starve to death. 20201118 Poncho Rings his Bell
Goldie's First Egg Now I know why ... she laid an egg today ... but it's much larger than I would have expected for her size, but about normal size for a Cockatiel.
20190701-I've given Goldie a middle name ... "Nugget" ... because she's getting heavy for her size. I guess all the exercise she does on the perch isn't as good as if she could fly so she's putting on weight. She still will try to fly here 'n there, but always ends up in a rapid descending curve because her wings are too assymetric. Still, Goldie Nugget is very happy and comfortable with life here.
20190610-Poncho's foot is completely healed a week or more ago. He's gotten used to me rolling him over to inspect it even while rough-housing in the evening. Something of interest is that Poncho has gotten more friendly since I started giving him more Chinses Star Anise. I give him a half-dozen fingers in the morning and again in the evening. He loves the stuff. 20190519-I'm thinking Poncho's foot is going to be okay. It looks like it is healing just fine. 20190517-Last night in the middle of the night I heard Poncho let out a yelp. Today he's holding his right foot up most of the time standing on only his left foot. Photo of Poncho's injured foot. Click for a bigger picture.
20190514-Photo of Poncho's new neck feathers look like
I give him some in the morning and again in the evening. He's gotten much more friendly and has learned to be much more gentle when biting down on my fingers, nose, ears etc. so he doesn't make me say; "Ouch" all the time. Goldie is slowly warming up to me more and more and starting to tolerate kisses on her belly. She gets worried when she isn't included with activities although she still keeps a big distance between her and Poncho. When I put the birds in the bedroom at 7pm Goldie goes either onto Poncho's cage or hides inside her cage while Poncho eats in the tray on top of Goldie's cage. Then when I come in about 9pm to lay in bed and watch a little bit of a movie, Poncho is on the bed playing with me and Goldie is on top of her cage eating. 20190309-Tonight I have switched to Daylight Savings Time putting the kiddles in the bedroom an hour earlier and I am headed that way an hour earlier myself just to make Poncho a little happier. 20190307-Today I decided to weigh the kiddles; Goldie = 3.2oz/90.7g and Ponsho = 11.6oz./328.9g Another thing about Poncho is when I give him a treat he likes like a frozen blue berry, he takes it, then rings his bell before eating it. BTW, Poncho has already started on Daylight Savings Time schedule and is really mad that I'm not on it already. 20190120-Poncho's neck feathers are still coming in I expect by June he might have them all back. 20190101-Poncho has finally mastered eating frozen blue berries without getting brain or foot freeze. I think it's giving him the medium size berries rather than the big fat ones.
20181215-Poncho has fattened up really nice, almost worried he might be getting fat, although he does seem to fly just fine he wants me to carry him with Goldie for a nap, to put him and Goldie to their cages in the evening to play about 7pm while I stay up until 9pm working. After 9pm I crawl into bed to watch TV for awhile to relax and slow down and that's when Poncho jumps down on the bed to rough-house with my hands. He doesn't bite as much anymore, but when he gets going into a while frenzy, he forgets and will leave a little bruise as I yell at him "Don't Bite!"
Something I've been looking into is the little starfish shaped seeds that come in the hookbill feed. Yesterday I finally found it online after looking at thousands of seed pod photos.
It's "Illicium verum" or "Star Anise" ... and I found where to buy them online too. I wanted more because of Poncho's bad habbit of puking up his food and re-eating it 2-3 times. Everything he eats he pukes up a few minutes after he ate it to re-eat it off his right foot. Kind'a gross habit and worse, when he does it on my bed and drops pieces around on the sheets. Anyway, the Star Anise makes his breath smell nice so I want to be sure to have plenty of Star Anise around everywhere so he can eat it and since it does smell nice by itself too.
The shop online that I found affordable is; https://www.americanspice.com/chinese-star-anise-whole/
20181126-Poncho has regained most of his neck feathers and more are still coming in. I think he'll have all his feathers back by early next year. Poncho's rought play on the bed in the evenings is amazing. He's learning to not bite my fingers so hard so he can play for longer periods of time. The worst thing about Poncho is that he craves so much attention. When he can, Poncho will get into my face and try to start a clicking contest. Sometimes I start making clicking sounds back and he speeds up, but I can still out click Poncho everytime. I think it only encourages him to want more contests.
Goldie on the other hand is so docile, she doesn't want too much attention, but still wants to be in the same room as I am as much as possible.
Poncho has fattened up very well, when I poke him in his chest it feels like thick padding. Goldie keeps getting bigger and still tries to fly once in a while, but with her oddly grown wing she can only go about three meters to the floor and usually in a left curving path. Only once have I seen her get a fairly straight line of flight.
20181031 - Freeze Dried Poncho Poncho's Halloween costume was a big hit!
20181013-Poncho has put on some weight so now when I poke him in the chest I feel meat not bone. He loves dairy products, Chicken Noodle Soup, Carrots and Green Beans. Poncho's favorite Hang-Out 20181005-Poncho spends a lot of time with his head in his living room bell. He also has one foot up inside the bell on the top of his head too. Very strange. It took several tries to get the photo above, as soon as Poncho sees the camera he wants to be the subject in the photo. 20180828-Fear 'n Fleeing in Las Vegas. First Goldie flies over to me and clutches my shoulder like it's the coming to the end. Then Poncho flies over to his kitchen perch screaming. I put Goldie back on her perch and Poncho goes back to his perch near the living room windows and as fast as I can sit down Goldie flies over to my desk putting me between her and the living room windows. Again Pohcno flies to his kitchen perch. I bring her back and notice that a "Happy Birthday" balloon is caught in the power lines just outside the window and slowly moving around. As I try to assure Goldie that the balloon cannot hurt her Poncho comes back and they watch the balloon closely until finally a few small gusts of wind push it away and then pull the string loose from the power line and the balloon is gone. Now the kids are happy again. BTW, I've been teaching Poncho how to "Pirate Dance" to a tune I wrote; "Waltz of the Florance" and a short song from "The Prairie Home Companion Show" ... now he's rocking side to side. 20180808-Poncho is a BeefEater! He was watching me eating off a big rump roast I was cooking in my crock pot for a few hours. Poncho started screaming at me to give him a piece so I gave him a tiny piece, he ate that and started screaming for more so I gave him a piece about 3mm x 3mm x 25mm and that was gone in seconds and he's screaming for more! I guess he likes boiled in garlic salt and black pepper beef. 20180806-Poncho likes it when I give him a corn chip. An interesting thing is that when I give him something he likes to eat he taps his bell with his beak, then eats the food. It reminds me of Raymond's brother who tapped his food to his chin before eating it. Poncho has been learning a new dance ... swaying side to side. I call the dance the Pirate Dance to the tune I wrote Waltz of the Florance The tune is extracted from a longer waltz I wrote several years ago. First I was thinking of an old fishing ship, but then realized that as a pirate ship it would be more fun. I started the dance training for Poncho when I noticed that both he and Goldie both liked this tune and another robot marching tune I wrote for the RoboToons Robot Theatre characters. 20180726-Poncho has this really bad habit of regurgitating his food onto his foot, then eating it again and again and again! Sometimes the food falls off on a perch, or my bed sheets or the bedroom carpet or on top of my head. It's just gross and I have no idea how to stop him from this habit. He gets the stuff all over his beak too, then comes to my face to be as close to me as possible. Poncho has been getting after Goldie whenever Goldie isn't watching out. She's getting good at crying for help or when she gets away, she flies directly to me for protection. I kind'a wish she would fly to the robot Macaw I have setup in the bedroom that is always turned ON. I think I need to start training Goldie to go and sit on its head which would activate the fake parrot and so far Poncho is afraid of the much larger parrot so it might be Goldie's safe place when I'm not around. Good news is that I can hear Poncho crunching on his bisquets and pellets all night long and he still snacks on them during the day too, although for breakfast he wants macaroni and cheese, carrots and green beans! 20180718-Poncho loves to drink fruit juice, sodas almost anything he sees me drinking and so I put a little in a dish and hold it up for him to drink and it's a blast watching him lick his beak after each dip and swallow into the drink. Poncho is still attacking Goldie daily, but Goldie has learned she can fly over to me for protection. She's starting to fly as much as eight feet now and even have a controlled turn. I figure in another month or two she will be able to fly everywhere around the apartment. If you watch closely, you see that Poncho flies the path of the open floor space where I walk rather than the straight line he could fly to the bathroom. BTW, Goldie can now fly almost 2 meters. She's gotten very comfortable with getting on my finger for a lift here 'n there in the apartment, but has started to fly the last 2 meters to the tops of the cages in the bedroom. She doesn't try flying from my finger to a perch in the living room yet as her flights are not so accurate as needed to get to a perch, but she's getting things sorted out with her asymmetrical wings. 20180619-Poncho & Goldie are really enjoying life here. Goldie has become vocal when she wants me to take her with me when I goto shower or take a nap even. She just gets on my finger so I can carry her around while she is still growing new feathers so she can fly on her own. Poncho is slowly learning what he can play with and what he can't other than my computer keyboard. IF he thinks I'm not looking he will jump on the work table and pull key tops off and throw them on the floor. I scold him over and over but he just enjoys it too much. Both Poncho and Goldie like drinking berry juice. I cannot get them to eat berries or oranges although Poncho does eat a little banana. They both like drinking the juice I squeeze out of fruit. Poncho also likes soda pop. I don't normally drink it but was given some recently and let him have a taste, now when I open one I put some in a dish for him to drink from too. Poncho continues to want to play under the comforter on the bed. He crawls in under the cover and like a worm is tunneling around between the comforter and the quilt until I start roughing him up and then he's really having fun and screams and rolls around as I grab him through the comforter or even just petting him. Poncho pinches, sometimes hard, but is careful not to break the skin. When I'm working and he gets hungry he stands on the back of the chair and pounds on my head. He pounds on my head to wake me up from naps if I sleep more than 30-minutes. Some nights Poncho just climbs into his cage for the night, but most nights I have to pick him up off the floor and soon as I get close to the cage, he fly's back to the opposite side of the room onto the floor again as many as five times before he goes into his cage. 20180608 Poncho bathes in the bathroom sink, then comes out to shake the water all over me. I gave him a large parrot food jar full of safe plastic scrap pieces and he does play with it. Poncho seems to enjoy pulling the pieces out and throwing them on the floor to watch me pick them up and put them back in the jar ... sort of a wrong-way fetch game. One thing for sure, Poncho is a hands-on parrot. That is he likes it when I grab him, roll him around on the bed, rub his tummy, play bump bumping his head with my nose. IF I'm not handling Poncho, he's climbing around on me, even when I'm trying to take a nap, Poncho's on my back dancing, pounding me with his beak, I think he does a bunch of little feet dancing like you see in the "River Dance" videos. I can feel his little feet tapping back 'n forth for a minute or two while I'm trying to sleep. Poncho just loves his bell!
Another odd thing is that Poncho wants to brush his beak after I brush my teeth with an electric tooth brush! I was trying to figure out why he would nip at my arm when I washed the toothbrush off so I put it in front of him and he just started moving his beak around on the vibrating head. Now he's getting a beak brush every night.
20180512-Poncho has been dancing everytime he sees me dance a little. On another note, I've realized that he likes to pet me. I woke up the other day and he was making long repetitive strokes with his beak on my arm. He had done the same on my belling one morning when he crawled in under the covers while I was sleeping. Now I keep his cage door locked shut until about 7:30am Another interesting thing about Poncho is he likes to watch stuff fall to the ground. His food, my tools, a napkin, whatever he can grab and toss. I think I need a flat screen TV box about 6' to 8' wide as a collection device on the floor. The box I have only fits under one cage, but I need one that will fit under both cages to help make clean-up faster and easier.
20180502-Poncho has a slight limp on his right foot. I've noticed it since I saw him pacing on top of Goldie's cage and mostly on the bathroom sink. He follows me into the bathroom all the time and paces across the sink back 'n forth, but as soon as I pull out a little video camera he just stands there and stares at the camera! I don't think Poncho has any real problems with his right foot, I think maybe he somehow developed the ability to dance to a waltz? 20180430-Today it's after 10am and Goldie still doesn't want to come out to the living room with Poncho and me. She seems comfortable hanging out in her cage where she feels safer from Poncho I can only guess. Poncho jumped down into the bathroom sink for a bath yesterday. He's not screaming much at all in the mornings now, but last night instead of going into his cage to sleep, he tried to just sit on top of me in the bed. I couldn't get him to goto the cage until I finally put on leather gloves to carry him to his cage and shut the door. I use the gloves to be safe in case he tries to break the skin, but he only did some minor pinches on the gloves. Today Poncho has declared his upper perch and toys private property. IF I try to ring the bell he snaps at my fingers or the little stick I was using to ring the bell. I've come to realize that Poncho likes to spread his food out in all directions so I have papers on top of his bedroom cage and the food is just on the paper for Poncho and Goldie to forage through although Goldie still has food and water dishes in her cage too. For the living room food dishes, Goldie gets the mixtures of seeds and pellets etc. but I'm limiting Poncho to walnuts and large pellets. So far Poncho has no interest in eating the fruit bisquets. That's probably because he's not hungry enough to give them a try. OTOH, he loves oranges and bananas.
20180429-Poncho is definately right handed. When he grabs anything with a foot, it's the right foot. Goldie hasn't gotten into holding food or anything with a foot yet. 20180428-Both birds seem to understand hanging out on the perches I made. BTW, I made new perches with a new bracket for 14mm=1/2" and 18mm=3/4" dowel rods. The birds love their perches and seem very comfortable hanging out on them, except that Poncho does't want to play with his toys on the perch, he wants to play with my toys on my workstation. Poncho sees me putting projects together and he wants to explore the stuff himself, so he flew down to my work table and started pulling LEDs out of a bread board setup I had, flinging them on the floor, then he started with the jumper wires before I could pull the stuff away from him. Like how birds want to eat what you're eating, the also want to play with your toys! Poncho is right footed. Whenever he holds something in his foot, it's the right foot. Goldie hasn't showed a foot preference yet. 20180428-Woke up about 4:30am, it's still dark with the blinds closed and the birds were quiet until I went to the bathroom. Then Poncho made a call out to me as I went out the bedroom door, and I shushed him and when I came back he made another call. At 6:30am Poncho was still in his cage on the door perch and "Goldie" the little baby Cockatiel was on her little fat perch inside above the cage door. I pushed Poncho's door open part way and he eventually climbed up on top of his cage, then jumped to Goldie's cage then flew down onto the bed to nuzzle up with me under the covers. He stayed there for about an hour until I got finally got up afraid I'd roll over on him. Poncho wants to be with me all the time. If I goto the bathroom he flies into the bathroom and sits on the sink. Poncho is still learning where the perches are around here, but getting better and finding his way to a perch. I a not sure that Poncho and Goldie are bonded. My view is that Goldie being so young is afraid to be alone. Poncho doesn't really seem to care one way or another if Goldie is around, but spends his time trying to stay close to me. Goldie starts shaking when Poncho gets too near and if Poncho gets on the same perch Goldie jumps off the perch. Goldie is getting comfortable with me picking her up to give her a lift to another perch, but I think it will take a little time for Goldie to become fully comfortable with me. I'm hoping that eventually I can have just the one smaller travel cage in the bedroom for Poncho to sleep in, and Goldie can sleep on the roof unless the two learn to get along better. 20180427-Today Poncho & Baby arrived ... moving in getting comfortable and already want to be in the same room as I am in.
20180423-The posting on facebook;
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