Day 53 - 54

Lee Zard is beginning to play. Of  course it is mostly practice footing and jumping around, which will stand him in good stead when he begins hunting. He is starting to show a bit more finesse with his flying. He is still sticking pretty close and has yet to leave what I call the Yard. He has started following me around a bit as well. Just curiosity, but its an improvement. With the increased exercise, his appetite is picking up a bit. That is good to see. A bird that is hungry all the time is a good pupil.

Jessie is still stuck in Mommy mode, and is driving me a bit nuts trying to figure out how to shut her off. She has laid 10 eggs so far, and thinks that I should be giving her more food so she can lay more eggs. I have cut her back on her food hoping to starve her out of this cycle, but all it has done is to increase her begging me for food. I weighed her yesterday and found that she was down to hunting weight. I picked her up and fed her on the fist. She was quiet all day long. Perhaps she is feeling left out, with this new bird that I spend so much time with.

This morning Lee was anxious to get outside, so after he ate his breakfast, I opened the window and he would outside soon after. I went on to do my chores, one of which was to take Jessie to her day time perch in the weathering area, where she gets fed. Pretty soon we can hear her pitiful screaming as she would do for food. Karen asked me if I thought she would do better if I fed her on the fist again. I went out to look and there was Lee right in front of her on the outside of the weathering area, and she didn't like it.

I picked her up and went out to the Hot tub to drink a first cup of coffee and feed her. Lee apparently was a bit jealous, so he straffed my head and then circled around to the roof of the house where he could watch. Karen called him down and fed him some more. When Jessie finished all she wanted I threw the rest up on the Hot tub cover. Lee wasted no time getting to it and really fed up on the breeder quail. He especially liked the egg yokes still inside the Quail.

The food that he took in was of high enough quality that he didn't want any lunch, but he was ready to eat by 7 PM.



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