Jerry had ANOTHER night fright about 20 minutes ago and busted open his broken flight feather - as soon as the AV's office opens I'm going to call and take him in to have the shaft pulled. Dave is out of town and I don't want to attempt trying to restrain him and pull it myself, I'm afraid I'll break his wing. The bleeding stopped very quickly and you couldn't tell he's broken a feather unless you looked at him - he's happy as a clam and meowing and singing and playing.

I really can't believe that he's having night frights all of a sudden. Thinking that this has been related to the hectic holiday schedule where everything's been screwy, I put the birds to bed early last night and kept the whole house quiet so they could sleep well (since I have the whole house to myself at the moment). 5:30 am I heard flapping and it was just him, not Winston. I saw a cat sitting on top of the space heater, but that's not unusual (in the more than 2 years since Jerry's been home the cats have never spooked him at night, and remember he's way out of their reach). I may have to look at installing a 2nd door since I can't completely close off their room (2 doorways, one door). I unscrewed a few end caps of the rope perches and don't see any mites.

Tonight I'll start covering half of his cage and see how that goes. For now I'm leaving their room's lights on and waiting til the AV office opens.

I feel sorry for poor Jerry. Possibly a diet change is what is needed, maybe a bit less protein and carbs. Has he had less out of cage time that he has too much energy at the moment? I find the suns sleep better if they are suitably tired before going to bed. They get out of bed and start doing wing flaps in the dark if they get disturbed.

Jerry, Jerry, Jerry!
What were you thinking little birdie?
I don't have any suggestions for you Sarah, other than, a huge cage for Jerry.

He hasn't had any less out of cage time, it's just been a varied schedule lately. Yesterday they were out for a long time and tired when they went back in for the night.

He does have a huge cage.

Poor Jerry : ( ,you said he has a big cage maybe you can try a smaller cage for sleep time,one that he cant thrash all around in,and try having the perches lower in the sleep cage.

I will give that some thought, thanks.

I did think of something else - I did a thorough cage cleaning on everyone's cage yesterday and gave them all of their new Christmas toys. Jerry got two new toys, and although he loves them, they could have scared him if he woke up and saw the strange new ones in his cage. But he's used to getting new toys and it's never bothered him before.

Dear Sarah, we are sorry. Our birds can really scare us can't they!

We're back from the AV office - Jerry is such a little trooper, he did so well. They pulled the blood feather which was split - it was an outer flight that was about half grown in and boy that shaft was THICK and FULL of blood - I'm glad that Dave wasn't here to attempt that with me. He bled a little after it was pulled and the vet packed it up well and we waited to see if he was still bleeding after awhile.

His wing is a mess, but she says to not clean him up til tomorrow as to not disturb the packing. He's picking at it a little, but not too bad. Actually he's in his cage right now and has his head up a bell But he does have a similar blood feather growing in on his other wing so we just have to make sure the same thing doesn't happen with that one if he continues to have frights.

She doesn't recommend covering his cage, so I'm not sure what to do. As far as diet goes, she recommends less seed and more Avicakes as they should be perfectly balanced for his nutrient needs. Maybe I've been feeding too much seed lately.

Do you have a night light so they can see? We have had good luck using those ones that turn on when the room is dark. I notice without them our two boys seem nervous and scared.

Yep, we do have one of those. We hadn't used it in a long time, but we put it in the other night when the boys had a fright and it was plugged in last night.

Now that I'm thinking more about things, I do think this is diet related. I've been feeding more seed lately and I think that's the mistake - with more seed they'll be more hyper and he may be more wound up (ever since Angie made the comment about getting enough exercise I've been thinking about diet and exercise). I may have been thinking about this backwards.

He's really busy with his new toys too, I think that'll help. He's busy chewing, chewing, chewing right now, he has a new balsa toy and a new toy with straw weaving.