Howdy, Everyone! I’m back again bringing more updates again about my angels. Lately, I haven’t got the chance to come online to share Kiki’s progress of the new trick. Thank you everyone for your support and concern for Kiki. She’s doing perfectly well, but rather nippy this days! Last Christmas, I brought home a new little guy, Kermit, a Senegal Parrot. He’s the primary reason for my inactivity on the weblog for these couple of weeks (or to be exact that’s almost a month ago! Oh gosh that’s long!).

Kermit then was only 7-8 weeks old when I got him home and he is yet to be full weaned. He barely has any feathers on his body accept for some grey furs and blood feathers on his wings. Honestly, I’m never keen nor supportive about bringing home an unweaned baby because of the possible risk and can be time consuming too. Any mistake and mishandling can cost this little feathered friend to lose his life.

Due to certain constrains, the local pet store was unable to wean Kermit for me (seriously that really upset me alittle about store selling unwean babies, do they ever thought of the consequences like selling to an unexperienced or new parrot owner who possibly may end the fragile lives of these babies with their inexperiences and even carelessness?), I’m really hesitating to bring home Kermit when I heard I had to wean him myself. After identifying the obstacles ahead and considering the possible adjustments I can make to my work and lifestyle, I decided to bring home Kermit right away.

I’ve placed him in a brooder since Day 1 to ensure that he has ample warmth, before shifting him to a weaning cage when he has reasonable amount of feathers to maintain and regular his body temperature. During the initial stage, handfeeding procedure for Kermit was really taxing. As I had to stick to 4 feedings daily, ensuring he has enough nutrients for growth and ensure he progressively reaching his peak weight. I had to plan the handfeeding schedules and work schedules to ensure that both doesn’t clash. I had to wake up early morning for a feeding at 6.30am, rushing back home during lunch to feed another time at 12pm, and feedings during the evening and night respectively. It’s definitely lots of time and efforts. But i’m really glad to see Kermit growing well and gain and maintaining a reasonably amount of weight.

Now Kermit has finally turned 12 weeks old and his daily feedings have now cut down to 2, one in the morning and the other during the night before going to bed. I can clearly identify that he’s struggling to be fully weaned. Kermit is starting to refuse the yummy formula most of time, preferring to consume the adult food himself. He’s already eating adult food like millets, seeds like sunflower and safflower, peanuts, veggies like corns, cabbage, carrot and brocolli, almonds, hazelnuts, fruits like apple and grapes and even dried red hot peppers. He sure does like to go for some hot spicy thrills in his daily meals!

He’s almost fully feathered now. He started his maiden flight 2 weeks ago on the 16th January 2008. That’s the day I never forget when he started to flap his wings and fly over to me for his dinner. I’m really happy that he’s growing up and getting stronger day after day.

Hope that one day, Kermit will be performing his very own stunts and trick on YouTube! Wish me and Kermit best of luck!

Earlier on, I mentioned about Kiki mastered the new Cup Stacking Trick on New Year’s Day. My aunt who visited my family during New Year’s Day was really impressed with Kiki’s performance of the new trick. She’s absolutely delighted. Oh gosh! Looks like Kiki is becoming the “centre of attraction” in my family, she got all the attention she wanted. *Jealous*

Lately, I received a couple of emails from friends asking about the Youtube video clip of Kiki performing the new Cup Stacking Trick. Honestly, I’ve yet to get it uploaded to Youtube but Kiki and I are really happy by your warm response. Do stay tune on our weblog and YouTube Channel! I’m sure everyone will get to see the clip by this weekend!

On today’s posting, I will like to share on how I created my own Cup Stacking Props rather than purchasing them off shelves. To be frank, it’s pretty hard to find any parrot trick props from pet’s stores in Singapore. Even you do find one, it’s definitely going to burn a hole in your pocket! Possible problems like the size of the prop might be too big or just unsuitable for our companion parrots. Thus, I do find that making your own props will be an ideal choice. Not only it’s cheap but you also customize the right size just for your own feathered pals.

For my Cup Stacking Props Project, I barely spent above two bucks. Sounds amazing right? I’m not kidding and it’s the fact. The items I bought are just a few coins from my pocket from any neighborhood stores.

Items for the Project:
1. Small Plastic Cups (Those that hawkers used to package chilli sauce) - $1 per pack (10 Cups in a pack)
2. Colored Insulation Tape (I’ve got myself a green one!) - 50 Cents

For the Cup Stacking Trick, I require 4 Plastic Cups. 1 of it will be the primary cup and the other 3 cups are to be stacked into the primary cup. In order, to let Kiki able to differentiate the primary cup from the other 3 cups to be stacked, I sticked the green tape around the primary cup. Thus, it will look different from the other cups. It’s a fairly simple project and does not take up too much time. I believe anyone interested can make one for your feathered friends!

Related Posting:
New Tricks for New Year

Happy New Year! Finally we are all now in year 2008! In fact I’m introducing a new trick to Kiki to perform in a new year. Thanks YuFFie for giving the suggestion of this new trick, and yes it’s a simple trick called Cups Stacking Trick. The learning progress is absolutely good and Kiki had completely mastered the whole procedures within 3 days during the holiday seasons, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day respectively.

I’ve yet to get my brother to video it down and upload to YouTube. Hopefully I will be able to share with everyone the video on Kiki performing the Cups Stacking Trick. My mum and dad enjoyed Kiki performing this trick, it’s so amusing seeing her doing it. It’s so funny! I’m sure everyone will enjoy it.

Remember to stay tune!