This week was certainly interesting. Mardy is filling out nicely. We measured him at 28 inches in length--from the tip of his beak to the end of his tail. Also, for the first time we were able to weigh Mardy. Today he weighed 34 ounces. That's a little over 2 pounds. For those of you thinking metric, Mardy is 71 centimeters long and 964 grams heavy. From what I've read, this means Mardy is about 2/3rds his final length and weight. Mardy is about eight times heavier than my daughter's full grown Sun Conure. Wow!
Mardy was quite a bit more energetic than I've seen him before. He kept going after the buttons on my shirt and at one point was very interested in climbing inside my shirt with me. He climbed to the top of my head one time, before I could get my hands under his feet and move him back to my lap.
I was pleased to hear Mardy starting to vocalize new sounds besides the periodic baby cawing sound he usually makes. The sound I kept hearing today was clearly two separate syllables, but was not clear enough for me to understand. I asked the breeder and was told that Mardy currently says "Hello" and "I love you." We're going to have to work on enunciation.
The breeder lets us sit privately with Mardy in the back of the store.
Mardy's vocalizations were exciting for us visiting family members and guests, but the real show was going on out front in the public part of the store. The breeder had a Cockatoo who earlier in the day had learned the sound of a child crying. Periodically when the Cockatoo felt he wasn't getting enough attention he would start making the crying sounds--very loudly.
This drew in a lot of people from the flea market. Everyone was fascinated. The sobbing Cockatoo was a hit!
We were able to again film the breeder feeding Mardy. Mardy still gets three feedings of formula a day. Each feeding is two full syringes full of formula. Often times we either arrive too late or too early to observe one of the feedings. This time we were in luck.
Here are my daughters taking a turn with the beast. One daughter rubbing beneath Mardy's right wing, and the other daughter keeping a cautious eye on Mardy as he sidles up her bare arm (his feet are large and have a strong grip. His nails a long, but not very sharp.)
One of my daughter's guests was cautiously willing to pet Mardy. Another guest got up the nerve to actually hold Mardy on his arm.
The younger sister of the girl petting Mardy could not be coerced into even entering the same room with Mardy--maybe on her next visit she'll be more comfortable.
After the feeding I played with Mardy for about 30 more minutes, but when I saw that he was starting to nod off while sitting on my arm I realized that he needed a nap.
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