FoxersArtist
10-05-2009, 04:09 AM
A few months ago M&C Rescue was given a huge task. We ended up with 15 new fosters - many who were old or suffering from a poor diet. Among them were blue front amazon Sadie with a beak shaped like a swordfish, blind lovebird Marlon, & Jenday conure Teka, who died not too long ago of a massive heart attack from being too overweight and too malnourished. Several weeks ago we received several more from the same home. We had helped remove these birds from the home along with the ones we took, but they were placed with one of the other rescues in our area. A long story short, she is now closing her doors, so most of the ones she had taken on have now rejoined their flock at our rescue. A few weeks ago we were given a pair of lovebirds, Thatcher & Chester, who were part of this group. Both were very old and years of neglect was showing. They looked so fragile and I was afraid they wouldn't survive long enough to become adoptable. I have not introduced the couple on any forum yet as I have been focusing on other projescts with higher priority. Early last week I was saddened to find that Chester had passed away in his cage. Thatcher didn't know what to think when his buddy was suddenly gone. Necropsy results showed "a nearly non existant organ structure" in the words of my vet and she remarked that what was left of the liver was very pale. The poor little fellow. Thatcher is old and I fear that he will not be too far behind his friend. He has some kind of lump near his vent and we have been doing some treatments to figure out what it is without having to do surgery.
Anyhow, this thread is supposed to be about one of the others from this flock - cockatiel Nibbles. He was the little guy who gave us a good scare when he first arrived several months ago. He went into shock the day after we pulled him from his old home and spent nearly a week recovering at the vets office. No one had high hopes that he would make it, but he did. The vet throught it was some kind of e-coli infection in his intestional tract and we suspected that he got it from fresh food being piled on top of his seed and left to spoil. Once Nibbles was well enough, we put him into foster care where he would get more attention without having to compete with so many other, larger birds. I asked my foster care provider to bring him back this weekend as we have been having a lot of families interested in cockatiels and have adopted out most of the ones we had.
Nibbles looked great when I pulled him out of the carrier this morning and his foster parent told me that he had done really well - she enjoyed his silly whistling. Several hours after Nibbles arrival, he crashed again - majorly. I prayed that he was just stressed and a little sugar would bring bring him back around but he did not respond after warning him in a blanket and tube feeding him. He degraded really quickly from that point onward, but I kept tryng. I put him in the nebulizer to see if that would open his lungs a little because as he got weaker, his breathing became really heavy. Nothing. I called to get advice from any vet I could find to talk with me. It really angers me that there are no avian vets available in this area on a Sunday. Someone should at least be on call - this is a pretty big city. I decided to let go but felt very helpless about doing so. I put Nibbles in his incubator with the heat on nice and warm, but I felt in my heart that he wouldn't need it for long, especially when he started to close his eyes. I had a really important meeting to attend across town this evening and had to talk myself into believing that there was nothing more I could do for him but wait and see. I had a call in to an emergency vet with questions about what else could be done and felt anxious waiting. No one ever bothered to return my call. It was good for me to pull myself away, I guess. I Know I have to take care of me but it was just as I thought it would be when I returned. We lost the little guy.
This last group has been really hard on me. Sadie with her beak, Touche with his chronic nasal problems, worrying about patagonian Sheba in her old age, the lovie with the bump on his bottom, the two conures that were plucking so badly, and then we lost jenday Teka and the little lovie, Chester. I felt overwhelmed by the challenge of trying to give each of them my undivided attention. After the little lovie passed on, I decided on a new rule. Most of the little guys will be sent to foster homes when they arrive, if they do not have to be medically supervised by me. Because the little guys are prone to crashing so quickly, I want them to be where they are the most safe - in a home where there aren't a bunch of other birds taking the attention away from them. The big guys never seem to have a problem with making their needs perfectly well known to all. I think this new rule will help us to be better than we are now, and though we have not lost any bird for reasons of not paying close enough attention, I don't ever want that to be the case.
Anyhow, thank you all for the listening ear. I am feeling a bit distraught this evening with two deaths so close together and too many all in one year. I never gave Bhodi permission to start building his own flock up there in the clouds but darn his stubborn cockatoo self just seems to keep winning. We will be taking Nibbles in to the vet tomorrow to have a necropsy preformed. Please keep lovebird Thatcher in your prayers that he will find happiness despite losing his best friend, that the necropsy for Nibbles does not show anything exciting, that I can get past this hard time, and also for the foster family of Nibbles, who cared very much about him. Thanks again for listening.
-Anna
Anyhow, this thread is supposed to be about one of the others from this flock - cockatiel Nibbles. He was the little guy who gave us a good scare when he first arrived several months ago. He went into shock the day after we pulled him from his old home and spent nearly a week recovering at the vets office. No one had high hopes that he would make it, but he did. The vet throught it was some kind of e-coli infection in his intestional tract and we suspected that he got it from fresh food being piled on top of his seed and left to spoil. Once Nibbles was well enough, we put him into foster care where he would get more attention without having to compete with so many other, larger birds. I asked my foster care provider to bring him back this weekend as we have been having a lot of families interested in cockatiels and have adopted out most of the ones we had.
Nibbles looked great when I pulled him out of the carrier this morning and his foster parent told me that he had done really well - she enjoyed his silly whistling. Several hours after Nibbles arrival, he crashed again - majorly. I prayed that he was just stressed and a little sugar would bring bring him back around but he did not respond after warning him in a blanket and tube feeding him. He degraded really quickly from that point onward, but I kept tryng. I put him in the nebulizer to see if that would open his lungs a little because as he got weaker, his breathing became really heavy. Nothing. I called to get advice from any vet I could find to talk with me. It really angers me that there are no avian vets available in this area on a Sunday. Someone should at least be on call - this is a pretty big city. I decided to let go but felt very helpless about doing so. I put Nibbles in his incubator with the heat on nice and warm, but I felt in my heart that he wouldn't need it for long, especially when he started to close his eyes. I had a really important meeting to attend across town this evening and had to talk myself into believing that there was nothing more I could do for him but wait and see. I had a call in to an emergency vet with questions about what else could be done and felt anxious waiting. No one ever bothered to return my call. It was good for me to pull myself away, I guess. I Know I have to take care of me but it was just as I thought it would be when I returned. We lost the little guy.
This last group has been really hard on me. Sadie with her beak, Touche with his chronic nasal problems, worrying about patagonian Sheba in her old age, the lovie with the bump on his bottom, the two conures that were plucking so badly, and then we lost jenday Teka and the little lovie, Chester. I felt overwhelmed by the challenge of trying to give each of them my undivided attention. After the little lovie passed on, I decided on a new rule. Most of the little guys will be sent to foster homes when they arrive, if they do not have to be medically supervised by me. Because the little guys are prone to crashing so quickly, I want them to be where they are the most safe - in a home where there aren't a bunch of other birds taking the attention away from them. The big guys never seem to have a problem with making their needs perfectly well known to all. I think this new rule will help us to be better than we are now, and though we have not lost any bird for reasons of not paying close enough attention, I don't ever want that to be the case.
Anyhow, thank you all for the listening ear. I am feeling a bit distraught this evening with two deaths so close together and too many all in one year. I never gave Bhodi permission to start building his own flock up there in the clouds but darn his stubborn cockatoo self just seems to keep winning. We will be taking Nibbles in to the vet tomorrow to have a necropsy preformed. Please keep lovebird Thatcher in your prayers that he will find happiness despite losing his best friend, that the necropsy for Nibbles does not show anything exciting, that I can get past this hard time, and also for the foster family of Nibbles, who cared very much about him. Thanks again for listening.
-Anna