Pajarita's update

[Chai]

I was so happy to see an update from you. I love reading about your life with all your birds. Sorry to hear that Mami is sick. Keeping my fingers crossed and sending good thoughts your way.

[Pajarita]

Thank you, Chai. She is still alive and was eating banana this morning so I am still holding on to hope she will make it. She is still doing the Huh sound which I had never before heard from a parrot (it's kind of like a soft hiccup) and I've had many with respiratories so this is a new one to me. UNLESS it is not a respiratory infection but ascites from liver damage impeding her breathing... Last time her liver values were checked, they were borderline normal but it was quite some time ago what with Covid. If it is her liver or her heart, there is nothing that can be done but let's see what happens.

On another news, I have new birds: a 13 year old male quaker whose owners no longer could take care of (children grown, went to college, parents busy with work and the poor bird never went out of his cage anymore). Mango did not fly well at all but he is getting stronger now that he has become my friend and allows me to exercise his wings every day. He has also become a WONDERFUL eater! He used to eat only the colored pellets but he has taken to produce like a champ! No surprise there because all quakers are great eaters. He came eating blueberries and nothing else but he now eats almost anything I put in front of his face (I figured out that if I hold the food, he will eat it -he never learned to hold food with his 'hands').

A 20 year old male nanday called Mookey who has also become my friend, steps up without a problem, bathes on its own (not frequently but he does bathe) and. although he eats his gloop, he does not eat any produce no matter what I offer him or how I present it! It's a complete mystery to me how he survived 20 years eating only seeds - I asked his previous owner what, exactly, did he feed this bird because he couldn't possibly survive 20 years on seeds but he hasn't replied yet. He also does not fly (exercising his wings, too) and lived all his life in a smallish cage which I have not changed to a bigger one (I did with Mango) because he is only going in to sleep and I need all my spare cages for the birds in the birdroom (city inspection and moving to new house).

Four lovebirds that came from two different homes and are having the time of their life living cage-free in the birdroom. Two phenotypes, an Australian cinnamon and a high pied - cutest things ever that zoom around the birdroom like little jets

The rest are all doing well. My sister-in-law has come to stay with us for a couple of months (she sold her house and is waiting to close on the new one) and Isis Redbelly has fallen in love with her. My SIL is staying in the guest room off the birdroom and she grabs the top of the door every morning and taps on the door with her beak to get her to come out so she can perch on her shoulder and tell her 'secrets' in her ear - needless to say, my SIL went from being scared of them to loving the attention.

[Pajarita]

Still alive, eating and pooping well. I took off the cover of the cage last night because she was panting and, after I uncovered it, she started breathing better. She still makes the weird noise and still breathes with her beak open on occasion but still hanging in there.

[Pajarita]

Mami just died two minutes ago. I have been observing her closely since she got sick and, when I saw that she was at the bottom of the cage with her wings half opened, I knew she was dying. She passed peacefully nesting in my left hand, with Naida next to her and me giving her soft scritches on her head while my husband was tearing up standing there looking on. It was very quick and, I think, completely painless but it's still heartache - we had her for 13 or 14 years and so enjoyed her singing every morning... I had already figured out that it could not be an infection because the antibiotic was not really doing anything but I kept on giving it to her just in case (my heart always holds on to hope even when my brain is telling me there isn't any). Poor Naida is all alone now but hopefully Eol (new DYH, male, at least 24 years old) and her will like each other. I am not going to introduce them now, I will wait until we are in the new house.

[Pajarita]

Just a quick post to let you know that we are moving tomorrow to a 6 acre property in Pa. Unfortunately the contractors are so backed up that we won't be getting the new birdrooms until a couple of months later - it's so bad that we can't even get a fence in the backyard for the dogs!

[Michael]

Hard to get anything done these days.

I thought your next move was going to be back to Argentina?

[Pajarita]

No, it was originally back to Uruguay but, although parrots are not forbidden to come into the country, we could not get the required documents even though we tried for over 7 months contacting the Ministry, the consulate, the embassy over phone and email and my brother went twice in person to the Ministry to get the info. We could have moved to Mexico, Spain, Italy and Portugal but it made no sense going to another country so we decided to stay here. Loading the truck (large container left already) with the last things left and the animals -which will be last (I will go in the truck box with the animals so they don't freak out more than necessary -had to fight my husband for this but I was not going to make things harder on them than they need to be).

Next post from Pennsylvania.

[Pajarita]

In Pa since last week but only got wifi last night and I still don't have TV because I was told that if I had a smart TV, I did not need a box but what they did not tell me is that, if I did it that way, it would appear as an app which doesn't work for me.

The trip was horrendous! We were planning on leaving 10 am latest and ended up leaving 10:30 pm and because there was fog, it took us 8 hours to get to the new house. I traveled in the box of the truck, sitting on quilts with all the dogs on top of me in a terribly small space but I did not want the animals to freak out more than they needed to and figured that my company would reassure them. The poor things did not sleep all night because of all the noise and neither did we (the sun was beginning to rise when we started taking the cages and carriers out of the truck and, by the time we finished getting everybody inside and settled (the birds are in the dining room), it was bright day and the animals needed feeding, watering, etc and we had the closing at noon. Moral of the story: old people need to plan much better than we did

The container with the furniture arrived 4 days ago but we only started emptying it today and, in truth, I don't know where we are going to put all our stuff -downsizing is not easy.

I already have the name of a good contractor to build the birdrooms and will call him today.

[Pajarita]

A quick one to let you know that I took in a female DYH from somebody whose daughter had bought her from Texas and had her shipped as a gift for her father based on a single video. They were told the bird was only 4 years old and did not walk well because it was missing a toe. All lies. The bird is older, has advanced liver damage (greasy plumage and urates are green) lesions on the bottom of her feet (thankfully, not open sores), is dehydrated (sunken eyes), has weak plumage (broken primaries on her wings and tail) and is plucking -and zons only pluck when they feel really, really miserable for a long time. The poor, poor thing! Today is her third day with me and she has been eating fruits and gloop like there is no tomorrow. Her first morning, she gorged on grapes, yesterday on blackberries and, although she got cantaloupe, I guess she still does not identify it as good food because she went straight for the gloop. She is getting vitamins and liver/kidney herbals in larger than normal doses which she will continue for two weeks but I'll reduce to normal doses and put her on doxycycline next week because when they have malnutrition (bird is so weak, she can hardly walk and climb) and bad liver damage, they usually also have such weak immune system that they always end up with infections. In a month or two, I'll take her to the vet (new one that is treating one of my old dogs and also does exotics) for blood work.

Let's hope she not only makes it but gets better.