Ovaltine has been in the hospital cage — in the office — for twelve days now. That's a long time for a social creature to be stuck in a small space all alone. So far, two days longer than most birds — since a course of Turn-Me-Pink antibiotics only takes ten days. And he'll be in there even longer than his last experience, when he and all the other new Finsters were in "quarantine" for two weeks. It'll take 16 days to wean him off the steroids — which, I'm pretty sure, weren't doing much for him. I think 16 is a record.

He's stopped playing dead, which hopefully means he's feeling better in general, and instead is doing a pretty good job of getting away from the Evil Hand of Catching and Dropping Medicine on or Near Beaks. He's stopped spending so much time sleeping in a puddle of his own feathers, and is even hanging on the bars of the cage, trying to get out. Unfortunately, I know he isn't "cured," and probably never will be.

He's still on the lactulose and milk thistle, but the current plan is to put him back in the Finsterium after he's had his last dose of steroids. Since one of those three medications has been making him feel better, his condition will likely worsen. We'll see how bad it gets, and how quickly. If it becomes clear that the meds were helping, we'll have two choices. Either have him live in the hospital cage where I can catch him every day — probably with Oolong, since living alone is not an option. Or, have him live in the Finsterium most of the time, with vacations in the hospital cage for a few pick-me-up doses of medicine. Neither of those options are great.

Peanut has been very curious about the hospital cage, and has flown toward it several (that would be ten) times in twelve days. Once or twice he's landed on the bookshelf above the hospital cage, two or three times he's landed on the workbench in front of the hospital cage, and the other times he's gotten flummoxed and flown a loop around the office. The thing is, the office is really too small for even a small, green bird to fly a loop around in it. So sometimes he's landed on my head, once he landed on top of the drill press, and once or twice he's landed here, flew off and landed there, and took off and landed another where.

Clearly, this is potentially dangerous. Clearly, Peanut needs to get his wing feathers clipped. But even when that happens he'll still be able to fly from his play gym to the workbench. Since that's not fair to the sick Finster, I'm trying to teach him not to do that. Specifically, when he flies toward the hospital cage, I pick him up, tell him that's not safe, and take him home where it is safe.

Flight number ten (today) notwithstanding, I think he's learning. Either that, or he's teaching me a new signal for when he wants me to take him home. Birds are much smarter than non-bird people thought (see here or here or here).