Maui's aging :(

Maui hasn't been doing well lately. Last month, she began to really slow down. I noticed that she was climbing around her cage quite slowly. A few days later, she could hardly stand up and by the end of the day, she couldn't stand. It was terrifying to see her on her perch, with her wings resting on the perch and her head dangling down as she was unable to hold it up. Surprisingly, Maui maintained her weight. I just had to hand feed her and bring her water every two hours or so. She stayed really chirpy and making noise until this day as well. I rushed her off to a nearby avian veterinarian. They took a blood sample and x-rays and ran all kinds of tests. In general, the outlook is pretty gloomy. She doesn't have anything that really stood out to cause her sudden downturn. Instead, everything just looked bad. She has arthritis in both her knees and hips, which is probably making it difficult to stand. She has chronic lung issues, which has weakened her lungs over the years. Her heart, spleen and kidneys are enlarged. Nothing showed up wrong with the blood tests. The vet said she is on the thin side. I have been weighing her religiously for years now. I have noticed that she's dropped about 30 grams, but that was over the course of the last 1.5 years. I try giving her extra treats, but nothing seems to get her weight up. Instead, I figure this is just a new normal for her. The vet sent me home with pain medication and vitamins for her. I thought she wasn't going to make it, but within another couple days, Maui perked back up. She's back to standing and climbing around her cage, albeit slowly. She still has days where I see her slumped over more so than normal, but nothing as bad as that first day. The vet wanted to take biopsies of her lungs and so on, but I called it quits with that. Maui really struggled at the vets. She's way more sensitive than she used to be and she screamed almost the entire time there. Then when I got home, she napped the entire rest of the day. Also, if she is in bad shape, I think biopsies are too intrusive and more than she'd be able to handle. After talking with the vet about this, she did agree. I want Maui to be happy and healthy, but I don't want her on a whole bunch of medication that may not even be helping her. For now, Maui is doing okay again, but she has her good days and her bad days.

Hercules' new home

So Hercules has been loving his huge new home. He has 3000sqft of yard (currently growing clover, fescue and bermuda grass, dandelion and other weeds), and he has this 3' x 4' enclosure. The enclosure is fully insulated (ground, walls and ceiling). We have it heated for the cold nights. It took him 3 days to figure out how to go through the flaps. We pushed him through each day initially, but now he is quite confident and content in his new place. We added a removable wall (that is also insulated) so we can more easily clean out the mess he makes inside his house. The removable part is what the handles on the left side are for. It does get muddy, so we elevated it off the ground with some cinder blocks and then made a long ramp. It took the better part of 3 days to build this home, but hopefully it last many, many years. It is very solid and it took two people to carry it in four different pieces to its final location. We don't plan on moving it any time soon. It works well being positioned on the side of the house to protect from winds. He has free access to the back yard at all times. 

Despite the larger yard, he still patrols the fence regularly looking for weak spots!

Settling in

We have been through a lot of changes in the past few months. We bought a house and moved. We also had a baby. So the birds have been going through quite a bit.

Maui was great with the movers and the workers in our new house. She is much more watchful than Manzi. I've been covering Manzi some times when he gets too scared of the workers and begins to panic. Most of the work is done now though, so things are settling down. Maui often takes longer to adjust, but she is less spastic than Manzi. So Manzi will totally freak out, flapping all over the place for some new things (like the washer being moved into the new place), but then he will be the first to go over and check it out. Often, his checking out new items is quite amusing because he puffs up his feathers so much to look more intimidating. Either way, a 200lb appliance is much larger and much less intimidated than Manzi likes to think.

Maui on the other hand, she is watchful of everything without panicking, but she is perfectly content to wait for weeks or months before she deems something "safe" and no longer a threat. Sometimes, if I don't push the issue, she will never allow an item off of her "scary/threat" list. So with her, I've been taking her around the house showing her that everything is alright and that she should make herself at home. Just last night, she felt enough at home that when my husband was too close to her cage, she did threaten his feet! Still, she's been keeping to herself here.

Due to a new baby, we have had a lot of visitors. The birds are loving it. They get lots of attention and lots of treats. I think the visitors are spoiling them, but I do like for them to see visitors as a good thing. They are both doing their tricks regularly for visitors. Maui will often began saying, "Work, work, work" when she sees a visitor, 'cause she knows it leads to a treat. Manzi will wave his foot "hi", spread his wings and turn around in quick succession to get treats.

Hercules has been doing great. He loves his huge backyard. We built him a more permanent home, with insulation and a heater (it does get somewhat cold in southern california at times). It took him three days to learn to go through the hanging flaps into his house, but once he figured it out, he is always in his home before dark and doesn't come out until he sees the sunlight.

Maui in distress

Maui has been exhibiting this odd/distressed looking behavior since I first got her. It is very infrequent though, only about once per month or less. Anyway, I was finally able to capture it on video (this is really difficult because it is so short lived and so infrequent). The vet said she is fine (old, but otherwise okay). Her blood levels didn't show any surprising levels.

If anyone has any idea about the video, let me know.

An update on the birds:
Manzi and Maui are doing well. They are both enjoying a lot of me time, but my life has been busy. We have a move coming up in the next 1.5 months. The birds will get a much larger space. Our house will be over double in size. Their large cage will go in the main living area and we will finally build them the aviary that I've always wanted to build them. The new place has a concrete slab in the back where a shed is kept. I am thinking of removing that shed and building the aviary on top of that. It will make cleaning easy since I'd be able to just hose it off. Still, the house also needs a lot of work as well, so it may be several months before we get to the aviary.

It took the birds quite some time to adapt to this place and neither of them ever got comfortable with the second level. I'm hoping that they will adapt just fine to the new place. It is all one floor, which I am really happy about, so they will have an easier time exploring. We are not putting in any carpet, which will give me some peace of mind about Maui's wanderings.

We have had quite a bit of visitors and Manzi is still pretty eager to entertain. Last week he was flying to a visitor's hand taking treats from him. Maui does not go to visitors, but she will allow women to scratch her head (Manzi doesn't often allow strangers this).

We are currently surrounded on all sides by dog owners. After a full year of not imitating the dogs, our neighbors brought home a puppy. It is pretty cute, and now both birds torment the poor puppy, copying his puppy barks multiple times throughout the day. When the puppy is in the patio adjacent to the birds, the birds will began barking, causing the puppy to bark like crazy. They all continue on for several minutes until the neighbors bring the puppy inside. It is amusing (for me at least).

Hercules Digging

This past week Hercules has taken to digging. I only have an 8" planter, so he cannot get very far.

I tried getting a video, but as soon as I approached him, he'd stop kicking the dirt up. He's been growing great, really enjoying the west coast sun and warmth.

We had visitors for the past 10 days. Visitors mean the birds are not free to roam the house, so they are a lot more confined, but there is also a lot more chatter among the people, which invariably leads to a lot more chatter among the birds.

The first evening after the visitors were gone, the birds were in the house in the evening and Maui was roaming around. She took to following my husband quite closely for a couple of hours, scurrying as fast as her little legs would go as soon as he got up to go anywhere. It was pretty cute. We're still very unsure of her intentions. She doesn't act aggressive, but she doesn't ask or accept scratches from him either. She seems intent on just staying within a foot or two of him, watching him.

With Spring coming on, Maui has also been shredding her boxes at full force. I keep boxes in her cage because it keeps her entertained, but every day there are piles of shredded cardboard at the bottom of her cage. Manzi is not nearly as interested. He'll glance down at Maui, then maintain a higher perch, playing with his toys, or just preening himself.