Zoom

Congratulations on the new baby! It sounds like Charlie has been brought up well and is pretty adaptable to new things. I bet he handles the baby well too. You don't sound like the kind of person who will just push him aside and ignore him once the baby arrives, and as long as he feels included (ie still an important part of his flock) I think he'll be okay.

I just want to say I admire your patience, and I'm so happy you're finally getting your Grey.

Thanks for sharing your story. Having just shelled out $1200 in vet bills for my lovebird, I share your pain. But it sounds like we're both getting happy endings out of it. Almost losing a bird strengthens the bond between you. I hope Anya keeps getting better and you get a nice long stretch of good health and no vet bills!

The maker is A & E.

Eshana, it's great. Nice and roomy. Simon's very happy in it. It seems to stay cleaner a lot longer too, since it's bigger. There's a woman who wants to buy his old cage and she wants to keep a pair of DYH Amazons in it. One bird is 40 and the other is 35, so maybe they're fairly sedentary...but it seems like it would be pretty close quarters to me.

Wonderful, congratulations!

Make you sure you write this stuff down and keep it! You think you'll remember it forever, but you'll forget!

We don't have White Pages anymore, but we still get the Yellow Pages every January. Is it okay for Simon to have them as a toy?

Thanks for the suggestions! I'll let you know how my birds like them.

I'm putting together a bird playlist. So far we've got "Valerie" by Amy Winehouse, several songs by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, a little reggae, and Canary Yellow Car by Ray Bonneville. The criteria for a song making the playlist is that all three of my birds have to consistently get excited and vocal when they hear it.

I bought the bulbs but don't use them, because I can't figure out how to keep them at a 16" distance from my birds, which is apparently the distance at which they are effective.

I'm short too Wingy - five foot two. I can reach everything I need to reach in that cage. I do need a chair to reach the playtop, though.

I think he hung in there in survival mode, refusing to let his defenses down till you got him, and now he can finally admit he's sick and get some much-needed help.

Wingy, here's the link to the cage - it's an A & E extra-large with the playtop: http://www.parrotdiseperch.com/parrot/shop_details.php?prod=1967

I ordered a new house for Simon about a month and a half ago. It finally arrived on Friday. We assembled it Friday night while all the birds watched attentively. Simon and I even got into it together for a few minutes during the assembly process. I thought it might take him a few days to decide to move in, but he moved right in that same night. I think he really likes it. I'm still experimenting with the placement of perches, and he's not sure of what route to take to get down to the floor, but he seems very happy in his new digs. His favourite perch is a little one that's up high on the inside of the door. Your perch placement wisdom would be very helpful. Thanks in advance! (By the way, that small cage next to it is not his old cage - that's the lovebird's house. Simon and Oboe are neighbours.)

He's been home since Saturday night - three days now. He's still pretty rough. He's breathing hard and he can't fly. Also, I'm still having to force feed him...although I sometimes find him eating a few sunflower seeds or nibbling on an almond. And he did seem a bit stronger today. Meanwhile, Duncan the cat got called away on a business trip. He's mousing at my boyfriend's house. (He caught one this morning.) If anybody has any thoughts about the heavy breathing, I'd like to hear them. It's been almost a week now since the incident. The vet suggested it might be a punctured air sac, and it might resolve on its own, but I'm not really seeing any improvement. Also, after I feed and medicate him, he's oddly frantic about wiping his beak repeatedly on many surfaces. I put him in his cage because he's so stressed then, and he runs around wiping his beak on the floor, the cardboard box, the perch, everything. Why do you think he's doing that? His weight has dropped from 55 grams to 46 grams in the past six days. He lost four grams in the hospital, and five grams since he got home. I've taken the last two days off work to look after him, but I have to go back tomorrow because the vet bills are formidable. I'm going to leave three hours early, though, so I can get home and feed Oboe a late lunch.

Thank you. I didn't know that. I've given them garlic once or twice, but they didn't seem to like it. (Simon tried lemon last night for the first time. He loved it.)

If you don't like mess, don't give your birds pomegranates!

I'm handfeeding him KT baby bird formula, but so far he hasn't been very cooperative about eating it. It's just been one feeding so far...maybe by lunchtime he'll be hungry. I used to handfeed him when he was a baby, and it was much easier then because he was hungry. I'm also giving him antibiotics and anti-inflammatories by mouth. I was sitting on the couch with him this morning, just cuddling him, and Simon the Grey flew over to say hi. They kissed each other and then Simon put his head down, which is his way of inviting Oboe to groom him. It was so sweet. Oboe was too tired to groom Simon, but he laid his head against Simon's head for a few moments.

He's home! He's very quiet and subdued, but he immediately climbed to the highest place in his cage and settled in for the night. I really love this little bird.

Thank you!

My cat, Duncan, finally caught my lovebird, Oboe. Oboe's been taunting Duncan for a year and a half, and I knew his luck would run out eventually. It ran out on Wednesday. Duncan only had him for about 15 or 20 seconds before I got him away from him, but Oboe was pretty damaged. No blood, though. His respiration was hard, even after he'd had time to calm down, and one wing wasn't working. And he was obviously in distress. I took him to the avian vet. They said there were internal crackling noises, and his wing might be broken. They admitted him, gave him injectible antibiotics and painkillers, and put him in a warm hospital cage. Basically they said they were just buying him time so that Mother Nature could work some magic on him. He wasn't interested in food so they had to tube feed him. I've visited him each day, and he's happy to see me. He climbs up my arm and sits on my shoulder. But he gets sleepy very quickly, and his breathing is still laboured. The vet says she's more concerned now about his breathing than about his wing. She's hoping whatever is causing the hard breathing (possibly a punctured air sac) will resolve on its own. She likes that he's holding his wing tight to his body. She thinks it might heal on its own too. Anyway, he's coming home tonight. I'll be hand-feeding him until he's willing to eat on his own. And I'll be giving him oral antibiotics, and anti-inflammatories for the pain. I'll need to keep him warm. I'm so relieved he's coming home. The vet bills are over $1200 so far, and they haven't even really done anything yet, other than medicate and feed him. That's a lot of money for me. My biggest worry is that they said they don't want him to lose more than 10% of his body weight. He weighed 55 grams when he was admitted and he weighed 50.5 grams yesterday morning. So he lost 4.5 grams in the hospital in a day and a half. Somehow I have to keep him from losing any more weight. Any suggestions?

I wonder if it's permanent, or just a phase he's going through? I'd take away all the paper and cardboard and towels and other inedible things he can roll into balls and swallow. In a month or two, maybe introduce some paper back into the equation under carefully supervised conditions, and see if he's over it.

It doesn't surprise me to see such a clever bird. But it does surprise me that it's using its cleverness for fun!

Really? I'm surprised the other birds even let her move in with them!