Navre and Friends in Boston

[Navre]

I have three words for you, John: Get a cat! I had lots and lots of mice because I forbid my husband from using anything but completely humane traps and, although I was catching some, because they are so prolific (the females can ovulate every two days!), I had more and more all the time so my husband finally agreed to let the cats loose (they had their own room where they lived) and that did it! They didn't catch that many but I guess the fact that they couldn't come out and eat during the night made them either stop procreating or they just decided to move out.

I'm not going to have a cat with birds. I'm not careful enough!!

[Navre]

This is Nicholas, or Nicky. He is a 20-something-year-old TAG. He is quiet and shy, and likes to walk around on the floor. He plays ball, and talks quite a bit. He came home tonight. He used to live with Tanya. He had been in the rescue for about a year.

[Chantilly]

He is georgous John, kudos for taking him in to your home.

[Pajarita]

Hey, there, handsome Nicky!!! Welcome to the forum!!!

[Navre]

Nicholas had quite a visit to the vet! First of all, we found out that Nicholas hates dogs. He growled at them. I then found out that Nicholas is wild caught. His band, which was removed, is a quarantine band.

Nick checked out okay. At 264 grams, she felt he was a little under weight and he probably has to put on some breast muscle. I recall that he used to fly around the rescue, and he seems unable to fly now, so he probably has lost some muscle tone.

She drew blood for cholesterol and liver stuff, since he probably had the same diet as Tanya, and we will find out his sex, for sure. The vet agrees that he seems like a male, but better to know for sure.

She found a pretty bad feather cyst next to his preening gland. It was an ingrown feather that was breaking down inside his body. It took quite a while to get all the pieces of feather out of the cyst. Nick was great through the whole thing, didn't bite anyone, and stepped up for me afterwards, so he may forgive me.

I have to put silver sulfadiazine on the wound for the next week, or so, and I have some Meloxicam to give him for pain.

Everyone at Angell loves him. He told everyone that he was a pretty bird, and they all seemed to agree.

Is there any way to track a quarantine band? It says FMD 553

[Navre]

I didn't get the numbers, but Nick's bloodwork was "beautiful." The DNA test can, according to the hospital, take a few weeks, as it is not done in house, but last time it was only a couple of days.

[Navre]

I have pain meds for him, but it seems like it would be more disturbing to him to be held to give the med than it would to deal with whatever ache he has from the feather cyst procedure. I can't even check the wound, really. I can get him to step up, but he flies/crashes and runs off if I try to touch him. I hate to towel him for this.

[Pajarita]

Great news!!!! Grays can take much more protein than amazons and the fact that he is wild-caught makes all the difference. No need to answer my question on the thread where you posted the cost of the exam as you already answered it.

I would not stress him out with the metacam, John. The site where the feather cyst was opened up cannot hurt him that much as it is not in a place that 'moves' in any way and I bet the draining of it gave him more relief than grief.

Now as to his band. The three letters means that he came in to a privately-owned import station in Florida (the F) and not an USDA one, the second letter (the M) is the designation of the actual facility (but I don't know which one because all that info has been lost) while the third letter (the D) is part of the bird's personal ID along with the number. You can try to contact the USDA and see if they still have a list of all the Florida private stations and can trace back the year he came in - I doubt they will be able to give you more info than this but you might luck out and find out his age.

[Navre]

I guess that would just give me the year he was imported, and not his age, anyhow. I'm just gong to make up a birthdate for him, some time in 1994. My kids were born in '92 and '95, so in between somewhere.

[Navre]

After a month of messing with live-catch traps (a dozen victor tin cats and 6 victor plastic ones) and then a week of trying snap traps after the birds went to bed, I had still caught not one single mouse. Neither me, nor the birds were sleeping. I went to glue traps last night. I caught 10 mice in 2 hours. I throw them in a bucket of water as soon as I notice they're caught.

I hate the glue traps, too, but it's hard to argue with that level of effectiveness. I'd like to state how much better they work, but I get a divide-by-zero error since the other methods failed totally. The mice climbed right up the cage legs that are covered in peppermint oil repellant, they run over, not through the tin cats, and they manage to set off the snap traps without getting caught, or avoid them totally.