FoxersArtist
08-29-2010, 09:06 PM
Peggy Sue is a blue and gold macaw who has been with our family for years. She was our first project macaw, though I sought her out as a member of our family. I had handled macaws that friends had, but I wanted my own to work with and I knew I wanted one that needed rescuing. I had hopes I could learn from this first rescue macaw so that I could eventually help others and secretly hoped the bird would love us too, so she could stay for a lifetime. She was a blind placement and I had her flown to me from Florida from a family who could not take her screaming anymore. The chances of her being the perfect one for us was so slim (and now I realize after working with many, many other macaws, just how slim it was) but it was instant love for us all and I found my heart at her mercy before long. For this reason I call her "My heart" and "my blue bird of happiness" and that she truly is. She is patient and gentle and very smart. She is not like a lot of the other blue and golds we have worked with since adopting Peggy. She is uniquely her own. Peggy is somewhat of my security blanket also. She's the one I turn to when things go wrong, she's the one who always has a kind word for me when I need one ("I love you, pretty bird" she tells me.) Even during times when I was sick and had to be hospitalized for long periods of time, Peggy was there for me as my family snuck her into the hospital to be with me. She motivated me to get better so I could go home. Peggy was, and is, my first child as she came before we ever had human children and she is still just as much my baby as my two human kids.
Now it's my turn to be strong for Peggy. She has always had some allergies and she is seen by her vet regularly, any time we feel something is off with her - watery stools, runny nose, weight gain, weight loss, sleeping more than usual. She also has her beak trimmed every 2 to 4 weeks because of a scissor bill she developed as a result of poor handfeeding or nutrition as a baby. These visits have caused a progression of growing anxiety for Peggy and we had noticed that sometimes her anixety will trigger prolonged heavy breathing, which has gotten worse over the years. A few weeks ago I started to notice some familiar symptoms that it was becoming allergy season for Peggy. She had slight discharge from her nose and slept more in the afternoons. She also tends to get watery stools during these times, which we first worried was a kidney function issue. Once that was ruled out (I had been hysterical with worry), my vet felt sure it was just seasonal allergies and we started to be more mindful of where peggy was in relation to the other birds.
Most all parrots are dandery but cockatoos and other really dusty birds are known to cause health problems to macaws, especially where there is poor airflow. High grade air filters may be able to help this problem, but when there are a lot of birds or when a macaw is predisposed to respiratory problems, having extra dusty birds in the house can be a real problem. Obviously, we work with a number of cockatoos through our rescue so we have had to be more mindful of the areas we kept those birds and peggy. Even though Peggy is usually kept in our kitchen where there are only other macaws and a few amazons in those areas, I think the increase of cockatoos we have had surrendered lately that are in other areas of the home have increased the overall dust levels of the house. We do not plan to run our rescue out of home forever. In fact, we have plans to be building a seperate facility for all the rescues, so that our family does not eventually become sick from high levels of dust and so the birds can have more space just to be birds!
Last night Andy went over to Peggy Sue and stepped her up after dinner. She seemed fine at first but then suddenly started to breathe heavily. I thought maybe she was just annoyed to see him at first and acting flustered but then her breathing got worse and worse. Within a minute she was really huffing and puffing, started to look fluffed and closed her eyes. I put my ear up to her lungs and listened but there did not sound like there was any congestion. I flushed her sinuses just to be sure she didn't have mucus hiding in the back of her throat or deep in her sinues. There was. We put Peggy in our nebulizer with oxygen and a drug used to open up the lungs of a parrot who is struggling to breathe. Later I gave her a small amount of benadryl in case she was having an allergic reaction to something and to help soothe her and started her on antibiotics in the event that this "attack" was brought on by respiratory infection or to prevent secondary respiratory infection. Peggy struggled to breath for a few hours but the nebulizer helped as well as putting her in an incubator to warm her and keep her breathing humid air. She slept well and was breathing normally by this morning but still does not look like she is feeling well. Her daddy baked her some sugar free blueberry rice muffins this morning and she happily ate part of one. She has a vet appointment tomorrow and we are planning to do another CBC and x-rays of her lungs. After talking with my vet this morning on the phone, she wants me to do a few more nebulizer treatments using a drug called mucomyst, which should help break up any remaining gunk in her throat. She thinks that although our house being dusty may have contributed to what is going on with peggy, she said that some macaws are predisposed to having asthma and it sounds like this breathing attack was an asthma attack. With this knowledge, I am starting to feel that keeping peggy out of areas where cockatoos are kept may not be enough for her and am thinking it may be addition time so that we can build Peggy her own room in the house with her own air system entirely. We will do whatever it takes to keep her healthy.
Please keep Peggy in your prayers. she is doing well right now, but she starts breathing more heavily again with any activity (like stepping up). I think we have had enough medical situations in the past 6 weeks or so to cover an entire year or more, what do you think?
-Anna
Now it's my turn to be strong for Peggy. She has always had some allergies and she is seen by her vet regularly, any time we feel something is off with her - watery stools, runny nose, weight gain, weight loss, sleeping more than usual. She also has her beak trimmed every 2 to 4 weeks because of a scissor bill she developed as a result of poor handfeeding or nutrition as a baby. These visits have caused a progression of growing anxiety for Peggy and we had noticed that sometimes her anixety will trigger prolonged heavy breathing, which has gotten worse over the years. A few weeks ago I started to notice some familiar symptoms that it was becoming allergy season for Peggy. She had slight discharge from her nose and slept more in the afternoons. She also tends to get watery stools during these times, which we first worried was a kidney function issue. Once that was ruled out (I had been hysterical with worry), my vet felt sure it was just seasonal allergies and we started to be more mindful of where peggy was in relation to the other birds.
Most all parrots are dandery but cockatoos and other really dusty birds are known to cause health problems to macaws, especially where there is poor airflow. High grade air filters may be able to help this problem, but when there are a lot of birds or when a macaw is predisposed to respiratory problems, having extra dusty birds in the house can be a real problem. Obviously, we work with a number of cockatoos through our rescue so we have had to be more mindful of the areas we kept those birds and peggy. Even though Peggy is usually kept in our kitchen where there are only other macaws and a few amazons in those areas, I think the increase of cockatoos we have had surrendered lately that are in other areas of the home have increased the overall dust levels of the house. We do not plan to run our rescue out of home forever. In fact, we have plans to be building a seperate facility for all the rescues, so that our family does not eventually become sick from high levels of dust and so the birds can have more space just to be birds!
Last night Andy went over to Peggy Sue and stepped her up after dinner. She seemed fine at first but then suddenly started to breathe heavily. I thought maybe she was just annoyed to see him at first and acting flustered but then her breathing got worse and worse. Within a minute she was really huffing and puffing, started to look fluffed and closed her eyes. I put my ear up to her lungs and listened but there did not sound like there was any congestion. I flushed her sinuses just to be sure she didn't have mucus hiding in the back of her throat or deep in her sinues. There was. We put Peggy in our nebulizer with oxygen and a drug used to open up the lungs of a parrot who is struggling to breathe. Later I gave her a small amount of benadryl in case she was having an allergic reaction to something and to help soothe her and started her on antibiotics in the event that this "attack" was brought on by respiratory infection or to prevent secondary respiratory infection. Peggy struggled to breath for a few hours but the nebulizer helped as well as putting her in an incubator to warm her and keep her breathing humid air. She slept well and was breathing normally by this morning but still does not look like she is feeling well. Her daddy baked her some sugar free blueberry rice muffins this morning and she happily ate part of one. She has a vet appointment tomorrow and we are planning to do another CBC and x-rays of her lungs. After talking with my vet this morning on the phone, she wants me to do a few more nebulizer treatments using a drug called mucomyst, which should help break up any remaining gunk in her throat. She thinks that although our house being dusty may have contributed to what is going on with peggy, she said that some macaws are predisposed to having asthma and it sounds like this breathing attack was an asthma attack. With this knowledge, I am starting to feel that keeping peggy out of areas where cockatoos are kept may not be enough for her and am thinking it may be addition time so that we can build Peggy her own room in the house with her own air system entirely. We will do whatever it takes to keep her healthy.
Please keep Peggy in your prayers. she is doing well right now, but she starts breathing more heavily again with any activity (like stepping up). I think we have had enough medical situations in the past 6 weeks or so to cover an entire year or more, what do you think?
-Anna