Note on Perches

 

Because Fig is injured, she can only fly a few meters. Over the last couple of years, she has become a much stronger flier, but she tires easily if she's given too much space between her perches. It is hard to imagine that she started out with 50cm between her perches two years ago, and now she has about two meters. She will actually fly about 6 meters repeatedly given the chance, but it is simply too stressful for all day exercise, so she usually exercises on perches no more than two meters apart in her enclosure, and gets much longer flight exercise out on walks, and trips to the park. If she is given a wider exercise gap all day, her bad wing droops low, because I think she over exercises it to the point that it becomes painful; this never happens under two meters because much of her "flying" is done as leaping, and gliding, and only very little flapping. 

Fig loves exercise. She will sometimes spend as many as six solid hours leaping, flying, gliding, bounding off walls, doing flips, turns, and rebounds like an 80's aerobics instructor. She has an incredibly active imagination, and playful nature, and she makes up endless activities for herself in quite a confined living space outside. She could easily escape her living space as it is only partially covered, and she has in fact "escaped" or gone on excursions two dozen times, but she has ceased to do so these days, having finally decided that her private balcony space is the safest place to be since the wild Crows attacked her a year ago.

Because she spends so much time leaping, flying, jumping, and landing her feet get quite a bit more use than a wild Crow's feet may get. Protecting her feet from wear, sores, swelling and injury is a special concern, but she has never had serious sores, or injury to her feet because luckily I have experience with the matter, and have always taken preventive measures. Here you can see one of Fig's main perches; it is rolled with four rolls/layers of fleece, attached with double stick tape, and a half dozen zip ties. She could easily rip the fabric to shreds in a matter of hours, but she doesn't because, much like you or me, she knows luxury when she sees it, and she appreciates it. This is her sofa. She loves this soft, plush, silent, bouncy perch covering. The end of the roll creates several little convenient pocket pouches beneath the perch where Fig stores dried dog, or cat food, or other not so favorite foods she caches away for later when the real food runs out. If those pockets were not there, she would simply tear holes in the fabric and create some.

Her other perches are different sizes, textures, and roughnesses to give her feet a proper workout, and her nails some natural wear, but this perch is Fig's favorite place to crash land hard from high leaps and bounds repeatedly, and store food, so it's a bit pimped out for a soft, silent landing (I do have neighbors to think about). I've only just put it back in, so none of her toys are attached and it looks sparkling new, but she loves this perch so much that it never gets even slightly dirty, or worn, and I may not need to wash it for several weeks which utterly amazes me. If she did not love it, she would tear it all off in a couple of hours, so discovering this design took many experiments to fine tune. Fig is fond of wiping food off her beak by swiping her beak off on her perches, so I cannot cut the zip ties, as they then have sharp edges which scratch the heck out of her beak. The scratches soon polish out with more rubbing, but they look terrible, so I don't cut the ties off. They make good stress toys to peck, or push, though they do not look so attractive. She likes this perch so much, that she does not clean her beak here even. She will eat on this perch, but she'll hop over to another perch to wipe off her beak, and if any food gets on this plush fleece she very carefully removes it. Is it surprising to you that a bird could appreciate luxury to such a degree? It certainly surprised me.