I've posted too often of the drama of my small lot. My male CB Azul was in flight cage w/female Owl Thurston, and male zebra Bonzo. Had to remove Bonzo from cage with my other zebra Beaker who was on the verge of pecking the poor boy to death and otherwise I think everyone would be happy. so have 3 in top flight, and 1 bully in the bottom.
Well, 3 eventually became a crowd, and Azul started getting picked on by the zebra and owl. I didn't think it was too bad, but I noticed one day one of his wings looked damaged and he was spending more time under heat lamp and on bottom of cage and not flying as much.
I had just taken him and Bonzo to the vet for a check up b/c of some other things I wasn't sure if I was really seeing or not. Vet said no one had anything funky in stool but also NO good bacteria. He was going to check blood but said they were both too small (less than 4g! and that is their cut off for blood). He recommended milk thistle for liver for Bonzo, vitamin supplement for all, PLUS get everyone on a pellet diet. No one eats the pellets - I've tried and tried. I'm going to just keep putting it in with the seeds and playing with the ratio. So the wing injury appeared about a week after vet saw them and I decided he needed to get out of that flight.
My plan based on advice here was to get some balance in numbers and find a female CB, which I did, and brought her home 4 weeks ago. Adele
I kept her in a separate room for 2 weeks (treated for airsac mites just in case), then brought her into the room w/the other finches, then put Azul by her cage in his cage. They have both been singing like crazy.
However, Azul's wing still does not look right. The first week I had him alone, I took out perches and put all food/water on the bottom of the cage. Then I felt bad b/c he seemed bored (jeez, how would I know anyway, but it looked like to me) and I put a perch back in. I would estimate he has been in isolation for about 6 weeks now. But wing looks same. He was not very vocal the first week, but has been singing normally, eating & drinking normally since about week 2.
So now I'm at the time when I thought it would be safe to introduce Adele and Azul into same cage, except I'm worried that additional stress might make the wing worse. What could not have healed after 6 weeks? I thought his feather was coming out, but it hasn't -it's just askew.
I took about 70 pictures on continuous on my digital camera - of the ones he was actually IN
, here is what it looks like. The left wing goes over the right and he holds it up from his back. I've got a left, right, and back shot here. He does not seem to have trouble getting around at all. I tried to look at it the day I took these pics a few days ago, and he screamed bloody murder but I don't see a thing. It looks completely unchanged from when I separated him. He seemed to have trouble moving a bit when I first took him out, but not since the first week which is another reason I figured it was safe to put the perches back. So ... what's the expert opinion here?
Keep him isolated and take out all perches and keep waiting?
Keep him isolated but leave perches?
Move him in with Adele?
My goal was to get Azul & Adele acquainted and together for a few weeks, then put them into the top flight again with other two and leave Beaker by himself OR put meanie weenie in smaller cage, and the 2 CBs in the other half of the flight. I just don't want to be cleaning 4 cages for a long time. I wanted to get back to 2 but they may not agree with me.
I've waited all this time and don't want to rush it but I thought his wing would look 'normal' now and still doesn't!
any thoughts??
Wendy
it is not right. And a chicken isn't bad, but finches completely rely on flying