Pippi & Squall Pippi was just a baby white bellied Caique. She had the sweetest face and eyes, along with the biggest baby bird cries! All of Pippi’s siblings found a home straight from her breeder but she was left and thus sent to a store. There she started to wean but along with this entire process began to pluck. Plucking is fairly unusual for Caiques let alone one so young. The shop desperately tried changing cages, location, foods, handling, and more. They however did not want to take her to the vet yet. We contacted the owners of the shop directly and told them that if they did not want to foot the vet bill and care we would take her in. Initially this was met with resistance, more time was what they thought she needed, but after drastically increasing her plucking to a near bald body in less than a week they called us up and agreed. We took her in from there and went in to see our trusted vet. The vet gave her a clean bill of health and suggested that it was mental with this little one. We then tried routines, lots of attention, distractions, training, and much more. The screaming never ceased but the plucking did. We eased her onto a healthier diet, along with supplements and fresh foods. She was VERY picky and did NOT want to get off straight seeds. This little character would run all the way across a house on the ground screaming if she heard a bag rustle thinking she was getting more seeds! Needless to say after an extra-long gradual time she finally switched to the better diet. Now you can crack a bag of anything open around her, even seed, and she won’t even want it! Talk about a change, right? Still Pippi continued to scream. As you know we already had other birds in the sanctuary and she got to interact more with them after her initial isolation period to be extra sure on health and illnesses and the vet’s approval. Still the other birds couldn’t stand how insistent and pushy Pippi was. Personal space was not in Pippi’s vocabulary, nor was respect. She had not learned proper bird to bird interaction and the current sanctuary birds were not willing to take the time to help her learn. They quickly rejected her one by one. Pippi began travelling with us and going on more outings. Still she obviously missed having another bird around even after all this time. We took her on meet and greets with other Caiques but even then they all rejected her, that is until we found Squall locally near us. Squall was a slightly older male white bellied Caique who perked up around Pippi and immediately seemed to bond with her. They played together multiple times and even when Pippi pushed Squall gently corrected her. Every time Pippi came home from a play date with Squall she was happier, quieter and more content. Her destructive behaviors were nonexistent. We had to have a long difficult talk as to whether we would BUY Squall to live with Pippi? This is a difficult decision especially with very limited funds. In the end, we were able to work it all out and Squall did indeed come to live with Pippi. Squall is a character, he’s strong but gentle and loves to hang upside down like a bat. He teaches Pippi how to enjoy life and they’re inseparable. Pippi has become more mellow and Squall has become more playful. We’re glad to have Squall here and Pippi has since been kept on a very monitored diet and feather condition. She’s still growing in a lot of feathers and improved quality but has made drastic changes. We’ve also been able to provide them with the play stations and space they need to co-exist happily as well as the socialization to be handled, groomed and remain friendly.
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February 2020
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