I've been following your blog for a bit now (few months) and your beebs are so cute! I've heard you talk about Mia having a foot problem and a kidney problem? I'm so interested in your little birbs, could you possibly do a post talking about their background, personality, past health problems, quirks etc? I would love to learn more about them ! 😊 also happy birthday Mia!! 💕
all previous Mia-related questions
along with that she has a slightly offset beak which is most visible in this image
because of it being offset the beak frequently breaks leaving a gap between the mandible and maxilla, how it should normally look here. It was worse when she was younger due to her health but now that she’s recovered from liver disease and is on a good diet the beak is strong enough not to break as frequently, when it does it’s not very much anymore.
She did have liver disease but after her last vet visit in November 2015 her blood tests came back clean! Mia was not fed correctly when she was a wee bab and as a result she developed this issue, the visible changes since she started eating veggies is astonishing. Liver disease is a huge issue that a large portion of captive birds deal with, the most dominant cause is improper nutrition by feeding seed-only diets but there can be other factors as well. As common as it is this disease is no joke, it sometimes doesn’t show visible signs until it’s too late and you can wake up to a dead bird because it can disrupt their nervous system when their blood fills with toxins, causing seizures or neurological damage in severe cases.
In terms of personality, after three years of watching her come out of her shell I can now say she is the biggest clown. Due to the liver disease, clip job, and skittish responses Mia was a very timid bird, she was reclusive, and wasn’t interested in human interaction in the slightest. Now she will not hesitate to fly straight at your face, dive in your hair, and be an acrobatic little goof. Recently she flew straight at me, didn’t know where to land, landed hanging upside down by the base of my shirt then ran around my circumference as the climbed up really quickly, not really caring if she slipped. She’ll fly any chance she gets, that’s why high-five is one of her favourite tricks to do, she has so much confidence and has just become so energetic and happy. She is still skittish, she likes to let Zeeby explore the scary things first before deciding if she should take a look but she takes well to reinforced habituation, doesn’t usually take long for her to become interested in a scary thing now. This bird is honestly the sweetest bird you’ll ever meet, I don’t believe I’ve ever been bitten by her (if I have it was probably because of hormones), it takes a lot for her to think she has to bite you. If you agitate her she’ll try to walk away, if that doesn’t work she’ll lightly grab your finger and push it away to make you stop, I’ve never gone farther than that but I imagine if you really wanted to ignore everything she was telling you you would be faced with some blood drawn. She’s really lenient and willing to overstep her boundaries a bit to cope for people who don’t know how to handle birds, although she is terrified of children for no reason I’m aware of.
all previous questions about Zeeby
The only real health issue Zeebs had was stress bars which is essentially when birds go through a stressful experience (whether it be mentally or a stressor on the body such as improper nutrition or illness) the stress hormone (corticosterone) can impede proper production/synthesis of proteins causing weakened barbules which shows as a band across the feather. This bar just signifies the moment in time where the bird experienced this stress, once that feather moults out again it should return to normal as long as the bird is healthy and doesn’t encounter another period of high stress. Zeeby’s high stress period happened during rearing when all of her feathers were growing so every single feather that was growing at that time ended up with a stress bar. One moult after they were all gone so it wasn’t really a concerning issue.
One other thing I can think of is that Zeeby is a blue fallow mutation, a dominant difference being that she is lacking melanin in comparison to the typical blue mutation (which Mia is), this is why Zeeby appears much lighter not only in feather colour but skin, beak, and eye colour as well. Due to this Zeeby has red eyes as opposed to the typical brown a parrotlet should have. This lack of melanin also makes her more light sensitive, if you see her in outdoor pictures she may be found squinting so we tend to keep our walks to the shade. This also means she is at a higher risk of developing blurry vision or going completely blind as she ages, currently she seems to have trouble differentiating similar colours. When training her to pick the card with a black dot she couldn’t find it on the green card but could easily locate it on a high contrasting white card, she also seems to walk right over things in plain sight if on similar coloured surfaces (can’t find a brown seed on the tan carpet where Mia easily can).
Zeeby’s much more fearless and much more aggressive despite being younger, if they’re bickering it’s almost always because Zeeby started it. That being said I’ve only been bitten by her once and that was because she was going through her hormones, she went for Mia and I shoved my hand between them taking the bite for her. Almost immediately after Zeeby realized what had happened and turned in to a sappy baby about it. She does have minor over attachment problems, they were worse when she was younger but she’s gotten MUCH better, she socializes really well with strangers, no aggressive behaviour towards them, but if it’s someone she’s had negative experience with in the past she gets really nasty towards them. My mother frequently yells at/ shakes her finger at Zeeby so whenever Zeebs can hear her she gets really defensive. After a year or so of working on this issue Zeeby can nicely step up and spend time with her now. Otherwise Zeeby gets along fine with anyone I have over, even going so far as to put herself in a super vulnerable position with a stranger. She’s a sweetheart but has her boundaries (as does any bird), you absolutely need to ask her instead of commanding her or you will likely get lunged at or bitten.
