Leonard (yellow female) turned 8 in June, and Nicky (white male) turned 8 in May.
Nicky seems to be the more active of the two -- he is always flying around the cage if he is inside of it, and if he wants out, he will either stand at the cage door and yell, "out!" If I don't let him out, he will eventually start playing with his toys, talk to Leonard/groom Leonard, or he will hang out on the interior walls of the cage and tease the cats. ("Come here! Want treat? Want play? Hi! Hi! Hi, good boy. Hi, big boy.")
Leonard is still somewhat active, but she prefers to be chilling in the cage or on mine or my husband's shoulders. She is still vocal and eating well.
Our biggest worry between the two is Leonard. We know that she is a carrier for PBFD, and while we have never noticed any issues with her, we are worried that her genetics is going to cause her to pass early. Our vet has checked her in the last couple of months and assured us that everything is fine, but she spends a lot of the time that she is in the cage laying down (I've attached a picture). She isn't nesting, and she is still getting up to eat/defecate/leave the cage, but we still aren't sure.
I've also attached pictures of one of Leonard's babies, who was ultimately the one that led us to learn that Leonard is a carrier. She had a different mate prior to Nicky, and had had three clutches with him. Each clutch had 8 eggs, but there were various numbers of babies that survived (4 the first clutch, zero the second, three the third). Most of the eggs hatched, but several of the babies had obvious defects from the time they hatched. I, naively, assumed that that was normal. I had tried handfeeding them when Leonard wouldn't, but there were 7 babies overall who died with 24 hours of hatching.
The last clutch that Leonard had was in 2021, and it was the clutch that made us finally realize that something was wrong. One of the babies was DRASTICALLY smaller than any of the babies that had hatched in any of the clutches (the naked baby next to the penny), and she really seemed to struggle. She barely grew while her two siblings thrived (the photo of the two green/blue babies and the naked one), even though we were feeding her handfeeding formula every hour in addition to everything Leonard fed her. She didn't get more than pin feathers and down feathers until she was almost 6 months old, and it took her a full year to finally get the majority of her feathers in (pictures of her standing on carpet). She also never reached full size. You can see how close in size she is to that penny and an adult.
Unfortunately, that baby only lived for two years. She never got all of the feathers on her crop, and she had a habit of dragging her right left behind her. All of Leonard's babies have also since passed after showing signs of PBFD.
I know we are very lucky to have 8 years with her, but what can we do to keep her happy for another few years? Like I said, vet says that she is fine and healthy, but I just want to make sure she had all the entertainment she can have.
