The sad tale of Waverly

[Navre]

This budgie was found on the street the other day. A friend of a friend contacted me and thought I might know what to do with him.

I went to get him. He was in a shoebox. He was lethargic and had been in the box for a while, and there were no droppings in the box. I figured I better get him right to an avian vet.

I took him into Angell Animal Medical Center in Boston.It took 40 minutes to get there, and still no droppings. He would not take any water. When we got to the hospital, they took him in through the Emergency department. They said that he needed a name, so I named him Waverly, the name of the street on which he was found. I was charged $150 for the emergency visit and they took him off to the back.

After about an hour, a vet came out and told me that he would need to be admitted into the hospital, at least 2 days, and he seemed to have an injury and would need x-rays, fluids, and pain meds. I asked her to give me an estimate on what that would cost. I knew it would be over $1000, so I started to make a "Go Fund Me" page on my phone to raise the funds to save the bird. I wasn't sure what to do. It was not my bird. I could spend a bunch of money trying to save him, and he would still be property of the original owners who had lost him. I figured that between the Facebook friends of me, the person who had found him, and our go-between, we could raise the money.

After another half hour, the vet came back and told me that she had talked to the adoption center and they had agreed to cover the cost of his care and take custody of him. He would be available for adoption once he was healed. I thought that was the best option, so I surrendered the bird to the adoption center and left him.

The adoption center didn't open for business until the next day at 2PM. As he was technically their bird now, I could not get any information on how he was doing until then. I called promptly at 2PM when they opened to check on his status. They informed me that he had more injuries than they could deal with and he had been euthanized.

Part of me wonders if they just decided that they weren't going to spend the money to save a $20 bird. I wonder if I should have retained custody, taken responsibility for the bills, and raised the money for his care. I really hope that they examined him, and decided that he couldn't be saved, not just decided that they weren't going to spend money on him. The vet had assured me that the adoption center often spent lots of money to treat animals in their care. I'm just not sure. I couldn't get any information on exactly what they found that was wrong with him that they though was too much to overcome. I'm not sure I did the right thing.

I know there has to be a line somewhere. How much is it reasonable to spend to save a budgie? If it's your bird, your responsibility, your friend, you might put a very high number on this. But even in that case, there is a line somewhere. It's just hard to know what to do with a random creature found on the street.

[Pajarita]

Hmmm, that is a quandary alright.... Personally, I would have given him fluids both subq and in his beak (when they are so dehydrated, they become so weak they can't even drink on their own anymore) every half an hour or so and observed him closely for 12 hours before even thinking of XRays or anything like that (vets are usually very quick to 'build up' the final bill with stuff that might not be necessary if one waits a bit and sees what happens). But, given the fact that you do not have the experience to do these things, I think that you did the right thing because I believe the rescue will pay for the treatment -they, most likely, have an arrangement with the clinic where they get a discounted price plus I bet they also have experienced volunteers that would take over the intensive care he would need so the bill would not be as high as yours would. I did full time dog and cat rescue with a group and we spent huge amount of money on vet bills even when we knew, for a fact, that we would not get this money back by adopting it out when healthy.

[Wolf]

Given the circumstances I can't fault you in any way and would probably have done exactly as you did.

[liz]

You did the right thing. It was really the only thing you could do. The offered to take the responsibility for the bird. He may have had more injuries than he could survive. At least you let him know that someone cared.

[Navre]

Today I found a dead budgie in my driveway. I don't know if she died there, fell out of the sky, or was dropped there by a predator.

She looked a lot like waverly. No band. I buried her along the fence.

This is why I'll never be completely sold on having flighted birds. It's not right in every situation.

Poor little thing. I wonder why she ended up here. Possibly the bird feeders or my noisy conure?

[Navre]

My daughter tells me that a bird hit the window hard yesterday. It was on the other side if the house from where I found the budgie, but it's only a short flight over the deck to where she ended up. That seems to be the most likely scenario.

[Wolf]

Well I don't know if this budgie was clipped or not, but there is really very little difference that it would have made in this case since the bird was dead. I say this because it was dead by the time you found it. A bird that was clipped may not have made it to your place for you to find, that being about the only real difference.
From the time of the birds escape or release until you found it, clipped or not could have made a lot of difference in how long it survived as well as how far it traveled. I doubt that anything other than carelessness had anything to do with the why and how the bird came to be out in the open for this to happen and I am basing this solely on the stories that I have read concerning how a bird escaped it owners. Most of the ones that I have read about, it would have made no difference in the escape, whether the bird was clipped or not. It is the interval between the escape and whatever that being flighted or not may have made a difference. Also the quality of time spent with the bird prior to its escape would have been affected by it being clipped or not.
I guess that this is all speculation on my part but I really do try to examine the circumstances to gain as much insight as I can, if it could prevent one escape and death then it is worth it, but it serves no other purpose in my mind for me to do this.

[liz]

Navre, I feel so sorry for you. It is so depressing. Sometimes it is hard to accept that you can't help.

[Pajarita]

They usually die of dehydration because they can live without food for a number of days but, without water, they only last a couple.

I am with Wolf, it doesn't matter if the bird is clipped or flighted, when you lose one, it's always because of our neglect/oversight. People call it an 'accident' but it's always the type of accident that could have been prevented.

[Navre]

This one was dead about 5 feet from the birdbath.

I didn't examine her too much because I didn't want to have to put myself in quarrentine, but she looked okay, fully feathered at least on one wing. She probably did hit the window and flutter over to the driveway. If she was stunned there, she could have died from heat/dehydration in short order, I think.

It's just odd to find 2 budgies in the street in the period of about a month. And they looked so similar.