I hatched Coco on Aug 3. She’s almost 6 weeks old now. She was an assisted hatch.
Initially the issue was her right eye not fully opening and apparent visual impairment. I made a post about that here. Now the issue is the eating/beak formation.
Caption: Coco's close up at 4 weeks of age.
Coco's eye was looked at by a (human) Optometrist (perks of Hubs working in the eye glasses industry). He said the eye looked healthy and he could not see anything to indicate low vision. He suspects it's a lazy eye and the issue is more with the eye lid than the eye itself.
I can tell that Coco does have some vision in both eyes, but she acts as though it is limited. Her depth perception is nonexistent. If she pecks at something, she is about an inch short. However I think there is a bigger issue with her ability to eat. I have looked inside her mouth as best as I can and see nothing out of the ordinary. (Anything in the following videos that looks like canker is just food stuck to her face). So perhaps there's a deformity of the beak or tongue. Unfortunately I've been exploring parrot beak as a possibility, and if Dr. Google is to be believed, this will worsen with time and ultimately be a terminal condition. So hopefully that's wrong.
Coco rarely has a full crop, and I've been struggling with finding a good way to feed her. Earlier this week, I thought we had a breakthrough. I could fill a bowl with food and set it on a plate. Then I could just keep dumping the spilled food back into the bowl. It took her about 30-40 minutes, but she filled her crop up! I fed her this way twice a day for several days and then her eating started to decline.
Video: Coco eating and making cute happy noises (9/5).
To complicate things, her clutch just started showing heavy signs of Coccidiosis. They started on Corrid 9/10. Fortunately, Coco does not seem to have much difficulty drinking. She had either no appetite or was struggling to eat on 9/9 and 9/10. This morning she happily ate for quite a long time, but her crop never filled up.
Here is a too long video of Coco eating in slow motion (I edited it but for some reason can't get the shortened version uploaded to You Tube). But you can see her eating tactic of sticking her head in the bowl and shaking.
Here is a short video of Coco "chewing" her food. You can get a look at what her tongue is doing.
Does anyone have any suggestions for what this might be and/or how to treat it (if possible)? Suggestions for other ways to feed her (she is a PICKY eater. She ate wet food for the first time last night and won't touch a scrambled egg- so it has been tricky to entice her to try new eating aparatuses).
And just for fun... I kept blaming my giant bull-in-a-China-shop cockerel for spilling the feeder, but turns out it was Coco because this is how she prefers to use it.
Thanks for reading.
Initially the issue was her right eye not fully opening and apparent visual impairment. I made a post about that here. Now the issue is the eating/beak formation.
Caption: Coco's close up at 4 weeks of age.
Coco's eye was looked at by a (human) Optometrist (perks of Hubs working in the eye glasses industry). He said the eye looked healthy and he could not see anything to indicate low vision. He suspects it's a lazy eye and the issue is more with the eye lid than the eye itself.
I can tell that Coco does have some vision in both eyes, but she acts as though it is limited. Her depth perception is nonexistent. If she pecks at something, she is about an inch short. However I think there is a bigger issue with her ability to eat. I have looked inside her mouth as best as I can and see nothing out of the ordinary. (Anything in the following videos that looks like canker is just food stuck to her face). So perhaps there's a deformity of the beak or tongue. Unfortunately I've been exploring parrot beak as a possibility, and if Dr. Google is to be believed, this will worsen with time and ultimately be a terminal condition. So hopefully that's wrong.
Coco rarely has a full crop, and I've been struggling with finding a good way to feed her. Earlier this week, I thought we had a breakthrough. I could fill a bowl with food and set it on a plate. Then I could just keep dumping the spilled food back into the bowl. It took her about 30-40 minutes, but she filled her crop up! I fed her this way twice a day for several days and then her eating started to decline.
Video: Coco eating and making cute happy noises (9/5).
To complicate things, her clutch just started showing heavy signs of Coccidiosis. They started on Corrid 9/10. Fortunately, Coco does not seem to have much difficulty drinking. She had either no appetite or was struggling to eat on 9/9 and 9/10. This morning she happily ate for quite a long time, but her crop never filled up.
Here is a too long video of Coco eating in slow motion (I edited it but for some reason can't get the shortened version uploaded to You Tube). But you can see her eating tactic of sticking her head in the bowl and shaking.
Here is a short video of Coco "chewing" her food. You can get a look at what her tongue is doing.
Does anyone have any suggestions for what this might be and/or how to treat it (if possible)? Suggestions for other ways to feed her (she is a PICKY eater. She ate wet food for the first time last night and won't touch a scrambled egg- so it has been tricky to entice her to try new eating aparatuses).
And just for fun... I kept blaming my giant bull-in-a-China-shop cockerel for spilling the feeder, but turns out it was Coco because this is how she prefers to use it.
Thanks for reading.
