Little bird rescues

[Wolf]

I looked into the different harnesses available shortly after my birds started arriving here and I chose to get the Aviator harness as it seemed like the best one on the market at the time.

[Bird woman]

Thank you so much. The little bare-eyed is here now , pretty rough shape. Has been living on a diet of cockatiel food. The cage took over 2 hours to clean and repair , one cement perch nasty nasty nasty. The cage completely incrusted with poop , feathers rough , under weight, nails like needles . Never ceases to amaze me. This one came to me by way of word of mouth. It's my dentists daughter and he knows about what I do out here and apparently has been trying to get her to give the bird up for quite sometime . I didn't know about it , I guess he was imbaresed . Well time to check on the little buggar, he's been on a human light schedule for 5 yrs. this will change promptly. Wish me luck guys. The macaw is comming along great better and faster than I could have hoped for. BW

[Pajarita]

[i][/I would move the one in the mudroom into a more active room where he has more to see and hear other than when you or another bird goes into his room. Just my thought.i]

Pablo gets very upset by the smallest little thing and he is terrified of people, cats, dogs and even other birds and that's why I can't put him anywhere where there is any activity at all. He does better in a quiet, familiar place - his cage is next to a window, he has all the canaries and his girlfriend, Codee, to keep him company. In reality, the one that is been short-changed is poor Codee because she would love to be in the middle of things but I really thought that Pablo was not going to last long and seeing how much he loved Codee, I made the decision to put them there. In hindsight, I realize now it was a mistake because he keeps on bouncing back every time he has an episode and it has been much longer than I anticipated. Unfortunately, I now can't separate Codee from Pablo so she gets stuck in there... She doesn't seem to mind much, though - she comes out and spends two solid hours of one-on-one with me, takes a couple of flaps around the dining room, explores the other birds empty cages, etc.

[Pajarita]

Thank you so much. The little bare-eyed is here now , pretty rough shape. Has been living on a diet of cockatiel food. The cage took over 2 hours to clean and repair , one cement perch nasty nasty nasty. The cage completely incrusted with poop , feathers rough , under weight, nails like needles . Never ceases to amaze me. This one came to me by way of word of mouth. It's my dentists daughter and he knows about what I do out here and apparently has been trying to get her to give the bird up for quite sometime . I didn't know about it , I guess he was imbaresed . Well time to check on the little buggar, he's been on a human light schedule for 5 yrs. this will change promptly. Wish me luck guys. The macaw is comming along great better and faster than I could have hoped for. BW

And this one will do just as well, too, BW. I have often wondered what are people thinking when they bring you a bird in a dirty cage... I mean, not for nothing but, wouldn't you, at least, TRY to fool people into believing that the bird lived all along in a clean cage? I would be SOOOOO embarrassed...

[Bird woman]

Especially my dentist daughter, hell my business is right across the street from his. He comes in every day he's open. Strange , you know it's pretty funny , I'm a extremely private person and keep my customers and employees far away from my personal life and when the staff gets there to open I've already put in several hours baking , smoking meats , soups etc. as most is from scratch. So when people see me in the back room before I leave at 7:00 I'm sure I look like a little pig-a-muffin. maybe they think I live like a piggy but the few I've allowed to my house are floored when they see what I've built. So maybe they thought the gross cage was okay , same thing with the greys when they came omg the cages you couldn't see through the bars. They both had e-Coli and Delilah needed an immediate operation. Well little bare-eyed is letting me scratch his little head and excepting food from my hand but still doesn't want to come out . I'm patient I always win the battle !!!! Probably ota shut my mouth before I have to eat my own words . BW

[Pajarita]

Well, I tell you, BW, I no longer try to understand people... And the little bare-eyed will do just fine, you'll see!

[Bird woman]

This morning , still will not leave cage but relaxing enough to start clowning around and playing and exploring all the new goodies in cage. Not having any problem at all getting diet changed over , he's real receptive to everything I give him and at least try's it. GOT LUCKEY !!!! Now if I can get the macaws to settle down I'll be able to breath easier. I keep the door open all day in case buddy the bare-eyed wants to come out but hasn't so far. Have a great day! BW

[Bird woman]

Lovely little bare-eyed Holy terror, full of energy and attitude. I fear the honeymoon lasted about as long as my husbands and I's did. Clipped the little buggers wings today , just enough if it got away I could catch him. It was time to play outside for much needed natural light. He steps up great now and showers with joy so outside we go and we will see how this works out. Mathew had another seizure last night I held him until he was better. Called the vet and were really trying to get our heads together on the cause. Are there any avain specialist on this forum that could give me a list of appropriate test to run as I don't want my vet to miss anything . Mathew had a seizure when he was at the vet with the previous owner so I really want to have my s--t together when I take him back and not miss anything. A run down on his history is as follows. Chronic sinus swelling and nares very enlarged when he came here. Been caged for 35 years in a cockatoo cage. Never bathed they took his extra bowl of water away from him because he made a mess with it. I'm going to assume he was trying to bath. All seed diet consisting of mostly peanuts and sunflower seeds as far as I could tell by what was left in the bucket they brought. The remaining food was rancid and I threw it away. Very little exercise time out of cage and only to bird stand , never flighted and table scraps . One of the pictures they sent me was of him holding a cheese-it cracker with the salt left on . Hopefully he had some veggies along the way. That about sums up what I know about his history except he has been seen by my vet since 2002 and everything for his health and information he gave her has fallen on deaf ears. The bird came with a full tube of probiotics baytrill and nose drops never used. My vet said he was sure she is afraid of him so medication was never administered. Now three weeks later diet is completely changed over to fresh veggies fruit and pellets and birdie bread and home cookin which he eats happily. He has a vaporizer every night by his sleeping quarters and his nose has almost no swelling and the nares are quickly becoming normal. He gets regular cautious exercise, regular showers which he really enjoys and lots of sun , shade and fresh air. That's all I know about his past and what I'm doing as of present. I fear end stage fatty liver disease or heart problems for the cause of the seizures but what doesn't make any since to me is the previous owner says he's always had them about once a month for as long as she can remember. So really if it was the heart or liver and this has been going on that long wouldn't the bird have passed by now? A list of tests I should run would be greatly appreciated from those of you with knowledge would help me out so much as I'm in fear of not making this next vet visit count and stressing this big guy out. Thanks bird woman

[Wolf]

There are so many possibilities as to the cause of these seisures that I really don't know what to suggest. They could be the result of disease, injury or genetic in origin. Given his history I would have a bile acids test run as liver disease is a strong possibility, I think. I have a chapter that contains information on this issue that I will send you, it is a pdf so check your e mail for it.

EDIT

I have sent the pdf to you. I think that in addition to bile acids I would go over what the vet has done in the past and the results as a starting point.

[Bird woman]

Thanks wolf the liver was my first thought . I just really want to get a handle on this as quickly as possible to make whatever life he has left in him as wonderful as possible. But you know as well as I do there's probably a combination of underlying problems due to the lack of proper care for 35 years and that seems to really play a big part in confusing test results and the diagnosis and unleashing the genie out of the bottle. I really don't want to play the hit and miss game that was done to my Rosie. There was so many calls , we got it we know what's wrong now and then it wasn't and so many drugs and more diagnosis and more drugs and more calls and doctors it was horrible !!! I almost at one point felt that my girl was a lab rat at my expense but I'm sure that's just the rage coming out in me for still loosing her. My biggest regret was I didn't let them preform a necropsy on her I just couldn't stand the thought of her being poked and prodded anymore, cut open researched and violated,they had all the time with my girl they were going to get. I just wanted to bury her with my mom in her favorite pink blanket and wait for me. BW. (God now I'm crying again )