Loki has gigantism???

This is Loki:

My dad and Loki (normal size), eating ice cream.

Last year we got Loki, a male, African Timneh Gray from one of my mom’s friends in New York. (For anyone who has been around birds enough to know how they act, never name your parrot after the Norse god of mischief. You know what I’m talking about.) Anyway, he was only one at the time. He hit his major growth spurt when he reached eighteen months old. Mammals have growth disorders, that’s where you get giants and dwarfs. Other animals, like birds or reptiles, do, you just don’t hear about it as much.

He has a rare growth disorder. It usually happens in cut off places like islands. It doesn’t happen often with birds like Loki, but it did. So, he has little birdie gigantism. My Dad has more technical information about it.

He had already gained two inches before we finally noticed he was growing. We called the vet and told him what was happening. Luckily we live right by D.C. and the National Zoo has a great avian specialist. With Loki still growing, the local vet sent the blood work to the professional at the zoo, we called our friend in New York. They still have contact with Loki’s breeder and we got to talk to her. His parents are no longer breeding, and none of his siblings have shown any of these ’symptoms’, but she promised to keep an eye on his siblings’ offspring to see if they have any of the same problems.

While his condition was being determined, and afterward while we were waiting for them to find the right dosage of the treatment to keep him from growing any more, we took pictures to track his growth progress. Here are a few……

Loki – much bigger:

And much, much bigger:

The vet at the zoo finally came up with the right mixture and level of some kind of hormone suppressant to at least stop him from growing. However, he is already much, much bigger than he had been. He can sort of glide down, but he can’t fly. His leg has really been bothering him (he injured one of his legs when he was hatching) and it’s now even harder for him to walk on it. He eats so much. His medicine has to be given daily; the only way we can get him to take it is if we crush it up and mix it with peanut butter or mashed bananas. We’re not sure exactly how this will affect his life expectancy, (he should have normally lived about 75 years) but it will be considerably shorter. At least he seems to be enjoying all the attention! Poor birdie.

Loki eating a banana.

Me and Loki. (that’s Maxi in the back)