by Pajarita » Tue Oct 26, 2021 10:26 am
I haven't put up an update for many months and, although there are several news, I am so busy with the sale of the house, purchase of the new one (we are moving to a 6 acres property 5:30 hours away in Pa), packing, planning, etc that you are going to have to forgive me and wait until everything is settled in the new house (where, HOPEFULLY, I will have two separate specially built birdrooms and, possibly, an outdoor aviary for them, too). But I did want to tell you that Mami is sick. I am giving her antibiotics in her water because I gave her in the beak for two days and I was stressing her way too much. In reality, I don't know exactly what is wrong with her but taking her to the avian vet is not an option because they are still doing the COVID protocol and do not allow the owners to go in with the animal and, when I last took Sophie for a check up, she had to be all alone in the carrier for hours and hours before they even saw her. Mami is too old and too fragile for that. She started by not singing as she usually does every morning on Saturday, then Sunday night she started making this weird noise like a very soft 'Huh' and breathing with her beak open at times (not all the time) so I checked her out and found she had lost some weight (she is not skinny or anything but I have a pretty good idea of what all my birds weight feel on my hand -she has always been heavy for her size even though she was never fat- and her keel bone was a little bit more pronounced than it was before) so I think it might be a respiratory infection. But, even if it wasn't, there isn't really much more than antibiotics that you can give an old sick bird... I am sure she doesn't have a fungal infection and, although she has bad arthritis, she did not act as if she was in pain so the other two things one can give them (antifungal and pain meds) were not necessary. I decided not to separate her from Naida because, again, that would be stressful to her and when a bird is sick the most important thing you can do for them is eliminate all stress (and it's not as if antibiotics for a couple of weeks is going to harm Naida...). I put a heater under their cage and have been covering it with a large quilt to keep the heat inside but I do allow her to come out for a little bit in the morning because she is still eating and moving around. Every morning I go to see if she is still alive (she is soooo old, the poor thing, and had such a bad life before that it's a miracle she is still alive) and every morning she is still there so I still have hope she will get better but I am also trying to get used to the idea that she will not. She is a real tough old bird so who knows? She might surprise me once again. Keep your fingers crossed.