Pippi's photos (ongoing thread)

FaeryBee said:

Pippi is adorable!

What are the dimensions of the cage? Length, Width, and Height

Click to expand...

LxWxH in inches: 13x17x32

I'm aware that's just below the minimum often recommended with the width and a fair bit below on length. It's the biggest I could get in the store, I work from home x3 days a week and leave her cage door open for 3 hours solid in the morning and she'll come and go from her cage as she pleases.
I often leave it open for another 2 hours in the afternoon unless I have a meeting or need to focus but she tends to rest after lunch time.

I open her cage up on weekends too.

I know this forum promotes best practice, but for now I am content with what I have for because I know it is not permanent.

My hope is by summer I can get a 2nd cage and place it next to this one and join them to give her more space for lateral flight- but my finances are focused on saving up to install interior window shutters as my house will reach 32-37°C (89.6-98.6F) during the peak of summer and I am incredibly concerned about the impact of that on Pippi and myself!

(Air conditioning in residential homes isn't really a thing here so I'd have to go with a single standalone portable unit in her room and then leave the curtains and windows partially open anyway to shove a pipe out from the A/C- so I focusing on reducing my house heating up in the first place rather on then cooling it although my brother has one of these and says it does work quite well. But shutters will also insulate in the winter too which is actually more of a concern! We've had longer stretches than normal below freezing this year)

Actually thinking about it- might have to go with just new big cage instead of joining 2 because the opening on the side of this cage is stupidly small! But I can use this cage as back up is ever needed

New cage is wide enough that depending on the perch/swing layout and his mood he can fly from one side to the other at last! He's been trying some diagonal move this week flying from the top right perch to a lower and left position instead of straight across (due to current set up).

The second I crouched to get the angle to get the whole cage in (I can't stand far back due to my desk being there) he bent down to watch me. He's becoming much more curious recently in my activities and what it is that I'm doing.



Both photos from today

But yes many updates!

• His cere got more blue...so I am pretty certain he's actually a boy!
• I did some freelance work and he has a flight cage now which he settled into just over a month ago
• He tricked me in early March by eating like 2 whole pellets 2 days in a row. He's not touched them since! But I remain hopeful. He at least has to forage through pellet mush I make to get his seed as I'm using water and powdered pellet alongside whole pellets to stick to his seed. He actually ate an entire pellet crumb from my hand today! May have been accidental but it still happened.
• He started to eat from my hand about 4-5 weeks ago, as long as he could reach it from a perch. As of this week he will fly or hop short distances to my hand and is comfortable eating from it while I hold my hand in the cage doorway.
• No idea if he'll be confident enough to let me give him scritches one day, but he's pretty adept at using his wavy perch to get the itchy areas of his face himself!
• He's getting increasingly curious in my activities and will come to the doorway still to look at what I'm doing. He sometimes follows my hand as I clean his cage (the door is always open during this so he can leave but he normally stays, and now follows my hand a bit), and yesterday apparently I took too long preparing his breakfast so he flew out and down near the floor to check on progress.
• I have sensory issues and tend not to wear my headset during meetings if I'm working from home, he loves to chime in with his own opinions. Thankfully I've not received feedback he can be heard, but if it's someone fairly laid back I'll let them know if he sounds particularly excited.
• He's probably learnt I'm a softie and spoil him. Sometimes he'll stop eating and jump off my hand and not return for ages. But if I take my hand out the cage he'll follow my hand (from inside) and try to get to it- I always end up offering him the food again then! I'll keep encouraging this while it's still early days because to be fair he's only been this confident for 5 days.
• I'm very proud of myself because I am finally getting a good consistent evening routine so bedtime is the same time! I struggle with routines and organisation etc. and I had a consistent bedtime with him but I was just consistently missing my target time. We've managed to get to the target time!