Steve at three weeks

Yesterday was Steve's three week anniversary with us, so time for another update. For the first few weeks, I mixed his seed and pellets in the morning, allowing him to eat what he wanted. (He gets fresh vegetables at night, but I don't like leaving the produce in their cages all day while we're at work). However, he wasn't eating any of his pellets! Yes, I count how many he gets so I can keep an eye on things.

Yesterday, for the first time, I only gave him pellets in the morning. And he didn't starve -- he ate them. So I did the same thing today, and will likely continue only giving him pellets in the morning, like the rest of my parrots.

I feel it's especially important for him to start eating pellets as they have the nutrition that should help him heal. He gets Harrison's High Potency and a few Harrison's Power Treats. I'm planning on slowly starting to make him forage for them -- I'll update here on that.

In the evening, with a slight veggie beak:And showing me his nervousness, by chewing his nails:I took a video of this, too, to better show what it looks like:

He is so gentle when he takes food from me. Here is a video of him taking a pistachio from my hand:


One thing we've been doing lately is I'll put a small bit of peanut butter on my finger and offer him my hand. He gently licks the peanut butter off. I would certainly not do this with a parrot who had shown any inclination to bite! But Steve does not have an aggressive bone in his body. My goal with this is to get him acclimated to my hands, so he associates them with good things.

Last night, I thought this entry would have ended here, but there were some developments this morning. Steve was eating breakfast (pellets) and the cage door was open, in case he chose to come out. Thomas approached his cage a bit too quickly for Steve's liking, and Steve fell out onto the floor.

I had him step up and placed him on a perch near me. He ate a little peanut butter off of my finger, and we just hung out.
I needed to keep him close to me so that Max couldn't buzz him. He sat on my lap as I finished reading the paper. I then asked him if he wanted to step up on his cage (I thought he'd jump at the chance for safety!) but he chose to stay on me.

I then brought him into the bathroom with me, and he sat on the sink as I brushed my teeth. I left him in there, alone, for a minute. My plan was to go put the rest of the birds in their cages and see if Steve would want to perch on the shower curtain rod while I showered.

I never got that chance. Thomas walked into the bathroom, and Steve freaked out, flopping down to the ground and running over to me. Thomas observed, "he really doesn't like me!" Since I felt Steve had been through enough today, I postponed the shower attempt and instead placed him on his cage door. I expected that he would run into his cage, to the safety of his favorite perch, but he instead walked up to the play top part of his cage. He was just full of surprises this morning!

Steve, on his play top:I found out that Steve lived with a single woman before being surrendered to the rescue, so he doesn't have a lot of experiences with men. For some reason, he is much more afraid of Thomas than he is of me.

Thomas is going to have to work on this. If we want Steve to be successful in his next home, we need to get him to the point where he can cohabit with people of both genders!