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Each night when it is time to bring Woodstock in from the
balcony I have needed to corner him and catch him with my hands.
When I do I usually try to calm him, talking to him quietly and
petting him for awhile, trying to let him know that I mean him
no harm. I can understand his resistance, after all I took him
to a vet who kept him in a cage for a month in a room that was
poorly lit and full of foul orders. They handled him with their hands
and inflicted pain to his already tender wing when they tried to
set the bone, and then they forcibly put a cast on his wing
which he had to wear for the duration of that month. So, even
aside from his natural survival instincts, why wouldn't he be
afraid of any human that tried to handle him? I found that even
though I had looked after him for quite sometime now, he would
still try to run from me when I brought him in at night. One
night I had my hands around him just as he made an unexpected
burst to escape. Because he was already in my grasp I
instintively grabbed at him as he tried to escape. I was
successful in retaining him, but in the process I noticed that
he lost a handful of feathers. I worried whether that was
painful, and whether his feathers would grow back, so I did a
little research. Most birds shed their feathers every six months
to a year, so the good news was that, yes, his feathers would
grow back. The bad news is that losing a feather accidently is
both painful and dangerous. There are blood vessels that connect
through the feather, and if a bird loses a main feather he can
bleed to death. From that moment on I decided I would no longer
handle him or catch him like that, but instead put his cage out
on the balcony as it started to get dark. He would usually go inside of his own accord,
then I
could merely carry the cage indoors without having to corner him
or catch him. |
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