Wasabi is now 5 weeks old!

Wasabi is now 5 weeks old!  His (or her) body feathers are now fully filled in, and his wing and tail feathers are nearly half way grown.  Although he still isn't eating on his own, he enjoys picking at crunched up dry food, and only needs to be fed formula about every 4 hours.  Because he still needs to be fed quite often, he continues to be my commute companion back and forth to work. He truly enjoys his water dish, not for drinking purposes, but rather taking baths and making soggy messes!

At 4 1/2 weeks, Wasabi has fledged!  He has become very active, wanting out of his cage more, and consistently exercising his wings.  He has been able to jump up to the edge of his open topped cage, and able to perch there while being fed, with out issue.  His balance is vastly improved and he is beginning to learn the basics of flight, such as turning and landing, in short distances.  He has graduated to an actual cage, although he still spends most of his time on the floor with toys and soft places to cuddle up.  We will watch him as he continues to learn the finer points of having wings, and builds up his muscles, until it becomes a danger to have him fully flighted in the clinic.  At that time, we will trim a few of his feathers, a few times a year, so that he isn't able to fly into the mouth of a hungry cat, or out into the snowy temperatures.

We have all become comfortable with calling Wasabi "he", but we have decided to him sexed.  DNA will be extracted from a small blood sample, and analyzed at a lab. As in people, bird gender is determined by the sex chromosomes. Females have two different sex chromosomes (called “ZW”), while males have two of the same sex chromosomes (called “ZZ”).  We should know in about 2 weeks whether our assumptions have been correct!