Hand-Feeding Notes: What They Take From Me
Hi, I’m Azmi from Meknes! This is a trust diary told week by week, no how-to, just what happened when I offered one leaf by hand each evening at 18:00. I log hand versus bowl for greens. No training claims, just my notes and photos of the moment. This is not behavior advice. For fear or aggression I would contact a vet or behaviorist. Here: three weeks, one leaf, honest takes.
Week one, the leaf stays in my fingers. Mon: parsley held 10 seconds near the hide entrance, ignored, laid on saucer, eaten in 4 minutes. Tue: same, ignored, saucer 6 minutes. Wed: lettuce by hand, sniffed twice from 5 cm, turned away, bowl half left. Thu: parsley, one nose touch then retreat under chair. Fri: no approach at all, I ended the session at 90 seconds. Sheet line each day: hand 0, saucer slow. My hand smelled of soap Monday, I switched to rinsing with water only before sessions from Tuesday on. Still zeros all week. Photo each day shows the same thing: leaf in fingers, rabbit two body lengths away. I kept sessions to two minutes and wash hands before and after.
Week two, sniffing starts. Mon: parsley sniff 3 seconds, no take, saucer 3 minutes. Tue: stems sniffed, one lick, dropped, I counted it as contact, not a take. Wed: lettuce ignored by hand again, bowl nibbled. Thu: the turn, parsley taken from fingers at second 8, eaten facing me for a full minute. I wrote TAKE in capitals and stared at it. Fri: taken again, faster, second 5. Sat: sniffed, paused, taken. Sun: taken before I finished kneeling. Week score: hand 4 of 7, all parsley, zero lettuce. The pattern inside the pattern: takes happened only when I held the stem end and kept my hand flat and still on the mat, dangling the leaf got zero takes all fortnight. I offer one leaf by hand, then place the rest in the bowl, and note what happens.
Week three, gentle takes. Mon to Fri: parsley taken 4 of 5 days, lettuce taken once on Wed, the single lettuce take of the whole diary, soft bite, half the leaf. Sessions stayed two minutes; takes now happen in the first 15 seconds so most of the session is just watching him eat beside my hand. My table shows parsley is taken by hand four days out of five, lettuce is sniffed then eaten from the bowl. That sentence is my whole finding, three weeks compressed. Trust markers I noted along the way: week one ate only after I stood up and left; week two ate with me kneeling two meters off; week three ate with my hand resting 20 cm away. Distance shrank, I measured it in floor tiles, four tiles, two tiles, one tile.
What I did not change, on purpose: same 18:00 hour, same mat spot by the hide, same saucer, same parsley bunch from the same kitchen glass. One variable, hand versus saucer, everything else frozen. That is why the diary means something to me despite being tiny. If you try, keep it calm, same time daily, one leaf. End the session the second ears flatten twice, two of my week-one sessions ended early that way and both were followed by better days, while the one session I stretched to four minutes was followed by the worst day. Short beats long. This diary helped me see trust grow: week one no takes, week three gentle takes. Hand-feeding moments photographed by me between offers, never staged. Not vet advice, patience notes only.
Week four, the routine disappears into normal. Mon: taken second 4. Tue: taken before kneeling finished. Wed: lettuce attempt for the record, sniffed, walked to saucer, ate there. Thu and Fri: parsley takes, plus Thursday’s new marker, stayed eating beside my resting hand for two full minutes after finishing, flopped six inches away. I sat frozen and happy. Week score: hand 5 of 5 parsley, lettuce 0 of 1. Four-week totals: parsley 13 takes of 18 offers, lettuce 1 of 6. The diary could stop here, but the photos keep teaching. Lined up, week-one photos show my hand high and tense, fingers pinched; week-four photos show wrist on mat, hand flat, leaf low. I never decided to change grip, the photos show it changed anyway. That is why the same-angle photo matters more than the words: the words say trust grew, the photos show my half of it.
Anatomy of the two minutes, for anyone copying the shape: seconds 0-30, hand flat on mat at hide entrance, no eye contact, breathe; 30-60, leaf offered stem-first, stillness, takes happen here now; 60-90, either eating beside hand (stay frozen) or ignoring (lay leaf on saucer, no second push); 90-120, saucer note and photo. The no-second-push rule cost me three would-be takes in week two and saved the streak, pushing extended two sessions past four minutes and both were followed by zero-take days. Hands washed water-only before, soap after (hay dust plus leaf sap). Same 18:00 hour held 26 of 28 days; the two missed days got X marks and were followed by normal takes, so a skipped day breaks nothing.
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