WOB: World of Birds
The holidays are over and I must stop shirking my responsibilities. Ah, well, it was fun while it lasted. ;)
So, I started looking for homes for the doves again. I had a nibble, but, I was fairly confident that the interested party wouldn't go for it considering the restrictions (no breeding, no selling or giving them away). It never ceases to amaze me that people want "free" animals so they can make MORE animals... as if they could invent a huge Wal*Mart-like consuming machine from creatures that sell for five bucks. Creatures that there are so many of, people don't even want them and so just toss them aside. Selling pets seems fruitless -- the money's gotta be in the accessories for pets. But, I digress. Anyway, the restrictions went over like a lead balloon, so I'm still looking for dove people to take them in. I emailed a guy who's super-involved in a dove society and he's fairly nearby, so hopefully that will pan out. But, unlike the majority of parrot people, they almost ALL seem to breed their doves. :/ That's going to be a very difficult issue to overcome, is my guess.
Making plans with the guy who's having issues with his conure to come over and help (and also do his much-delayed home-visit at the same time). He sounds like he's getting frustrated. The bird is very taken with him, but, apparently screams when anyone else is around when he isn't. Hard to eval from afar, so I'm hoping that all the other people will also be home when I visit to see if I can help them solve the issue. Otherwise, the bird may get the boot. :( The poor guy is in a bad situation: the GF is starting to have the "its me or that bird" thing going on. :( I feel for the guy.
Nicky is doing well and getting more personality as she becomes more bold. She makes a lot more noise (good and bad types) now than she ever used to, and has shown that she can whistle, click/snap, kiss and laugh. She has always stayed on certain parts of her playgym and yesterday she did two things she hasn't before: climbed a toy to the top level and climbed off the gym and onto her cage. I was very proud of her! :) I didn't see how she made her way over to the cage -- though I know the path, I would have liked to have seen how she handled it. I'm still amazed at how much she eats, considering her small size.
Kiwi is her usual funny self and seems a teeny bit healthier of late. I'm giving her a milk-thistle extract in all her drinking sources and she has seemed a little better since starting on that. (Better results than the powder, I think.) Dosage has me stumped though... there's just no way to tell with these herbal thingies how much of anything is in them. A drop could contain "1 unit" or "5 units" of the active ingredient, so even when I call the vet ("give her 5 drops/ounce" or whatever), there's really no knowledge there. Its alllll guesswork. Grrr.
My friend V at the bird rescue has apparently badly hurt her knee, and she is in a self-described "funk"! She's been restricted to the house for a bit and also the holidays drowned her (like us all, I imagine!), but, I'm hoping that she's a little more chipper since she was going out to run errands yesterday. I know, I know... errands. But, still.
Big meeting at work today. Gotta run.
So, I started looking for homes for the doves again. I had a nibble, but, I was fairly confident that the interested party wouldn't go for it considering the restrictions (no breeding, no selling or giving them away). It never ceases to amaze me that people want "free" animals so they can make MORE animals... as if they could invent a huge Wal*Mart-like consuming machine from creatures that sell for five bucks. Creatures that there are so many of, people don't even want them and so just toss them aside. Selling pets seems fruitless -- the money's gotta be in the accessories for pets. But, I digress. Anyway, the restrictions went over like a lead balloon, so I'm still looking for dove people to take them in. I emailed a guy who's super-involved in a dove society and he's fairly nearby, so hopefully that will pan out. But, unlike the majority of parrot people, they almost ALL seem to breed their doves. :/ That's going to be a very difficult issue to overcome, is my guess.
Making plans with the guy who's having issues with his conure to come over and help (and also do his much-delayed home-visit at the same time). He sounds like he's getting frustrated. The bird is very taken with him, but, apparently screams when anyone else is around when he isn't. Hard to eval from afar, so I'm hoping that all the other people will also be home when I visit to see if I can help them solve the issue. Otherwise, the bird may get the boot. :( The poor guy is in a bad situation: the GF is starting to have the "its me or that bird" thing going on. :( I feel for the guy.
Nicky is doing well and getting more personality as she becomes more bold. She makes a lot more noise (good and bad types) now than she ever used to, and has shown that she can whistle, click/snap, kiss and laugh. She has always stayed on certain parts of her playgym and yesterday she did two things she hasn't before: climbed a toy to the top level and climbed off the gym and onto her cage. I was very proud of her! :) I didn't see how she made her way over to the cage -- though I know the path, I would have liked to have seen how she handled it. I'm still amazed at how much she eats, considering her small size.
Kiwi is her usual funny self and seems a teeny bit healthier of late. I'm giving her a milk-thistle extract in all her drinking sources and she has seemed a little better since starting on that. (Better results than the powder, I think.) Dosage has me stumped though... there's just no way to tell with these herbal thingies how much of anything is in them. A drop could contain "1 unit" or "5 units" of the active ingredient, so even when I call the vet ("give her 5 drops/ounce" or whatever), there's really no knowledge there. Its alllll guesswork. Grrr.
My friend V at the bird rescue has apparently badly hurt her knee, and she is in a self-described "funk"! She's been restricted to the house for a bit and also the holidays drowned her (like us all, I imagine!), but, I'm hoping that she's a little more chipper since she was going out to run errands yesterday. I know, I know... errands. But, still.
Big meeting at work today. Gotta run.