We recently transitioned him to his cage. At first we put his little box in on it's side inside the cage and he loved being able to hide inside it... He loves to hide. Well, yesterday we found that he had broken a tail feather.. A blood feather... We ended up pulling the rest of it out, gently and quickly and we used flour to clot the blood and we applied pressure. And he was great. Today, we got home from work and AGAIN, it happened! 2 nights in a row! Believe me, I was more than upset. I cried for a while. We pulled this one out too and it bled more than the last one after we pulled it but the blood quickly clotted with the pressure and flour.
We found the broken feather inside his box so we took the box out of the cage. Half the bottom of the wire cage is covered in paper towel to make it easier on his feet until they're strong enough. He likes to sit in the bottom still and he doesn't show interest in his perches. He also recently learned to fly and it's all he wants to do... I believe he is starting to go through the "bluffing" stage (or it could be a result of all the stress) but he keeps nipping at us.
HERE IS THE PROBLEM.
Everytime we put him in his cage he like, fights to find a way out. He flies into the plastic insert door that is there and he keeps pushing his beak in between the bars as to try and get out.. But when we get him out he flies away from us and perches up high. Sometimes he'll perch on our finger and preen but most of the time he tries to fly. Is this normal behavior? None of my other IRN have acted this way and I am so scared. I don't want to be doing something wrong and not realize it. He calms down in his cage if we cover it. Or cover part of it atleast. I try not to cover the whole cage, as I know it isn't good for them. But I don't want to leave it uncovered and allow him to potentially hurt himself...
I know that most of you will tell me I should have gotten him weaned, but we didn't. So please don't address that. If anyone could be of ANY help or encouragement that would be great.
For the record his diet consists of organic grapes, mango, carrots, soft pellets, seed, millet, lafebers pellets and nutri-berries. He's weaning nicely.
Thanks so much. His name is Yoshi, btw... Hence my username...
![Happy :)](./images/smilies/1.gif)