After struggling to get Rafiki on a good diet for months, he's finally giving in.
This morning he enjoyed some oatmeal with me, this afternoon he had some of my broccoli. He's also eating the pellets in his cage, and adjusting well to having no seed. I am so pleased!

However, this morning I went to change his cage papers and saw bright red watery dropping.
In a panic I went to the computer and found websites to look through. One of them said it was an indicator of lead poisioning or liver disease. I posted to parrot_lovers, and they said that it was probably the pellet dye. Wfhew. I was so scared. I'm going to be removing all red pellets and see if the redness goes away.

He's being ridiculously clingy today. I can't get him to stop flying to my shoulder or trying to pry all of the keys off of my laptop while I'm trying to finish my essay. Must be making up for being so busy this week and not spending as much time with him as usual *guilt*.

webcam candids!

Ever since I've had Rafiki, I've had a really difficult time with his diet.
I offer him oatmeal, veggies, fruit, pellets, and he won't seem to eat anything but seed.
He won't even look at the human food that I mentioned. Pellets, he's not too keen on, much to my chagrin.

So his diet consists of seed (I pull out most sunflower seeds), and the very rare occasional pellet.
So, today I'm going to put my foot down and leave him pellet as his only option. I've done this before and he wouldn't eat. It made me so nervous so I gave him his seed back. This time I'm going to see if he'll just eat it...but if he doesn't...what should I do?

I can't seem to inspire him to eat anything but seed and it's making me feel like one of those parents who give their kids McDonalds every day :(
 

As I mentioned yesterday, here are the photos of my current cage setup.
I think I do want to get that one cage I mentioned from WCP, I think that we'll both enjoy it a lot more.
I mostly just want a flat cage-top! I want to have a play gym up there!

I can't see the numbers on his band becase whenever I go to look he either runs away, or flaps or squirms. I did get to see the vertical "04" which I'm assuming means that he hatched in 2004 (a bit of information that I'm glad to know, since I had forgotten). So, turns out he's actually 5 years old (and not 4 like I thought).



 

I love the way he looks just out of the shower, it makes me laugh so hard.
Today he was practically upside down with his wings out, as if he was dancing and balancing and flailing at the same time.
I want a shower perch >:|

He was grumpy and showered and ready to go to bed :D

 

Tonight I did a huge cage cleaning, which incuded me taking out EVERYTHING (this alone took an hour), then I scrubbed everything down extremely well, disinfected, dried, de-pooped, etc. Appearance-wise, you can't even tell that I did anything, but I can rest easier tonight knowing that fiki's cage is nice and clean tonight.

His cage is quite large, but I really wish that I had invested in a different cage than the one I got. I purchased it a long long time ago before I had any experiences with birds. I'll take a picture of my current setup tomorrow, but the cage that I'm thinking about getting is this one because a lot of bird people that I've spoken to have referred (i can't spell) me to this cage.

I just need to decide if I really need a new cage, and if I can swing $170 (free shipping though!). The cage I have is nice and large...but I can't help wanting a new one with a FLAT top, that I can put things on. Again, I'll take pictures of my setup tomorrow and you can see my predicament.

here is a pictures of the cage I want:


In the mean time, I plan on buying $50 of bird stuff from windy city right now :)

And Rafiki loves the snow :D
He was keeping himself on the couch next to the window, looking out and beeping at the snow.
Unfortunately, my camera is dead (now charging) so I had to use my cell phone to take pictures.

Aww, he melts my heart <3

This journal's content is 99% cockatiel-related or Rafiki (my cockatiel)-related.
So....if you don't like birds, or don't have one, or don't want to hear about mine, then you probably wouldn't enjoy my journal very much D:

But if you do love birds, and are interested to see how mine is doing, feel free to add me!