The kirb birb & sambo thread

[ravvlet]

I decided to move stuff about Kirby here since it’s more species appropriate and his heart murmur is being addressed. Also, I find it’s really useful to have a lot about what he’s eating or how he’s doing; and I am bad about remembering to write stuff down unless I have some level of accountability…

Today is chop day; I never seem to remember to get beans but I assume that’s ok since he eats pellets!

Today we did:
Mini sweet peppers
Orange bell pepper
Anaheim pepper
Rainbow chard
Baby red/green Swiss chard
Tat soi
Arugula
Spinach
Broccoli & carrot slaw
Cooked beets
Raw yellow squash
Blackberries
Rolled oats (uncooked; they seem to get soft on their own when I reheat from frozen)

I always buy too much or not enough; today looks like it’s a too much day. I try to avoid single use plastics so I usually freeze it in bins and then “chop” out what I need each day.

Overall he seems a bit happier than yesterday; the antibiotics will hopefully really be kicking in this week.

 

[MayMaroa]

ohhhhhhhhhhhhh looks delicious

 

[wrench13]

Great idea! You will find that these kinds of threads are so good to read years after you start them, if you recount the little things that make life with Kirby so enjoyable.
Salty's has been going on for what, 6 years, and I re read it every once in awhile, and folks like to also ( he just hit 200K views and the RIckeybird thread hit half a million).

 

[ravvlet]

Thanks! Yeah, I found looking back on some of our old posts has helped me already.

Humorous misadventures today in setting up the humidifier. We, being in the PNW, are usually subject to quite a bit of humidity as it’s usually quite wet all winter. It remains to be seen if the humidity levels are in fact an issue at night when the heater is running more regularly, but I set up the AirCare today and…the fan hasn’t needed to turn on once!

I have a digital hygrometer in the room that I plan on recalibrating at some point to be certain, but the hygrometer on the humidifer says it’s 51% in the room currently, and the Govee (which I used to hatch quail eggs, so I feel pretty confident in it) says it’s 44.1%. I have seen it read below that - the lowest I’ve seen is 35%, and only at night - so I guess the humidifier wasn’t a complete waste of money, but I feel a little silly now that I’ve spent $90 to have a 3-gallon tub of water sitting in the room not doing much of anything at all!

I’m trying to convince myself that it’s somehow productive anyway, since I don’t think I can return it now that I’ve opened it and soaked the filters.

Meanwhile, Kirby is being his usual self, which is to say taking frequent naps broken by shredding toys or yelling at me for being on the phone. At the moment he’s stranded himself on the wrong side of his new playstand, and is having to make a rather precarious climb to get down to his food bowl again. He still won’t take his antibiotic, and he had some real capers scrambling around the room as we tried cajoling him, and eventually towelling him, to get him to take them. Thankfully he’s pretty forgiving and he did eventually swallow the stuff - the other day he held it in his beak till we thought we were in the clear then slung it across the room!

Grimly looking forward to dismantling all his furniture and disinfecting it this week! It would be ideal to wait until this weekend to do it as he’ll have been on the antibiotic for a full week by then, but the latest we can delay is Friday, as it’s forecast to be a rainy weekend, and I’d like to do it outside where I’ve got more space.

 

[wrench13]

Does Kirby still accept baby parrot formula? We give it to Salty every once in awhile, not much, but he takes a spoon or two. That is so useful to get meds into him, as we have done in the past when he had a nasal infection. Mix the meds with the formula and you'll know its getting into Kirby.

 

[ravvlet]

Does Kirby still accept baby parrot formula? We give it to Salty every once in awhile, not much, but he takes a spoon or two. That is so useful to get meds into him, as we have done in the past when he had a nasal infection. Mix the meds with the formula and you'll know its getting into Kirby.

Ohh, I’ve never tried, since he was already so old when we got him. That’s a good idea, I’ll have to go pick some up. Would unsweetened organic applesauce be ok if he takes that? We are more likely to have that around the house.

 

[wrench13]

Sure it would! Any liquidy food that he will willingly take is a candidate for getting meds into him.

 

[ravvlet]

Well, I don’t care to admit how long it took to get him to take his meds today, so I think we are definitely going to see if he’ll take applesauce or something like that.

 

[AmyMyBlueFront]

Geez I like the chop! I've made chop a number of times for Amy mostly. He is so finicky! There would be days that he would dive right in and munch away for ten minutes then other days he's dumping it on his basement floor only to go dumpster diving hours later.

He's on heart meds also. I've put his med in a glob of oatmeal,sometimes he'll woof it down other times he turns his beak up at it,giving me the stink eye and walking away. Now he gets it in a piece of toast with a dab of peanut butter to cover the med and I make sure the piece of toast is small enough so he eats it all instead of nibbling at it then tossing it. He usually gets it in the morning as he watches me make brekky and I know he is hungry.

The very first time he got the med (about seven years ago) and he being pretty bonded to me, I had him get on his carry-me-around perch and he lets me flip him upside down and hold him on his back in my hand while his feet were busy holding onto the perch. I put the tip of the syringe to his beak,he went to bite it and SQUIRT! right into the 'ol mouth it went...easy peasy..right?? LOL not so! He wised up real fast! The very next day,same routine...this time he took one foot and started kicking the syringe then he'd BITE the side of the syringe barrel! Meds went in his face and head...whoever coined the phrase "bird brain" didn't know squat about Amazon's!!!


Jim

 

[ravvlet]

He isn’t on heart meds yet actually, this is his antibiotic for his sinus infection! But yeah, his old vet had him on a liver med (that he has graduated from, woo hoo!) and whatever banana flavoring they used, he was crazy about! He loved getting that med, and would take it right out of the syringe. I wish I knew what it was, because I’d ask them to use the same stuff.

His antibiotic? Tutti fruiti flavor. Smells amazing, and I don’t know why he hates it. The one time I did manage to squirt it into his beak while he was perched her shook his head and got it everywhere but down his throat where it needed to be. We have toweled him the last few times, but he’s feeling better enough to be pretty wily, and I’m tired of having to climb under furniture…

It’s too much liquid to go on a pellet, so I’ve got to come up with something, because him crawling all over the floor, attempting to fly away, and almost falling off things scrambling around like a crazy bird can’t be great for him (although I suspect it’s very good exercise!).

Other than the medicine misadventure, he’s been pretty sleepy today. I am not too concerned as he’s back to eating all his food; his weight was down a little this morning but I think it was due to normal fluctuations as he definitely finished all his food yesterday and today. Plus, I’m pretty sure his little birdie jogging session this afternoon wore him out.

He is pretty good about eating his chop - he definitely picks a few “favorites” (peppers, rolled oats, beets are definitely a favorite) and eats those, but he will usually browse the other stuff and nibble here and there. We give him a bowl twice a day and it is definitely significantly depleted by the time we take it out of his cage!

I have noticed - and with his previous vet we discussed the possibility that he may have arthritis from spending most of his time before we got him sitting on dowel perches that were too small for him - that he has trouble gripping things with his feet. He gets around fine, but if I give him something slippery like a freshly washed pepper, and I don’t break it open for him first so he has something to grip, he often drops it a few times.

 

[wrench13]

Aww, poor Kirby! I know how frustrating it is to have to chase and towel a parrot all the time; my second parrot, an OWA too coincidentally, never got the hang of stepping up and a chase would ensue anytime he got to the floor. Not good for maintaining the bond as most parrots interpret chasing as just that - raptor vs prey.

 

[AmyMyBlueFront]

Amys' med was 'nana flavored too..he loves banana and gets a piece a couple times a week but the new pharmacy his med comes from doesn't have banana so he gets marshmallow now...wasn't a big fan of tutti-fruity..
Glad to hear Kirby is doing better!

Jim

 

[ravvlet]

Applesauce/bread/whathaveyou: 0
Kirby: 1

Well, he did not want ANYTHING to do with applesauce or bread, or a pellet with the meds… to be honest, the tutti fruiti smell is strong enough that even the applesauce didn’t cover it, so I’m not shocked.

At least the run around he gave me wasn’t so bad. And he even let me pet him and squirt the last bit in his mouth, after he “spit” half the stuff all over the front of my shirt when I had him towelled.

He was A LOT calmer with just me doing the toweling and med versus having my partner help, although he’s quite angry now that we’re done, haha. Stomping across the top of his cage and agressively wiping his beak/biting the bars. As you can see, he’s also giving me the stink eye:

The F10SC also came in today, so I diluted it to about 1:300ish; a little less than the “high strength” antibacterial dilution rate, and cleaned his playstand. I scrubbed with with Seventh Generation Free & Clear Unscented soap and water first, rinsed thoroughly, sprayed it down with the F10, and let it sit for five minutes before rinsing. It should hopefully be dry before dark.

The cage and his metal playstand are a problem for tommorrow me.

 

[Laurasea]

My vet recommended mix with rice crispy fluff.. Said worked for her , me not so much.
I had luck with yogurt

 

[AmyMyBlueFront]

If they only knew it was for their own good it would go so much easier Yup thats a classic case of the 'ol stink eye if ever I saw one.

Jim

 

[GaleriaGila]

Couldn't resist...

 

[ravvlet]

Kirby’s poops are weird today. I assume it’s because of the antibiotic, and because I rearranged his room so he didn’t feel safe to eat his pellets until I came to sit with him before taking his cage apart for disinfecting.

Does that mean I’m gonna post a poop pic? You betcha!

He is on his freshly cleaned playstand now, and I’m trying not to be super anxious about if I rinsed it enough. He made a much nicer looking poo right after I took a photo.

“Why did you rearrange my ROOM?!”

I scrubbed this thing before and after disinfecting it, and there are still white spots and streaks in places. I’m not sure if I’m not scrubbing hard enough or if it’s just cursed. I can’t see them until after it dries.

Anyway, EOD today I noticed he sounds stuffy - a bit of whistling/clicking when he breathes in and out. He’s already on the antibiotic, and his weight/behavior seems ok, so I called the vet for an appointment to reclean/check his nares again before the culture recheck, which isn’t until March 9th. The soonest they can get him in is Feb 26th, but they said if he seems worse to call Monday or Tuesday when the CAV is in. I think what happened is that his nares just have gotten obstructed again - he had some bleeding from his left nare after the cleaning and I think it scabbed over and then the scab just…fell into his nostril.

I really wish they could pick their own noses!

 

[ravvlet]

Nothing of note to report today, just wanted to share some pics of him really getting into his mist bath.

 

[AmyMyBlueFront]

He seems to be a happy boy...sucks when they are ill and we can't help.


Jim

 

[ravvlet]

He seems to be a happy boy...sucks when they are ill and we can't help.


Jim

Yeah. The breathing sounds have abated somewhat but it’s still more than “normal”. He’s playing with his toys and eating though, and I’m trying to resist phoning the vet every time he sneezes. I think I have a lower threshold for this kind of stuff after what happened to our other bird.

Really hoping after another week of antibiotics he’s a brand new (old) bird! I get this stressed out every time our toddler gets sick too, so I’m very grateful I have two human children who almost never get sick or I’d have lost my mind by now.