Animals animals
Fish:
Tsunami the Betta seems to be having "health issues" again. His spine seems a bit bent, and he's become a bit sluggish. I wasn't too worried until he didn't want to eat his dinner last night.
So, I looked up bent spine on the web. Could it be dropsy? He seems a bit bloated. No, it doesn't look like dropsy (thankfully). Could it be some sort of internal parasite? Well, his colour has been a bit off over the past couple weeks and his fins MAY be a bit slimy again... of course, I could just be a worrying mother.
In the end, after looking through the long list of betta diseases and ailments, Pete and I decided that he's constipated from lack of a variety of food in his diet (all he ever wants to eat are micro pellets!). The cure? Apparently, you are supposed to feed them fresh shelled peas for a couple of days and this... well... unclogs them! Fortunately, a big part of our pet bird's diet is fresh peas, so it was pretty easy to shell a few and dump them in the tank. I was even thinking that bird could probably do the shelling for us, as he does for himself anyway!
There's a possibility that his problem could be something really nasty like Fish Tuberculosis... but if it's something like that, then he's going to die anyway, so there's nothing to be done about it. And eventually this will become quite apparent, as it's highly contageous, so everything in that tank will probably die from it.
We decided to start with simple remedies first and work our way up.
At least the little guy has had a good run, anyway.
Birds:
The wild birds and I have a new spring ritual. The lorikeets come to the window around 8am and start asking for their breakfast. I get up, mix up some powdered lorikeet nectar and honey in a glass. I also get about 20 grapes and take those out, because I know the Currawongs are going to be there wanting food too.
I've quit feeding the lorikeets grapes for the moment, because they are quite expensive until a little more into spring. The nectar is cheaper. But the currawongs don't eat nectar, so they still get grapes.
Anyway, I pour the nectar out into a glazed saucer that would sit under a garden pot. It's nice and heavy so they can't inadvertently (nor intentionally for that matter, which is sometimes the case) knock it off the table, and it's big and flat enough that about 20 of them can get around it to have a drink of nectar.
It has become quite the social scene... aparently the Bender household is the new trendy nightclub (or should I say morning club) for lorikeets.
While the lorikeets are otherwise occupied in their social/eating ritual, I go over to the railing that surrounds our deck and start breaking grapes in half. Luckily the currawongs are VERY smart, and they all line up on the railing. Then, it's just a matter of throwing grapes to each one in turn. These birds seem to be able to count and to understand the concept of lining up for their food, which makes it easy. They are also good catchers, and almost never miss catching a half grape when thrown to them.
This morning, a few of the lorikeets got greedy and decieded they wanted in on the grape action, so one little guy flew up onto my hand that was holding the bowl of grapes. I gave him a half grape and he sat there eating while I threw the rest to the currawongs. A few other lorikeets landed on my shoulders for grapes too. I reckon if they're that keen, then I'm happy to let them sit on me and steal some of the Currawong grapes!
Anyway, it's all good fun.
And Pete saw two red tailed black cockatoos flying over our valley yesterday around midday. Don't know yet if they were just passing through or if they have moved into the neighborhood. It would be interesting, because black cockatoos haven't moved this far toward the city yet, that I know of!
Tsunami the Betta seems to be having "health issues" again. His spine seems a bit bent, and he's become a bit sluggish. I wasn't too worried until he didn't want to eat his dinner last night.
So, I looked up bent spine on the web. Could it be dropsy? He seems a bit bloated. No, it doesn't look like dropsy (thankfully). Could it be some sort of internal parasite? Well, his colour has been a bit off over the past couple weeks and his fins MAY be a bit slimy again... of course, I could just be a worrying mother.
In the end, after looking through the long list of betta diseases and ailments, Pete and I decided that he's constipated from lack of a variety of food in his diet (all he ever wants to eat are micro pellets!). The cure? Apparently, you are supposed to feed them fresh shelled peas for a couple of days and this... well... unclogs them! Fortunately, a big part of our pet bird's diet is fresh peas, so it was pretty easy to shell a few and dump them in the tank. I was even thinking that bird could probably do the shelling for us, as he does for himself anyway!
There's a possibility that his problem could be something really nasty like Fish Tuberculosis... but if it's something like that, then he's going to die anyway, so there's nothing to be done about it. And eventually this will become quite apparent, as it's highly contageous, so everything in that tank will probably die from it.
We decided to start with simple remedies first and work our way up.
At least the little guy has had a good run, anyway.
Birds:
The wild birds and I have a new spring ritual. The lorikeets come to the window around 8am and start asking for their breakfast. I get up, mix up some powdered lorikeet nectar and honey in a glass. I also get about 20 grapes and take those out, because I know the Currawongs are going to be there wanting food too.
I've quit feeding the lorikeets grapes for the moment, because they are quite expensive until a little more into spring. The nectar is cheaper. But the currawongs don't eat nectar, so they still get grapes.
Anyway, I pour the nectar out into a glazed saucer that would sit under a garden pot. It's nice and heavy so they can't inadvertently (nor intentionally for that matter, which is sometimes the case) knock it off the table, and it's big and flat enough that about 20 of them can get around it to have a drink of nectar.
It has become quite the social scene... aparently the Bender household is the new trendy nightclub (or should I say morning club) for lorikeets.
While the lorikeets are otherwise occupied in their social/eating ritual, I go over to the railing that surrounds our deck and start breaking grapes in half. Luckily the currawongs are VERY smart, and they all line up on the railing. Then, it's just a matter of throwing grapes to each one in turn. These birds seem to be able to count and to understand the concept of lining up for their food, which makes it easy. They are also good catchers, and almost never miss catching a half grape when thrown to them.
This morning, a few of the lorikeets got greedy and decieded they wanted in on the grape action, so one little guy flew up onto my hand that was holding the bowl of grapes. I gave him a half grape and he sat there eating while I threw the rest to the currawongs. A few other lorikeets landed on my shoulders for grapes too. I reckon if they're that keen, then I'm happy to let them sit on me and steal some of the Currawong grapes!
Anyway, it's all good fun.
And Pete saw two red tailed black cockatoos flying over our valley yesterday around midday. Don't know yet if they were just passing through or if they have moved into the neighborhood. It would be interesting, because black cockatoos haven't moved this far toward the city yet, that I know of!