BluBlue is gone

[Pajarita]

It's been a real bad time lately for me. First Charlie and now BluBlue! But, in his case, the death was not unexpected and I knew last night he was not going to see another day. I had BluBlue (he was a cobalt and had two horizontal wide strips of color with a white band in the middle of his entire front) for 8 years and he came from a rescue who asked me to take him in because he only had half a wing and they knew they would not be able to adopt him out (can't even find homes for perfectly good, young budgies as it is, a handicapped one has no chance whatsoever) so I don't really know how old he was (had no leg band). But he was a good little bird and I was real sad when I saw him at the bottom of the cage last evening when I went in to give them dinner. He was just standing there with his head hanging down a bit and I knew right then and there that his time had come (he had been losing weight lately) but I decided not to take him out of the flight cage because I figured he would feel more at ease surrounded by his old friends than in a cage by himself and, this morning, he was dead.

But that's not all, last week, I lost Jim Morrison (7 year old male lizard canary I got not too long ago because I felt bad for them -the hen is fine), I have a cat with pancreatitis, a canary hen with something on her feet (can't figure out if it's a bacterial infection or what but I treated her with ivermectin -in case it's scaly mites- and I've been giving her Baytril twice a day in her beak), another one with a still undiagnosed condition that has caused her to have a tail bob for almost a year! This bird has never been well since I bought her, she was always fluffed up longer than the others in the morning and she is the one that I had to handraise her babies because she was not feeding them three years ago. I've treated her twice for air sac mites, three times with antibiotics (Baytril, doxy and clavamox), did a two month detox treatment in case it was liver (highly unlikely but...), put her in a small cage to see if keeping her from flying and giving her heart tonics did it (in case it was her heart) now, as the very last resort, I am treating her with an antifungal (the vet says it must be viral but I don't think so because, as far as I know, canaries never get viral respiratories).

No, it hasn't been a good two weeks...

[Tman007]

Pajarita I am so sorry to hear about your flock. You have had a hard two weeks.

[GMV]

I'm so sorry!!! So many losses for you lately I can't imagine how bad you must feel. I'm sure they all had a great life because they had such a great owner.

[Wolf]

I wish there was actually some way to express how I am feeling about your recent run of problems , especially when it involves the demise of any of your babies, but I just don't have the words. I understand that some of this is to be expected due to the ones that you take in and try to help, but that doesn't make it any easier. I am sorry for their passing and hope things improve quickly.

[Harpmaker]

Hugs from me and Corsair, Parita. No one loves their babies more, or takes better care of them than you. Taking in the sick and disabled ones as you do, this is to be expected, but it doesn't really make it easier.

Know that I (and others, I'm sure) mourn with you, and I hope that the Swedish proverb is true; that shared sorrow is half a sorrow.

[shiraartain]

Oh dear, I'm sorry for your losses and difficulties. You and your flock will be in my thoughts and prayers.

[MamaBirdie]

Like you, I am a rescuer at heart. A very wise man once told me, after my mother died, that you can measure the depth of your love by the depth of your grief. I've found that an encouragement to keep on loving as deeply as is natural, and I hope you will, too. We gain so much as we give so much to the birdies who are "among the least of these." And they gain the richest, longest lives she can give them. God bless you in your giving to "the birds of the air" and comfort you in your sorrows.

[Pajarita]

Thank you, Mamabirdie. I've been doing this a long time and I've lost a lot of friends (dogs, cats, birds) but every single one of them is special to me and I mourn their loss as if they were the only ones I had.