Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Day two - Zuri and his collar

This will probably be kept short and I apologize ahead of time if some things don't make much sense - we had quite the windy night last night, which rattled my windows so hard I barely had any sleep. Well that combined with anxiety I had about Zuri.

Today, the Boy stayed behind to keep an eye on Zuri. We had moved him before putting him to bed yesterday from the Kings Cage travel cage to a smaller transport cage - in hopes that he wouldn't be able to flip himself and get to his foot that way.

He got through the night quite well and I gave him his prescribed dose of Metacam for pain and inflammation before I headed to work - and that went rather well, but I think the fact that he was rendered somewhat stationary by the collar helped. I also stuffed his cage with quite a bit of paper towel for him to chew on - and did he ever go to town on it!

Initially we had placed three ramekins in the bottom of that cage, one with water, one with seeds and one with pellets. Having three allowed to take some space that prevented him to be able to flip over, yet allow him to move around a bit. However, the water bowl proved to be an issue as Zuri would either perch on it or knock it over, which would result in his bandage getting wet which is not a good thing. The boy did solve that by finding a small stainless steel bowl with a hanger so he was able to put it higher up so that Zuri couldn't perch on it (nor could he topple it over).

The Boy also sent me a picture to make me happy - and it did.



He handfed Zuri some carrots. He also put some of it in Zuri's cage and at first, Zuri got quite frustrated about not being able to eat it from his foot. However, he did learn quickly that if he put the piece of carrot (with his beak) on top of one of his food bowls, he'd  be able to much away at it. He also ate some seeds and pellets so that's a good sign!

All in all, the smaller cage seems like it'll work for the time being. As sad as it makes me to see him in such a small cage, it is what is best for him until he becomes more agile with the collar and looses all interest in chewing his foot - and on a bright side, while I had him out with me today I didn't see him once go for his foot! And unlike yesterday where he was so tired he just cuddled, today he felt like moving a bit (although he did cuddle plenty).

Finally, when we put him away for the night he made the "Meyer's screech" - which proves that he was in higher spirits!

3 comments:

Victoria Fleck said...

My meyers Momo had a serious accident 3 years ago which required him to wear a collar to prevent him from biting his wing. It was tough, we had to keep him in a small cage with no perch since his balance was terrible with the collar. Poor thing had the collar on for 2 months, but by the end I just took it off since he realized that if he didn't bite his bandaged wing he didn't have to wear the collar. Hopefully Zuri will learn that soon enough. Has he pulled out any feathers around the collar? Poor baby...

Nikki said...

Happy that Zuri is doing better!

Natacha said...

@Vicotria - he hasn't pulled any feathers yet. In fact, from the observations I have made, he has left his collar mostly alone (hasn't tried to chew it yet). I've put some paper for him to chew between the bars of his cage and that's what he's going after.

@Nikki - thanks!