Clubbed foot rescue

[BJinWI]

New member here!
I am bringing home a 4month old budgie tomorrow who has clubbed feet. He is at the rescue I volunteer at. I also have his brother.
I'm looking for more ideas on how to make him happy & feel like he's part of my existing flock of 4. He currently can perch on stable toys & rope perches. He does this by sitting on his forearms. I have ordered more platform perches, shallow dishes ( I dont think he'd be able to eat out of the current dishes my boys use) & vet tape to wrap the perches with to give him some cushion.
When the boys come out for fly time, they like to congregate on top of my tiels cage to play with toys. I was thinking of putting seagrass mats on top, but am worried about the dust falling in my tiels cage. Or putting plexiglass on top & adding some strips of the vet tape to give him more traction.
If anyone has better ideas or other things I need to consider, please let me know.
Boots & I appreciate your input!

 

[expressmailtome]

Bump.

 

[scrape]

New member here!
I am bringing home a 4month old budgie tomorrow who has clubbed feet. He is at the rescue I volunteer at. I also have his brother.
I'm looking for more ideas on how to make him happy & feel like he's part of my existing flock of 4. He currently can perch on stable toys & rope perches. He does this by sitting on his forearms. I have ordered more platform perches, shallow dishes ( I dont think he'd be able to eat out of the current dishes my boys use) & vet tape to wrap the perches with to give him some cushion.
When the boys come out for fly time, they like to congregate on top of my tiels cage to play with toys. I was thinking of putting seagrass mats on top, but am worried about the dust falling in my tiels cage. Or putting plexiglass on top & adding some strips of the vet tape to give him more traction.
If anyone has better ideas or other things I need to consider, please let me know.
Boots & I appreciate your input!

Might I suggest a towel at the bottom of the cage for cushion (newspaper ontop). Also a towel ontop of the tiel cage would work. I wouldn't worry about the dust from a seagrass mat.
Easy access to toys is important. Ones that aren't secured properly can be frustrating. Weaving paper strips or another material through the bars is usually a hit. A foraging tray, or a paper plate toy on the bottom of the cage might be fun.

 

[scrape]

Like this but on a paper plate or seagrass mat.

 

[BJinWI]

Might I suggest a towel at the bottom of the cage for cushion (newspaper ontop). Also a towel ontop of the tiel cage would work. I wouldn't worry about the dust from a seagrass mat.
Easy access to toys is important. Ones that aren't secured properly can be frustrating. Weaving paper strips or another material through the bars is usually a hit. A foraging tray, or a paper plate toy on the bottom of the cage might be fun.

I worry about my other birds toenails getting caught on a towel, but I may try a towel under the newspaper.

 

[scrape]

I worry about my other birds toenails getting caught on a towel, but I may try a towel under the newspaper.

Hm. Good point. Some towels are less stringy, won't catch toenails much. Regardless, I think the seagrass mat is a good idea for the tiel cage. Can your little boy fly?

 

[Budgiie]

Any updates on this guy? I have a cockatiel with clubbed feet and after much trial and error I have found that seagrass mats as perches work the best for both of us. She has one platform perch for her food and water dishes which she can't perch on, so I use weighted shallow dishes designed for small animals like you mentioned. I initially had her dishes on the bottom of the cage but by the end of the day they always had gunk in them, of course. Her toenails do get caught in the seagrass mats, so she needs regular nail trimming. I also tried a cage setup with mostly platform perches, and I found that it was a pain to scrape the poop of them every day. I had no issue with doing this, but since she's not hand tame I didn't want to stress her out every day taking platforms in and out of her cage. I also found that most of the poop would fall through the holes of the seagrass mat, surprisingly! What didn't fall off was easy to crumble off the next morning. It also doubles as a chew toy for everyone in the cage.

I think your plexiglass idea is good. I put newspaper down on top of their cages for that same reason but every time she takes off the newspaper flies away. I just weighed it down with lots of toys.

Things to consider:
- your new boy is probably going to want to eat out of the same dish as the rest of the flock rather than out of his own bowl. My experience was my girl would try so hard to reach the hanging dish instead of just using her accessible dish with the same food in it to feel like part of the flock. Maybe everyone needs to eat out of the new dish so he feels included.
- depending on how severe his clubfoot is, he may need his nails trimmed to stop them digging into his other toes. My cocky's toenails are aligned in a way that makes one of her toenails dig into another toe, so it needs to be quite short.
- your other birds may bully him... in the wild, other birds will pick on disabled birds because they put the flock at risk. He unfortunately may need fly time alone some days, but hopefully they'll get along and that won't be necessary.
- My cockatiel's original setup was newspaper on top of a towel but she would chew through the newspaper and get to the towel regularly, which her toenails would get caught in. A thick layer of newspaper turned out to be much better, even though it wasn't as cushiony it was much flatter and actually made it easier for her to walk around on.

I hope your new boy settles in well, I love seeing special needs birds thriving.

 

[BJinWI]

He is doing excellent! Thanks for asking
He gets along great with the other boys. I did find large shallow dishes for food & water that they all use. I have platform perches wrapped in vet wrap & I also put vet wrap around some regular perches. He does everything the other ones do. Boots has no toes & perches on his forearms. He's also a terrific flyer!

 

[Tyrion]

He is so cute

 

[BJinWI]

He is so cute

I think so too! Here's another of him hanging with 3 outta 4 of the other guys. 2nd from left.