Teddscau
Active member
- Sep 25, 2015
- 640
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- 123
- Parrots
- Budgies: Sunshine, Blanco, Azure; Peach-faced lovebirds: Rosie and Jaybird; YSA: Jasper (♀)
I feel absolutely awful. My sweet little cripple was attacked by one of my other birds this evening. When I went downstairs to show off my aviary to some of our guests, I saw Tiki walking strangely. Well, he usually looks like he has rickets when he walks, but his legs looked even more useless than usual. For those of you who don't know, I adopted Tiki and Ria from the Humane Society in March of 2016, but they were at death's door when I brought them home due to severe neglect. Ria died due to complications from atrophied muscles in January, and I can't bear to lose Tiki as well.
Right. So anyways, I rushed in as he was laying on the floor, trying to drag himself into his dog crate with his beak (he decided a few months ago that he was going to start living on the floor instead of perching; he really went downhill when we were forced to euthanize Ria after her accident). When I picked him up I noticed that his knees were covered in blood and they were all bruised and swollen, but luckily his injuries seemed superficial. I put him in his crate and closed the door behind him so nobody else could get in, and I had Noah and Rosie step up for me and I put them in their cage (I'd let them into the aviary around 5 to socialize and forage). I guess sometime between 5 and 7pm one of the my birds decided to attack him.
I grabbed Tiki's waxworms from the fridge and tossed some in the crate with him to try to get him to forget about the attack. But he started shaking and got this distant look in his eye, as though he was going into shock. And then he started crying out and stretching his neck upwards the same way Ria did when she was dying. He normally enjoys living in the aviary with all the noisy budgies, but he was so traumatized by what had happened that I had to carry him upstairs in his crate before he got any worse.
I feel so guilty. It's my fault he got hurt. I don't blame whoever it was that bit him, since I knew he's completely defenceless, yet I put him in that situation.
Thankfully, he's doing a lot better. I've never "tamed" him, but the past month or so we've been getting closer because I've been playing "fetch" with him. Everyday he waddles out of the aviary and into the sitting area, and I'll throw larvae in different places for him to grab in order to exercise his weak little legs. The past couple of weeks I've actually been having him take the bugs from my hand, and as such he trusts me a lot now.
If it weren't for our special "bug time" we've been having lately, I don't know if I could have got him to calm down enough to stop him from slipping into shock. The little guy's going to be sleeping in his crate tonight in my room, and from now on I'm going to try to include him in family activities.
He's breathing a bit heavily right now, but the x-rays from his most recent appointment did show that his lungs and air sacs are filled with scar tissue as a result of a chronic infection that hadn't been treated until he was placed under my care. Dr. Yee says he probably has a granuloma somewhere, and that's why he's still so sick despite putting him on a variety of antibiotics, anti-fungals, and antiparasitics. I can't stress enough just how close to death he and Ria were when I brought them home. They would've been dead within weeks if I hadn't adopted them.
So, yeah. I just wanted to share what happened today with you guys. I'm probably going to put him on a course of Baytril again tomorrow to make sure his bacterial infection doesn't flare up again from all the stress. If it's nice out tomorrow, I might take him outside in his crate to get some fresh air.
Right. So anyways, I rushed in as he was laying on the floor, trying to drag himself into his dog crate with his beak (he decided a few months ago that he was going to start living on the floor instead of perching; he really went downhill when we were forced to euthanize Ria after her accident). When I picked him up I noticed that his knees were covered in blood and they were all bruised and swollen, but luckily his injuries seemed superficial. I put him in his crate and closed the door behind him so nobody else could get in, and I had Noah and Rosie step up for me and I put them in their cage (I'd let them into the aviary around 5 to socialize and forage). I guess sometime between 5 and 7pm one of the my birds decided to attack him.
I grabbed Tiki's waxworms from the fridge and tossed some in the crate with him to try to get him to forget about the attack. But he started shaking and got this distant look in his eye, as though he was going into shock. And then he started crying out and stretching his neck upwards the same way Ria did when she was dying. He normally enjoys living in the aviary with all the noisy budgies, but he was so traumatized by what had happened that I had to carry him upstairs in his crate before he got any worse.
I feel so guilty. It's my fault he got hurt. I don't blame whoever it was that bit him, since I knew he's completely defenceless, yet I put him in that situation.
Thankfully, he's doing a lot better. I've never "tamed" him, but the past month or so we've been getting closer because I've been playing "fetch" with him. Everyday he waddles out of the aviary and into the sitting area, and I'll throw larvae in different places for him to grab in order to exercise his weak little legs. The past couple of weeks I've actually been having him take the bugs from my hand, and as such he trusts me a lot now.
If it weren't for our special "bug time" we've been having lately, I don't know if I could have got him to calm down enough to stop him from slipping into shock. The little guy's going to be sleeping in his crate tonight in my room, and from now on I'm going to try to include him in family activities.
He's breathing a bit heavily right now, but the x-rays from his most recent appointment did show that his lungs and air sacs are filled with scar tissue as a result of a chronic infection that hadn't been treated until he was placed under my care. Dr. Yee says he probably has a granuloma somewhere, and that's why he's still so sick despite putting him on a variety of antibiotics, anti-fungals, and antiparasitics. I can't stress enough just how close to death he and Ria were when I brought them home. They would've been dead within weeks if I hadn't adopted them.
So, yeah. I just wanted to share what happened today with you guys. I'm probably going to put him on a course of Baytril again tomorrow to make sure his bacterial infection doesn't flare up again from all the stress. If it's nice out tomorrow, I might take him outside in his crate to get some fresh air.