quiet house
We started with 2 budgies......... that is all it took to get a house full of parrots. Flidias and Fergus 2 sweet little babies one a yellow/green mutation and Fergus a blue budgie. They were the ones that first came in and showed us what a wonder filled world parrots inhabit.
Fergus is our last little budgie, and a surprise female, thought that she was the alpha of the flock. She would get in the faces of the bigger birds and confront them with a dog like bark. Most times they would just ignore her, other times she would not be ignored, Fergus lost several toes that way. Nightly she would get up on the highest swing in the house, look down on us all and was either bitching or preaching to all of us.
After the last toe incident Joad77 and I kept her in her cage for a few days. From the highest perch in the cage she bitched for 3 days almost non stop. I let her out and she stopped. We knew that by letting her have free reign we could be shortening her life but that being in a cage 24 hours a day safe was not a life for her.
Yesterday morning we were preparing to clean the cages. We put Fergus in the cage with Frodo the love bird, Bilbo the mad ass white cap pionus was standing on top of the cage. This is a normal scenario at our house and has happened a hundred times with no incident. When we left the room and heard Fergus bitching up a storm it took probably a minute or two for us to go see what her problem was. Bitching was after all something she practiced often. It was obvious she was in pain, when we saw her, something was wrong. We opened the door to the cage and she flew out, it took several minutes of us chasing her around........ which is not the norm..... and her screaming the entire time. The guilty party Bilbo still had a very small black and white striped feather on his beak, and was not allowing me to grab him to put him in his cage without bites. We never did catch Fergus but she did fly into her cage. The vet was called, we got our shoes on and took her out in the heat. By the time we got to the car the shock had settled in and the screaming had stopped. At this point we noticed she couldn't climb the cage or use her beak in any manner.
They took her in to see the vet immediately, then called us in a few minutes later. I saw the empty cage and knew she was gone. The tech came in with Fergus toweled. I could see she was still breathing heavy, and it surprised me she was still around. Her lower beak was not bit off, like we had originally thought her upper beak was bit and torn off and that is why the lower beak looked so weird because the new angle placement.
Our vet knows how we feel about our flock and is in the best way imaginable an optimistic spaz. He shares with us how with syringe feeding and making sure she doesn't starve to death it is possible to save her. For the last 20 minutes my world has consisted of getting this precious spirit into the vet to take away her pain forever, and this guy is telling me this does not have to happen. They give her a shot to rehydrate her and he is showing me the tools and how to use them. I'm more into bird rescue then breeding so hand and syringe feeding is not something I am used to. The more he shows me the less confident I feel I can do this. We talk about how she could be dead by morning, we talk about how she will more then likely lose her upper beak. I ask about pain and he will give me pain medication to give her. He closes the door so we can make our decision.
She would live the rest of her existence in a very small cage, with no interactions from the other birds. She wouldn't truly be living, the decision was made. They brought her back in still in the vet tech's hand, still toweled. She looked tired, her eyes were glazed it was well past time. They gave her a shot and handed her to us. We stroked her, told her we loved her. And she closed her eyes. The vet told us of his first first parrot a little blue budgie and burying him in the woods. All three of us were in tears.
It's hard to find fire wood when its 97 degrees outside. Fergus still wrapped in a towel and I waited for Joad77 to see what he could find at Krogers. We finished cleaning the cages in a very quiet subdued house. Even now I look over at my flock and they are quiet and reflective probably wondering where the morning bitch fest from the "crotchety old broad" is. I told them all as we were leaving that we would be coming home alone....... but it takes time to realize that the everyday routine has changed. Later last night after the sun had set hours ago we laid her to rest, watching the flames while drinking a Guinness. I will miss the matriarch of the flock but she lived life how she wanted, and suffered the consequences. She was over 7 years old which makes her a senior citizen as far as budgies go, it doesn't ease the feeling that we let it happen.
My heart is broken, I miss her.
Pepper our wild caught has stopped taking her medication. She just started refusing to get on joad77's hand. She rests more, does less. I haven't seen her have a stroke lately, but I can't help but think that she is gearing up for the end. I worry that soon it will be her in the towel we are saying good bye to.
Fergus is our last little budgie, and a surprise female, thought that she was the alpha of the flock. She would get in the faces of the bigger birds and confront them with a dog like bark. Most times they would just ignore her, other times she would not be ignored, Fergus lost several toes that way. Nightly she would get up on the highest swing in the house, look down on us all and was either bitching or preaching to all of us.
After the last toe incident Joad77 and I kept her in her cage for a few days. From the highest perch in the cage she bitched for 3 days almost non stop. I let her out and she stopped. We knew that by letting her have free reign we could be shortening her life but that being in a cage 24 hours a day safe was not a life for her.
Yesterday morning we were preparing to clean the cages. We put Fergus in the cage with Frodo the love bird, Bilbo the mad ass white cap pionus was standing on top of the cage. This is a normal scenario at our house and has happened a hundred times with no incident. When we left the room and heard Fergus bitching up a storm it took probably a minute or two for us to go see what her problem was. Bitching was after all something she practiced often. It was obvious she was in pain, when we saw her, something was wrong. We opened the door to the cage and she flew out, it took several minutes of us chasing her around........ which is not the norm..... and her screaming the entire time. The guilty party Bilbo still had a very small black and white striped feather on his beak, and was not allowing me to grab him to put him in his cage without bites. We never did catch Fergus but she did fly into her cage. The vet was called, we got our shoes on and took her out in the heat. By the time we got to the car the shock had settled in and the screaming had stopped. At this point we noticed she couldn't climb the cage or use her beak in any manner.
They took her in to see the vet immediately, then called us in a few minutes later. I saw the empty cage and knew she was gone. The tech came in with Fergus toweled. I could see she was still breathing heavy, and it surprised me she was still around. Her lower beak was not bit off, like we had originally thought her upper beak was bit and torn off and that is why the lower beak looked so weird because the new angle placement.
Our vet knows how we feel about our flock and is in the best way imaginable an optimistic spaz. He shares with us how with syringe feeding and making sure she doesn't starve to death it is possible to save her. For the last 20 minutes my world has consisted of getting this precious spirit into the vet to take away her pain forever, and this guy is telling me this does not have to happen. They give her a shot to rehydrate her and he is showing me the tools and how to use them. I'm more into bird rescue then breeding so hand and syringe feeding is not something I am used to. The more he shows me the less confident I feel I can do this. We talk about how she could be dead by morning, we talk about how she will more then likely lose her upper beak. I ask about pain and he will give me pain medication to give her. He closes the door so we can make our decision.
She would live the rest of her existence in a very small cage, with no interactions from the other birds. She wouldn't truly be living, the decision was made. They brought her back in still in the vet tech's hand, still toweled. She looked tired, her eyes were glazed it was well past time. They gave her a shot and handed her to us. We stroked her, told her we loved her. And she closed her eyes. The vet told us of his first first parrot a little blue budgie and burying him in the woods. All three of us were in tears.
It's hard to find fire wood when its 97 degrees outside. Fergus still wrapped in a towel and I waited for Joad77 to see what he could find at Krogers. We finished cleaning the cages in a very quiet subdued house. Even now I look over at my flock and they are quiet and reflective probably wondering where the morning bitch fest from the "crotchety old broad" is. I told them all as we were leaving that we would be coming home alone....... but it takes time to realize that the everyday routine has changed. Later last night after the sun had set hours ago we laid her to rest, watching the flames while drinking a Guinness. I will miss the matriarch of the flock but she lived life how she wanted, and suffered the consequences. She was over 7 years old which makes her a senior citizen as far as budgies go, it doesn't ease the feeling that we let it happen.
My heart is broken, I miss her.
Pepper our wild caught has stopped taking her medication. She just started refusing to get on joad77's hand. She rests more, does less. I haven't seen her have a stroke lately, but I can't help but think that she is gearing up for the end. I worry that soon it will be her in the towel we are saying good bye to.