Kirby’s Capers

[ravvlet]

Salty has had nasal issues twice about 4 yrs ago (?). Disconcerting to watch that nasal flush, water going on one side and squirting out the other. But it did help clear up his infection, along with the meds. Here's to 'old' Kirby, may he live long and prosper!

Ha! I didn’t get to watch them do either of his; they took him back the first time, and today they only had a drop-off appointment available and they elected to lightly sedate him so they could REALLY get in there and clean house - I’ve never seen his nose this clean, lol!

I’m hoping the aloe and a new purifier will help and that we don’t have to resort to the nose drops again, those are miserable. Twice a day, in a towel, makes for a VERY grumpy bird.

 

[ravvlet]

Ok, I managed to get some aloe (had to resort to Amazon, because none of the health stores or grocery stores had any that didn’t contain additional stuff like chamomile, etc), and wow, even diluted to a 1:15 ratio, its very different than just misting with water. The vet suggested I use it to replace his water mist bath, and maybe it’s also because I used distilled water, but I see way less dandruff already. It also seemed to soak through his feathers faster? Or maybe that’s just my imagination. At any rate, he dried off in about the same amount of time, and seemed indifferent about the change.

I read somewhere that there’s a sap between the skin of the plant and the gel that contains intestinal irritants, but that it’s a dark, yellowish color - the aloe gel I got is clear, so I’m pretty confident that means they didn’t use the whole leaf (many are labelled, but the brand I settled on after consulting with the vet was not). Nevertheless, I’ll be keeping an eye on his weight and droppings to be sure he’s not consuming enough aloe to give him issues.

 

[ravvlet]

Chop day again!

This week it’s-
Zucchini squash
Cucumber
Julienne carrots
Broccoli
Japanese shishito peppers
Red, green, yellow bell pepper
Red dandelion greens
Baby red/green Swiss chard
Tat soi
Arugula
Spinach
Blueberries
Rolled oats

I actually had it all mixed up and put away before realizing I’d forgotten to add the blueberries, so I had to take it all out and remix it! Whoops.

 

[Deleted member 42416]

Chop day again!

View attachment 36513

This week it’s-
Zucchini squash
Cucumber
Julienne carrots
Broccoli
Japanese shishito peppers
Red, green, yellow bell pepper
Red dandelion greens
Baby red/green Swiss chard
Tat soi
Arugula
Spinach
Blueberries
Rolled oats

I actually had it all mixed up and put away before realizing I’d forgotten to add the blueberries, so I had to take it all out and remix it! Whoops.

I would like an order of the same with raspberry vinaigrette on the side please. Thank you.

 

[ravvlet]

We have had this little playstand for a whole month, and this is the first time he’s gone on it without food as a motivator! He really wanted my (& the toddler’s) attention. What was extra cute though was that my kiddo was eating an apple (it’s washed and organic), so she decided to share a piece.

 

[Deleted member 42416]

View attachment 36683
We have had this little playstand for a whole month, and this is the first time he’s gone on it without food as a motivator! He really wanted my (& the toddler’s) attention. What was extra cute though was that my kiddo was eating an apple (it’s washed and organic), so she decided to share a piece.

So cute 🥰 what a happy birby!

 

[ravvlet]

Never a dull moment…

Today I left Kirby out to run upstairs and grab dinner. Often I just eat with him to be sociable, but the table was set and both of our kids were actually eating and not just pushing food around their plates (a rare occurrence, lol) so I stayed up for a minute, and totally forgot he was out!

By the time I remembered I rushed back downstairs and frantically called his name. I heard him chirping but he wasn’t on either playstand or his cage - he’d somehow gotten across the room and was pleased as punch sitting on the back of one of the kids chairs at their craft table.

Anyway - if anyone is reading this, I have a question (that I’ll probably make a thread about if the vet doesn’t get back to me). I’ve been increasing Kirby’s pellets, as she feels he’s now a little underweight for his size (I guess he’s big for an OWA). However, I’ve found the more I increase his pellets, the less he eats his chop… Today he didn’t even want to eat a pepper, which is just flat out weird. I want to get his weight up, but he’s plateaued at 460, and I am worried if I give him an infinite bowl of Harrison’s Lifetime Pepper (his favorite pellet of all time, now that I’m giving him more of that he won’t even touch his TOPS) that he won’t eat his veggies anymore!

Anyone got any idea how to get this bird to put 15 grams on without also ruining the balance we’d previously achieved with pellets vs chop? He really barely touches his veg some days, and he gets offered a fresh bowl 2-3x a day!

 

[ravvlet]

Ha! After all that worry on my part, the vet got back to me after reviewing his log and said honestly as long as his weight was steady on our scale at home, we shouldn’t worry about it. She also added that honestly a 4/9 body grade (slightly underweight) was better for birds with heart murmurs, as too much fat could cause accelerated heart disease.

Now I have to figure out how to get this stinker to eat more of his chop again, as I’d increased his *absolute favorite* pellet (Harrison’s Lifetime Pepper) and as a result he makes a beeline for the pellet bowl before he’ll visit his veggies.

I think the secret is probably beets. I’ve noticed when I give him beets, he’s more invested in trying out all of his chop, as the juice gets on everything. I didn’t actually learn to love beets until I was in my late twenties, so I feel ya buddy!

So excited for it to be almost spring; the variety of peppers in the grocery & farmer’s market is slowly increasing. I like getting a wide variety and seeing which ones he’s into.

 

[Terry57]

Ha! After all that worry on my part, the vet got back to me after reviewing his log and said honestly as long as his weight was steady on our scale at home, we shouldn’t worry about it. She also added that honestly a 4/9 body grade (slightly underweight) was better for birds with heart murmurs, as too much fat could cause accelerated heart disease.

Now I have to figure out how to get this stinker to eat more of his chop again, as I’d increased his *absolute favorite* pellet (Harrison’s Lifetime Pepper) and as a result he makes a beeline for the pellet bowl before he’ll visit his veggies.

I think the secret is probably beets. I’ve noticed when I give him beets, he’s more invested in trying out all of his chop, as the juice gets on everything. I didn’t actually learn to love beets until I was in my late twenties, so I feel ya buddy!

So excited for it to be almost spring; the variety of peppers in the grocery & farmer’s market is slowly increasing. I like getting a wide variety and seeing which ones he’s into.

Could you possibly take the pellets away for a little while when you serve the chop?

BTW, that chop is gorgeous, you should post it as a stand alone thread in the Parrot food, recipes and diet section! I'd love to add it to the index there

 

[ravvlet]

Could you possibly take the pellets away for a little while when you serve the chop?

BTW, that chop is gorgeous, you should post it as a stand alone thread in the Parrot food, recipes and diet section! I'd love to add it to the index there

It always looks so pretty before it goes in the freezer, haha!

And yeah, I will probably start waiting an hour before giving him his pellets, like I used to do when we were first getting him on veg. His last chop mix he was actually super into, and would go for it first even though I gave him both at the same time, but I must have left something out he liked this batch. I’m thinking it’s the beets.

I’m actually probably going to be making more since he’s not super into this mix in about a week, and I can make a thread then. I have a ratio in my head based on the I Love Amazons sticky so I tend to buy the same amount each week from different veggie or fruit “categories”, but I pick something different each time! And it’s always nice when dandelion greens are in season. Part of why I wanted to make this thread was so that I have the ingredients I used each time written down somewhere so I can see which chop mixes he really goes for, versus the ones (like this one) that he’s indifferent to.

I’m thinking about just blitzing what’s left of this one in a food processor and giving it to a local friend who has smaller birbs that aren’t as picky. If that fails, our coturnix quail ALWAYS love his leftovers, heh.

 

[Terry57]

Hmmm...you could use the food processor and see if they had any interest in it then? They might, especially if they see you eating some. The thought of stealing food always seems to motivate mine.

 

[ravvlet]

Woof, I am ready for a nap!

Made the two hour round trip drive to the vet for his follow up culture, and his nostrils were clogged again. The tech got out what he could manage without a flush, and they’re going to run the culture. In the mean time he left a note for the vet about his nostrils and we’ll see what the next step is.

He’s been getting baths every day, humidifier is running, I got a new air filter that has an app so I can see the PM 2.5 rating for the room, and I’ve kept the temp between 72-75. I suspect we’ll be back to doing nose drops, or I’ll get another tutorial in nose-picking for parrots…

 

[Terry57]

I hope the vet can help once he reads the note and get this cleared up once and for all.

 

[ravvlet]

I hope the vet can help once he reads the note and get this cleared up once and for all.

Me too! Last time I asked them to clean it, they wanted the vet to do it as opposed to a tech, which is the only reason he didn’t get a full-service nose-wash at this past visit, heh (he only saw a tech this week). I will say the daily aloe-water baths have dramatically reduced the amount of dander or whatever you’d call it that I normally see on his feathers, so I am hoping if we can just muscle through another thorough nare-flush, we might be past this and I won’t have to go back to the every-12-hours saline nasal drops he’d had to do last year.

The weather is warming up, the sun is out, and it’s almost warm enough for him to go outside (if the bird flu doesn’t ruin our summer plans by coming closer to my state ). Here’s hoping the culture doesn’t grow anything nasty!

Also, today is chop day, and I’m going to wait till he’s in bed to prep it so I can take more photos, talk about how I shop for chop (because honestly, that was the most difficult bit for me when I first started doing it - until I got smart and incorporated his chop menu into what we humans are cooking for the week!), and I’ll make a thread for it over in the Parrot Food subforum!

 

[ravvlet]

I’ve been doing some redecorating upstairs, and it seems that the Kirb is planning on doing some too! I uh, am not certain he’s gotten permits for this bridge remodel though…

 

[ravvlet]

It was sunny and in the 60’s today, so Kirby went shopping with us!

He very much enjoyed Trader Joe’s, and chatted with everyone who complimented him. He also kept laughing every time someone in the store laughed, which was very entertaining.

Afterwards we had to go to QFC & a big box pet store, and I could tell he was getting tired; he has a lot of trouble with his balance because of suspected arthritis in his feet, and me walking while wearing his Pak o Bird was making it harder, so we wrapped up and drove back home!

 

[Deleted member 42416]

View attachment 37329

It was sunny and in the 60’s today, so Kirby went shopping with us!

He very much enjoyed Trader Joe’s, and chatted with everyone who complimented him. He also kept laughing every time someone in the store laughed, which was very entertaining.

Afterwards we had to go to QFC & a big box pet store, and I could tell he was getting tired; he has a lot of trouble with his balance because of suspected arthritis in his feet, and me walking while wearing his Pak o Bird was making it harder, so we wrapped up and drove back home!

Lovely birby adventure!

 

[ravvlet]

Late night thoughts.

I’m trying to come up with ways to get him more mentally stimulated without over-exerting him. We have had him since Sept 2019, so coming up on 3 years (funny, really thought it had been longer). He plays with toys now, but still seems mostly content to nap the day away unless his Enemy Numero Uno (my partner) is in the vicinity or I drag both kids over and create a ruckus. We’ve had all sorts of cage/playstand locations and configurations- living room, bedroom, office, etc- but he is has been determinedly sedentary no matter the locale.

Got a call from the vet to let us know that all of the bacteria from his culture was gone except for the e-coli, and that one was greatly reduced. The vet wants us to put benebac in his chop daily for the time being and see if that gets everything down within normal levels. I wonder how he got such a nasty infection in the first place, as compared to most bird cages and set ups I’ve seen we keep his areas really clean. Perhaps he’s just more prone to them for some reason?

The nares getting clogged mystifies me too. We are 100% on best-practices now; daily baths, humidifier, air filter, etc. we keep his room above 75 degrees too.

The heart murmur is a huge concern - he’s finally molted all but one of his clipped flight feathers, and I know it’s important to exercise when you’ve got heart disease, but it’s difficult to tell when he’s overexerted because his resting heart rate is high and we are still working on getting him to let me handle him more thoroughly. For example, he won’t lay on his back or let me look at his wings and feet most of the time.

I’m thinking maybe trick training is the way to go here, because he’s lost interest in his latest set of toys and while I am going to refresh those too, I feel like we could be doing better than just endlessly shoving toys at him and hoping for the best. It’s funny because our cockatiel responded to training super easily but Kirby has never seemed very interested.

I would like to re-fledge him if at all possible, but I am worried his body can no longer handle that level of exertion now that he has the heart murmur and tachycardia. I know that we are redoing his heart X-rays in May, and I’m hoping to get more info about what limits we should be setting then, but it’s hard to not know.

I guess some of this is that I really miss Cricket, our cockatiel. He was always an active little guy and loved doing tricks etc, he was so quick to pick up on things, and was always ready to try something new. Maybe I’ve just not given Kirby a chance to shine, but I also don’t want to stress him out. He he’s the kind of bird who tends to come for scratches and then when he’s done pointedly shuffles out of reach.

In his defense, we’ve successfully tackled liver disease, a huge diet change, and he’s certainly way more active than he was at his previous owners’ home, where he was in a tiny cage with a single dowel perch and no toys. I just wonder sometimes how long his little body can keep going, given where we started from, and how to get him more active without asking too much of him.

 

[SailBoat]

You have come an extremely long way based on where you started. The most difficult part of all of this is managing Your Expectations! And, not celebrating his huge steps that you are under-estimating. Rejoice that your Very Sick Amazon is stabilizing, is doing small things and is much happier then when he arrived. Understand that he is still very sick and will likely be for the balance of his life.

Please take the time to review /list where he started from and is today! Understanding that what he has over-come could had killed him if not for your hard work! Learn to rejoice and allow your expectations to transfer to celebrating where you are!

Even in the cleanest of places there are tons of. Bacteria we and our Parrot are faced with every minute of every day.

Please sit-down and take measure of the wonders of this moment and the successes you have around you everyday. You are a very special person that needs to except you great success and be less concerned about your long list of Expectations! As they will never make you happy!

 

[ravvlet]

Thanks, Sailboat. I think I just get too much into my own head sometimes. He’s definitely doing way better and seems much happier! We hope to have as many more fun years together with him as we can.