I brought Nike for her annual wing clip and also nails and spurred on by Laura's questioning of her appearance I asked for a wellness checkup as well. The CAV thought she looked OK and was strong but he heard a little raspiness in her lungs. Because of her age he thought that worse case it might be an enlarged heart for which there isn't a good bird treatment for or it might just be seasonal. Anyway rather than having an xray done which would only rule out the heart issue, we decided on a course of Clavamox. We'll do the further investigation if the Clavamox doesn't help.
I'm really not too worried because she is especially rough with her tail feathers which was the genesis of Laura's comment and she acts totally normal including activity level and strength. As a matter of fact she's so strong that her normal clip isn't slowing her down at all and even with 5 flight feathers gone she's flying all over the house, a condition which normally only lets her gracefully fly to the floor.
Anyway, remembering the problems that Jim had getting meds into Amy I was mostly concerned about that process especially considering that Nike is a very picky eater.
But as you can see in this video, she readily takes the bubblegum smelling meds from the syringe. I load the syringe with a little more than she's supposed to get which is actually very little for this 195 gram bird and I just expel the fluid in about 3 squirts, allowing her to lap it up. I realize that this isn't as good as squirting the exact dose down her throat but it's way better that trying to give it in food.
I plan on extending her course about 5 days to get through the week and then we have to let it work for at least another week before they want to see her again. I'm pretty hopeful that this will do it. If it's the age related heart thing then I guess we'll investigate if meds can help or diet or whatever.
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBOJM6CAaqE"]Nike Meds - YouTube[/ame]
I'm really not too worried because she is especially rough with her tail feathers which was the genesis of Laura's comment and she acts totally normal including activity level and strength. As a matter of fact she's so strong that her normal clip isn't slowing her down at all and even with 5 flight feathers gone she's flying all over the house, a condition which normally only lets her gracefully fly to the floor.
Anyway, remembering the problems that Jim had getting meds into Amy I was mostly concerned about that process especially considering that Nike is a very picky eater.
But as you can see in this video, she readily takes the bubblegum smelling meds from the syringe. I load the syringe with a little more than she's supposed to get which is actually very little for this 195 gram bird and I just expel the fluid in about 3 squirts, allowing her to lap it up. I realize that this isn't as good as squirting the exact dose down her throat but it's way better that trying to give it in food.
I plan on extending her course about 5 days to get through the week and then we have to let it work for at least another week before they want to see her again. I'm pretty hopeful that this will do it. If it's the age related heart thing then I guess we'll investigate if meds can help or diet or whatever.
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBOJM6CAaqE"]Nike Meds - YouTube[/ame]
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