Living with Handicapped Quakers, Part II

GRASSHOPPER

"Should I take these babies to the vet to be put down?" David asked me.

We stood looking down at our first clutch of Cinnamon Quakers - 3 lovely chicks covered with golden down. All of them had been mutilated - their feet and toes chewed off by their mother.

Things had been progressing very well with this clutch. It was the hen's first, and we had pulled the first two eggs to incubate, leaving her with the last three. She had hatched her three babies and fed them well, but had recently decided to pull out all her breast feathers. We felt this was a sign of stress and decided to take the chicks. Too late! In her hyper-grooming state, she had removed most of the toes of the 3 chicks.

As we contemplated the babies, the youngest and most seriously mutilated chick (only stumps remaining) suddenly stood up and begged for food, strong and lively even after such a terrible trauma. We decided then and there to keep these babies and to see what we could do for them.

They ate and grew normally. We kept their brooder well padded, hoping to prevent the development of any sores on their stumps. We also placed with them the two unaffected chicks that we had raised from the egg, hoping that they would be stimulated into normal activity by their normal siblings.

When the time came to place them into a cage, we knew that the youngest one, Grasshopper, would have the hardest time perching. In fact, we never expected that she would be able to.

To help with the problem, David designed a set of broad, flat steps leading up to a flat perch. The oldest birds soon got the picture, and played "king of the mountain" on the steps, but Grasshopper stayed at the bottom, looking up.

Suddenly, one day, there she was, balancing on the bottom step...just for a minute...before being knocked off by one of the other birds. Progress after that was rapid, and within a month or two, our little footless bird was perching on her flat perch just like the other birds.

We assumed that she had done as much as she could do in the way of getting around the cage, but she still had a surprise for us.

One day, I looked up to see her climbing up the side of the cage without using her bill! She was sticking her little stumps through the wire and rotating them 90 degrees to lock them firmly in place. Now she could go where all the other birds went.

Being footless has its hazards though. The cage Grasshopper was in had a great bird toy in it. It was made of large, thick plastic circles and squares held together by welded links and attached to the cage with a c-clamp. The toy seemed safe enough, but one afternoon David happened to notice some wild thrashing of wings in Grasshopper's cage. He quickly checked to find her hanging with her head stuck in one of the plastic circles. Any bird with feet would have been able to quickly lift themselves out of this situation, but Grasshopper needed to be rescued. If not for David's quick action, she would have soon been dead!

At this time, Grasshopper is living in a flight cage with a padded with a towel on the bottom, wide perches and her beloved steps, a cozy nest box and her mate, Messy. They are mating and working the nest box, and we are hoping that Grasshopper will soon prove to us that a Quaker without feet can raise a family.