weather	:		mostly sunny
outside	:		16°C
mood	:		relieved

Skippy came home with us Friday evening after eating on her own at the breeder's for 48 hours. But because of the stress of the move and the new surroundings, she didn't eat much all night Friday or this morning. She didn't seem too stressed out; she was interested in playing with us, on us and exploring the new neighbourhood. She always preferred to be with someone than by herself. She just didn't want to eat, not even when I put the spray millet or seed cup right up to her beak. So she hasn't pooped much and her crop was very empty.

Maybe she's like me. I can't eat at all when I'm nervous.

We brought her to see an avian vet, Dr. Anne McDonald, at the Night Owl Bird Hospital. It was just a routine checkup to make sure she was okay so far.

Skippy weighs 84g, which is a bit on the low side, even for a girl*. But everything else looked good, so Dr. McDonald just told us to buy a scale and watch her weight very carefully. She should not be any less than 84g from now on and ideally, we'd want her to gain about 10-15g over the course of the next year.

But otherwise, she's a very healthy chickie. Dr. McDonald said she has beautiful fluffy feathers, nice beak and everything was nicely formed. Skippy was so cute, she kept playing with the towel lining in her little travel cage as we talked to the vet =D

If Skippy doesn't continue eating well and she doesn't start gaining a little weight by the end of the weekend, she may have to go back to handfeeding again, one meal a day, for a while until she gets used to her new home. We got some mash from Dr. McDonald and we got some of the handfeeding formula from the breeder for this. At this point, she told us to keep Skippy on seeds, start introducing veggies and don't even worry about going to pellets for a while. She even wrote on the data sheet she gave us, that Skippy should only get pellets mixed in with seeds and not go on a pure pellet diet.

She was still not eating all afternoon, but finally ate quite a bit from 1830h to 1900h, so that was a huge relief.

* — We now think Skippy is most likely a Lutino girl. She's a bit small for her age (8 weeks). Her cheek spots are not very vibrant. She's not very vocal, I've only heard her squeep a few times and no wolf calls. I can see faint yellow zebra stripes under her tail (they're light yellow on lighter yellow when I hold her up to the light).

[Update - 2115h]

I tried giving her some of the handfeeding formula stuff. She had maybe one or two mouthfuls and wouldn't eat any more. She kept ducking her head when I brought the syringe close to her mouth. I cleaned her face up and she spent a little while munching on seeds.