murfchck

She has tooooo many. Hoarder comes to mind, but i don' t really know for sure. I did just see a listing on Craigslist for her little birds. Going to give the info to our vet so he can do what he can. My hubby thinks she has run out of room and thats why she is parting with the big ones right now. They are sick and bald so out they go so she has room for more to abuse. I feel she doesn't really think she is doing anything wrong, she really thinks she is helping them. Problem with that is she stated mine wasn't in that condition when she got him a year ago! So how did she help? He wouldn't eat for me at all today. Eggs, pasta, pellets, chop,peas, apples and oranges even offered seeds and nuts, nothing not even his beloved snap peas! That is until tonight... Got some take out Mexican food. He ate an entire taco. My husband thinks it may be my cooking, after seeing him pi g out i am starting to agree with him! Gave him his antibiotic about 30 minutes later and he went right to his pellets and started eating again! We called the vet to see if his tests came back by chance, no luck. May be in by Tuesday but this waiting is killing me!

That has to be the best read for those thinking of adding a fid to the family. It is SO true, every word! I love it!

I must have read the same artical as Thenabrd. We renamed both our guys, the names they had just did not fit them at all and i also feared the bad memories. New begining, new name. They both took to their names without a problem. Stewart came from the SNL skit with the guy who plays a kid and uses his leg to push people away while saying, noooooo, then right after he will be clapping and dancing saying, look what i can do. Then when he is being a poop head, he becomes Stewie, from family guy. It was the perfect match, Bongo was his original. We do still have that name, just added a middle. Sir Bongo Stewart.

Thank you all for your thoughts. He wants him to complete the antibiotics, to prevent him building any resistance to the meds for the future. As far as him gaining weight, right now it is feed him what he will eat and i have been mixing the zupreem baby formula in with his morning meal of egg and fruits. This vet is actually very involved with rescues. All we can do right now is hold our breath. I spoke to the person who i got Oliver from today. (The vet asked i get him as much history as i could.) I can not even process what she was saying to me because from one minute to the next, her story changes. When we got him home and heard how bad he was breathing i had called her, she said she didn't understand that, he had never been sick. Today, she said " i told you when i first got him he was sick like that, i took him to the vet who gave him a shot in his chest and he was fine till you took him home" really???? I asked her after she had rescued him, how long did she have him with her. " Oh, for at least a year." Well this little guy didn't get this sick over night, he didn't lose all his feathers over night. I am trying to tell her, explain to her, how sick he is and all she could say was, " i have another scarlet who is fully feathered, hand tamed, really a pet bird for $400.00 if i could swing that. Oh, he is missing his chest feathers." All i could think was, did she really just say that? Then she said she hopes i will help her with these rescues. Heck, i am too busy trying to rescue this bird from the damage SHE did! Aaarrrrgghhhh!

Congrats! He/she is beautiful! They are cards for sure and you two will enjoy each other alot! The dust from the grey is a big deal for the macaw, my vet said just yesterday that daily mists and good soaking a few times a week will help him keep moist clear nostrals. (If you find anything for the screams, please share, my hearing will thank you!)

Just got home from our vet adventure, 9:45 pm. I dropped him off at 9 am. They are running more bloodwork to start to rule out what to treat for or if it is even treatable. The sinus issue he said has been going on for quite some time and there is perm damage, so steam showers and daily misting to keep them moist, saline drops by us and rinses by him (as needed). He is fearing wasting as his weight is 880 grams for sure. Not knowing his history makes it really tough so we are having that bloodwork done also. I guess you just can't trust anyone, now my Stewart could be in danger of this also. My only consulation is that Stewart came from her also so he had already been exposed to whatever she she may be hosting in her home. The woman who "claimed" to have rescued him, seems to have been the one who actually did this, or let this happen to him. His wing is frozen and cannot be fixed. Bad circulation and artritis due to what we can only guess as cramped living quarters. I know vets have to say this but hearing that we may need to make a "decision" never helps! Tests should be back in a few days, we overnighted them all, i will let you know. Fingers crossed

Dave, I am sorry for my misunderstanding you when you said "talk". I did not catch on to your meaning of it. Yes, he talks as you say almost all day about me i am sure, and to me, to Oliver and the dogs if they get to close to his area. He is very easy to read because of his consistancy to circumstances. I would also like to add to everyone that i am not in any way, expecting anything from Stewart. My question was, do i or don't i whistle back, in that i do not want to lead him in the wrong direction. He is a rescue that is older and i am more experienced with younger birds, so i have no expectations one way or the other. I just am looking out for him and wanting to offer him all i can in the right way!

Utt-ohhh, do? Don't? I am back to square one! Lol Dave- in your earlier post you asked if he has been talking since we have had him. No, he has only said step up on the day he came to live with us, since then nothing. So, i know he can talk and has talked. We did hear a hello two evenings ago, but not sure from which bird it came from.But, we have not heard it since, just the one time. It was raspy, like the macaw but clear enough to understand it, like the gray practicing. He loves to make his noises and " teach " me, even his stretchings in the morning he thinks i should do with him. I tried for a day, when he would whistle, i did not repeat but that seemed to confuse him and he clammed up.

Thank you all so much! The water works have started, but instead of it being because of my fear of Olivers unknown and of my frustration it is because of all of the positive support from all of you here. Hugs to you all from Oliver and myself! I will be getting his records today and taking him in tomorrow. They are keeping him the day so they can monitor him and do what test they need to at his pace. I will let you all know how it goes. Thank you again for your positive thoughts!

Off to the vet again. I may have loved, loved, loved this vet, but first he is not any better then he was and now his nostral is inflamed and red. I am sure it has something to do with the fact that he has been sticking his finger in his nose alot! ( as you can see from those pictures lol ). But secondly because i had refered my neighbor to him ( the one who took the female that was with Oliver) and i get a text tonight from her that he is a quack. Her experience was nothing like mine. She said he had her crying because he told her that she was abusing this bird and should send it to a sanctury, that she (the bird) was mental, should be on prozac. This bird is fine and loves where she is now. Putting on weight and running through the house playing chase with them. She talks and has even learned new words. That scared me that a person, let alone a vet, would say these things to them. He also got frustrated that she wouldnt perch on the scale and towled her and rolled her up into the towel where she couldn't move and set her on it. I know this bird and that was not necessary. I started wondering about Olivers care from them and got out our paperwork from our visits. First thing i noticed was his weight. 400 g. on his first visit, with antibiotics for that weight. Second visit 800 g. also antibiotic, third was 895 g. with antibiotics. Really? They don't seem to be adding the perch weight. It is always on zero when i set him on there, what does he really weigh and is this why he is not getting better or seems to get worse, like on his second round of antibiotics? If they can not even weigh a bird, i am at the wrong place. I had heard alot about a vet that is further away before our last visit, but i was already knee deep and broke from all the money spent at this other place and at the time, still waiting on results from blood test. I had called them, they kindly called the dr who was not in that day and he was willing to come in to see him, but we just couldn't afford it. They would need to either do all the tests again or wait to be able to get his complete paperwork before treating him so we waited. But after hearing of my neighbors experience, i made the call to the other vet, in tears talking with the vet tech and explaining to her all his issues, after a short 45 minute conversation she has me bringing him in Wednesday and gave me good tips to help him out, she even got me laughing. Yes, i am sure we will be double paying for alot but it will be worth it for the best care he can get! The new vet is dr. Moore, in southlake, tx. Wow, sorry for the long venting post i just did but, thanks for having a place for me here! I am sure that without this outlet, i would be in a corner crying!

As Talon said, just when you are ready to give up.... When we put them to bed last night we were about to walk out of the room, had shut the light off and we heard it, " hello". Not sure if it came from Stewart or Oliver but either way it worked! If it was Oliver, Stewart will follow shortly as his jealously will not let Oliver get an audience!

Stewart is 5 years old so i was told. I stay at home so we talk all day in short " Stewart want...." sentences. Poor hubby gets that too when he gets home for about. 30 minutes. He knows what i am saying, for example i will say, " stewart want a kiss." and he will reach out and kiss me. Or, Stewart wanna go home and he will look for his cage. When he poops off the side of the cage, he will sometimes make the bomb dropping whistle. He is pretty smart, if i say so myself lol. When i say hello, he will make a two short whistles, home is one short and nite nite is now the rasberry sound, it makes me laugh so he continues it. Worse, my husband heard it for the first time last night so along with our laughing, Stewart started laughing and bedtime took a little longer than normal!

Thank you so much for the info! In my heart i could not, not whistle back to him, it is a game to him and fun for me too. I just didn't want to stear him wrong. Or bonding grows each day, yesterday i was able to tickle him and come away with all my fingers! I have no children of my own and can only imagine that this is the pride they feel with each step their baby makes! Thank you!

Oh he is a stubborn one! He is eating some, if i hand it to him. Oatmeal with walnuts, that went over badly. Lol He ate some pot roast tonight as a treat, but the carrots, potatoes went to the floor, snap peas he opened then they went to the floor. I also noticed 2 spots of blood, one on his wing and one right above his tail feathers on his back, looks like he was trying to pull out feathers but since he doesn't have any feathers in thoses places i don't know what he was doing... Here are the pictures i got last night, looks like he has a bad headache!

After one month in his new home, Stewart still will not talk. Each day he seems to add to his whistle collection though. On the first day he said " step up " but nothing since. I have read to whistle back to him to open the communication, then i have read not to encourage the whistles. We i talk to him, he cocks his head like he is really listening, but then just whistles to me. I spend as much time as he will tolerate in training with him. I know it has only been a month and i shouldn't expect anything, but i want to be sure and do the correct thing so, do i respond to his whistles or not??? I am so confused now! Thanks!

Wingy, thank you for those suggestions. I and going to try the peeler trick today! I have tried the puree thing, he seems to like things raw or whole. Maybe it is the antibiotics he on causing him to snub almost everything but grapes. Apples and banannas are even tricky now, if i hand him those, he will eat them but if they are in the bowl, nope. I am going to try out a new bowl also and see if something new might entice him! It seems to me that his breathing is sounding better, it still sounds stuffed up in his nose but going in to wake them up this morning, i couldn't hear it until i was right at his cage. Usually i could hear it walking down the hallway to his room. He has started making a weird noise too, well it is weird to us, maybe normal to macaws. This is going to sound silly, i am making this noise in my head trying to figure out how to describe it and i can't. Its a cross between a growl of my grey and purr of a cat..???? I could not even say if he was happy, content or telling me to get out of their room and let him go to sleep. He only did this on his exhales, like he was groaning in a way? Yeah, that seems like a better way to descibe it. Lol I got a great picture of him too, i am waiting for them to upload and i will put them on here! You can actually see his little bitty feather starting.

I love, love, love this new vet! He got the blood results and gave Oliver his gold star, all in the normal ranges! Sigh of relief! Now for the respitory issue. He did almost the entire exam with Oliver on my arm, keeping him at ease. Taking his temp kinda required him to be in a towel, even though he tried without it. Was able to listen to his lungs and everywhere else and concluded that it is all in the upper nasal area for which we have started a new antibiotic for fungal infection instead of bacterial. He really wanted to do an xray to confirm his thought but after lasts weeks expenses we just could not afford another $200.00 and he understood. I had to promise i would get it done as soon as we could, which i will, but him not with holding treatment because of our lack of funds meant the world to us! This poor guy had been on two weeks of antibiotics that were doing nothing, one making him worse and now this new vet says with the new stuff, we should notice a change within 72 hours!! Now for the not so good news, if this fungal med works then we know Stewart may catch it. Although they are not in contact with each other, fungal makes spores that "float" around so now we hold our breath for him! And of course Stewart now sneezes, because he has learned that from Oliver. For those who don't know, Stewart is our grey who we rescued a week prior to Oliver. He too is making progress. He was untouchable as was caged for his whole life of 5 years. He would step up but not without showing us how much he hated it. Heaven forbid if he saw your other hand. The step up changed really quickly for him but the second hand issue still scares him some. Yesterday however we reached a milestone! He let both my husband and myself tickle his head! Just a few strokes but you would have thought we hit the lottery from our excitement! Thanks for that link to the list. I have actually tried almost every item listed that was good for him. Last night we tried some pasta with spaggette sauce, collard greens with carrots and his fav grapes to entice him to the salad. He loved the spaggetti, the rest however made its way to the floor! Thinking positive though, maybe some of the nuitrients soak into his tongue as he holds it in his mouth to get into position for the perfect toss! Nah... Lol

Quick update... Oliver is going to see a new avian vet at 2:30 today. I asked them to get his records and the bloodwork results from other place since i was getting no where with them! Hopefully we will start getting some results. Let you all know what i find out later on! Thank you all for your support!

It was 70 outside yesterday with full sun, so my neighbor came over to help me take the fids out for some play time. She sat and i placed Stewart on her arm then i went in for Oliver! He sat in my lap dancing away for about 5 minutes then decided he was done and wanted down. With his lack of feathers and frozen wing i felt semi safe letting him explore so i set him down. He made a bee line to the door, past my niece who was standing in the doorway, thru the hall and to his perch in the living room. He could still see me outside and if i could read his look, he was saying, " what the heck was that lady? " I am also going to guess that after his shock was over, he loved it. Starting at about 7pm, he started screaming for me. I tried to ignor this to not teach him that his screams will work, but after 30 minutes of solid screams and me now full blown with heartache, i caved and went in his room. With his one foot in the air before i even got to his home, i picked him up for some "love time". I am so glad i did, with each i love you i told him he placed his beak to my lips giving me his kisses! One time he even lowered his head for me to kiss his little bald spot! 30 solid minutes of good loving. My husband should be home soon so i really needed to get his dinner ready so i put him back on his house and i went to the kitchen and guess what, one more scream and he calmed down until...hubby came home and he heard his voice. Let the screams begin! I am now doubled over laughing because after his 16 hour work day, he is greeted by the most blood curdling screams ever belted out by Oliver, yet he is smiling and cooing Oliver with " daddys home boy, i will be right there " and went directly to him, no hello to me. Neither of us had dinner last night! Lol Found a feather starting under his wing but closer to his breast! Help!!! Now, how can i get him to eat some good vit. A veggies? I have cooked, steamed and offered raw. I haven't given up, offered a new one each night multipule times but its like getting slapped in the face with veggies! Yes, he throws them at me! Found out yesterday he likes snap peas! But nothing else green. I make eggs (for the yolk), scrambled, nope. Boiled, yes but he picks out the yolk and eats the white. Vet gave him a vit. A shot last visit and we are STILL waiting for the bloodwork to come back.

Well Oliver came out of his house yesterday to what i thought would be a nice walk. Instead it was more like a run, right back to his home. Lol Daddy got home and we tried again, this time went better and the little guy said "hello" to him. The last few days his eating has greatly improved, i made him corn on the cob yesterday and we barely made it to the bowl before he grabbed it and started in on it. We are lucky, he likes his zupreem and roudybush over seed so all we have ahead of us ( food wise ) is finding out his likes and dislikes with vegs and fruit. So far, he has sampled everything i have offered and i can only rule out okra and i can count on grapes and oranges. We have some pin feathers coming in on our neck now and 2 new starters on his side! Fingers crossed it really was the female he was housed with who picked him bald. I guess we will know soon. I took this picture last night after his feast, his gullet has never been that big!

It has been a while since i have been able to write and update. Since Oliver has been my main concern, i am moving my updates here. We adopted him a little over 2 weeks ago. He has been pretty sick, but it looks like we may be getting better now. He has been taken off all his antibiotics because they seemed to make him worse. His original issue was sinus. On his last visit to the dr, they put him under and tried cleaning out his nose best they could and also did a exam. He does have a frozen wing, and they do not know about his sores he developed or his limp. Crud does come out of his nose when he sneezes so thats good. His sores we are keeping clean and the seem to be healing up. Last night was his first night being vocal, very vocal for about an hour, and boy can he dance! Not that we want to encourage those screams, we were so excited just to hear him we kept responding to it!

Thank you all for the welcomes! I am really trying to figure this picture thing out to show you all my family, sadly though so far no success. Stewart has been a monkey today, it has been so much fun watching him open up. For the last week, everyday he has added a new whistle to his shows. Today was the bomb dropping sound without the explosion. I hope one day he will start talking again, the day i brought him home he said step up when i put him on his cage and thats the last thing he said. Either way, i luv him! Someone asked about our macaw, his name is Oliver. When we went to get him we didn't know what to expect. We were greated by the most beautiful little boy ( with the largest lungs ) we have ever seen. We were told he had been "over" groomed by her cage mate but, did not expect to see him with only one row of feathers on his wings, and very battered up tail feathers and a unibrow. We took him to our avian vet because he was weezing and mouth breathing. The weezing has stopped but 10 days on antibiotics, he still has sinus issues, he is also getting sores that he can not be inflicting on his self AND we suspected but now can confirm a wing injury from before we got him. Needless to say, back to the doctor tomorrow. We do have a black masked lovebird also. Lynard. He flew into our home one afternoon when my husband opened the door to let the dogs outside, that was over a year ago. He is hand tamed and loves to be on his back getting a belly rub! ( his lungs give Olivers lungs a run for the money) Over 20 years ago we had an umbrella, Oscar, but he went to live with a wonderful family who loved him dearly and could give him the time he deserved. We also have 3 chihuahuas and a blind diabetic min pin, 1 cat ( all rescues ) and a koi pond! I am missing a reptile to complete my zoo but that will have to wait! Lol

That is wonderful! Thank you for sharing that! My grey Stewart is a rescue, caged for 5 years. He took to his freedom with grace and relief. One week ago we took in a Macaw, Oliver, who was a breeder with no interest in his abusive cage mate. Even all our 4 legged children are rescues. ( no less that 4 at a time for 25 years) It is a great feeling to know that peace, dignity and love is what they will remember and carry with them!

Hi, my husband and i have added a wonderful little guy named Stewart, who is 5 years old, to our ever growing family. A week after we got him home and settled in, a 7 year old Macaw also entered our lives! They are a joy! We found this site before we got Stewart home and i must say that if it were not for some great answers to others questions, i would still be scratching my head about some of the things he does. I did not join until today however because I was snooping around on a thread and found some wonderful advice on toys and wanted to thank them. Stewart is persnickity about toys and i found that straws were all he tolerated to toss around and she had a great toy to make! I still need behavior advice and will be looking to see where to post some questions!

This is a great idea! I am new to this forum and my guy, Stewart, will only play with straws. I could not bring myself to pay the high dollar for a toy that has .98 ¢ worth of straws! I am making this today!