I have decide to stop lurking and introduce myself. I am SUPER exited. Tomorrow (Aug 1) at 1pm I will be meeting with a local breeder to pick up my 8 week old hand raised Blue crowned conure!
He has been DNA sexed and I know he is a male, I have picked the name "Chico". I cannot wait! I have made him many new toys from various websites; so he is well taken care of aka spoiled, before he even arrives.Now for the apprehensive part - several months ago my 6 1/2 year old sun conure "Sunnie" passed away very suddenly and unexpectedly. As in, he was fine in the morning; usual routine, fine at lunchtime; he even said " take a nap" and I covered his cage, about an hour later I uncovered his cage and he was his usual chipper, chatty self. I came in from gardening several hours later, started to make dinner and realized that there was no chatting coming from his cage (he would usually do his flock call for me and beg pieces of whatever I was fixing for dinner or I would give him an almond), I checked his cage and he was laying on the bottom on his side breathing very fast and heavy. I opened up the front of his cage and even though you could tell he was having trouble he scrambled up my arm to get under my chin - his favorite place to cuddle. I immediately called my husband in from the garden and he came right in with out two small dogs. My hubby and I checked to see if we could see any sign of anything with Sunnie and there was nothing visible other than the breathing, no discharge from nasal, etc. Sunnie let out two little peeps and leaned backwards put his wings out and fell against my chest, he was gone.
It was an awful experience that I never want to go through again, here was my bird and I could not help or stop whatever it was that took him. We didn't even have time to call his vet yet alone get him there. Shocked and heart broken it took 3 days to clean out his cage and put it away, I know it sounds foolish, but we just couldn't do it; even the dogs were acting as if they too were missing him. He was a big part of our household.
Anyway, I called the breeder that I had got him from to see if she could shed any kind of light on why a very healthy bird would very suddenly get ill and die. She is just as baffled as I was, she questioned about his health up until that point, which was always excellent, checked yearly by the vet, ate veggies, fruit and pellets. He had beautiful feathers. We discussed the fact that I felt guilty as a pet owner that I didn't see or pick out whatever was wrong. I know now that there was nothing that I could have seen that would have indicated I was going to lose him. We discussed that somewhere in the future I would open my heart again to a bird and have as much fun as I did with Sunnie. I know that no bird will replace Sunnie and I really wasn't sure I would ever be ready. I received a call from her about a month ago, to let me know that she had a clutch of 2 blue crowned conures - they had hatched 2 weeks apart and the older one was spoken for - did I want the "baby"? It took me 2 weeks to decide, but I said yes (the biggest part of it was she emailed me pics of the cutest little ball of fluff and nakedness looking right into the camera and my heart just melted) LOL.
I am so afraid that something will happen to Chico! The breeder has bred birds locally for 38 years, so she is reputable, Chico will be checked out by the vet and be under the care of a vet, just as Sunnie was. But yet I still am worried (as my children tell me, I am the world's worst worry wart).
I am sorry that this is so long and rambling, but after I spent time reading the posts, I knew I had found people who would understand! I look forward to sharing our life with Chico. Thanks for reading!
Shirley
Sunnie r.i.p. 4-6-2011
