Zak had his check up today!

[Morana]

Here is our adventure.... but to say first-the rest of the results from today will come in on Thursday. Also, my vet is going away so as she suggested, her colleges will send the results to her and she will sent to me everything with explanation on the mail. Of course, in case of a problem I will call her substitute and will deal with that, but if everything is OK I really prefer to do everything through and with her.

 

I was worried (a bit) this morning because I knew it wont be so easy to put Zakica inside the carrier without stressing him out. However, I was an example of restraint today, and because of it, I think Zak was much better off than he would have been with me panicking. I wanted to towel him this morning, and I tried 3 times(!!) without success, but he wasn't mad at me at all. He just looked at me with this look in his eyes like saying: what in gods name are you doing?! Do you know you are out of your mind!?". So I tried different approach. The clicker training that I did through this 3 days were enough for him not to be that scared of the carrier, and to get him easily on a towel (which I held in my hand). Then I put a meter (the one used on construction sites or at home) - he is insane about it (I disinfected it ) and I put it inside the carrier. When we approached the carrier he was very interested in the meter but I knew he wouldn't go in by himself so I angled my self like I am a bit squatting and this curve of my body prevented him to go anywhere else than into the carrier. He wasn't at all happy about it, so in the end, I literally had to push him (a bit) inside so I could remove the towel and close the carrier. He was freaking out and he lost some of his tail feathers. I think he would loose them anyway, because he is molting, but , either way, it wasn't easy to witness that. After initial horror he was better. Scared, but better. Zoo taxi was on time so we were like clockwork. Vet first took a swab from his throat/mouth.. I brought his first droppings from this morning.

Absolutely the worst part was getting him in a towel from the carrier. He just wouldn't stand for it and tried anything he could to escape. Of course he could not but it was extremely stressful for us both. We had to draw blood from his wing because jugular vein just wasn't visible. You could see bare pink skin and no vein! It would be funny that it weren't my Zakica screaming away, wanting to go home. I talked to him this whole time and calming him anyway I could. I was not helping much but at least I was right there with him. Drawing blood was so expertly done he didn't even make a sound and blood immediately stopped and there is no hematoma:-) Afterwords we went to have him x-rayed and it was quick and he was less frightened than when he first came today. We put him in the carrier and waited for the blood work and pictures. He was OK at that point. Not scared anymore. Not much anyway. Pictures are just perfect. Blood not so much. I will try to translate what was done but don't hold your breath that it will make much sense. There were (and I hope these is international way of marking) PHOS, URIC, CA, TP, AST, test for Chlamydia, complete bacteriologic workup.. I think that is that.

He has Calcium deficiency which I suspected. His TP and AST are high enough. My vet says (and don't take my word for it because I am lousy at remembering medical terms and more so in translating them) what ever it is with his liver, it is not acute and it had developed recent. Since x-rays are more than great, high levels of protein would explain higher liver enzymes and the red poop. And I can be almost 100% sure I am to blame for this because there are strict dosages to how much Harrison's pellets should be given daily and I didn't weigh them. Instead, I gave it approx. I thought, what could be the harm in it, he doesn't eat them in the same amount everyday anyway. He gets fruits, a bit of veggies , seeds and pellets, so why not? Well, that is why !!! I said that to my vet and she said it could explain those elevated factors but we'll need to wait other tests and if all else turns out to be fine, he'll just need to eat low protein diet and in 3 to 6 months check it again. There is, and won't be any permanent damage because of it but I am so stupid because of playing on my hand like that. Anyway, I am doing Think mash next week as planed, so vet said that will be great for him. And guess what, we have sweet potato in Croatia! I newer saw one in my life, but she says we have it! Go figure! It turns out I am ignorant in many other ways too;-) Lol

The downside is that Zak is left with only two big red feathers on his but! It looks kinda funny and disturbing at the same time. Zak is asleep now. I am monitoring him. He drank water and ate some fruit (he didn't want anything else) and he'll be just fine...except of course of the mess I did. I hope tho, all the rest of the tests will be fine and he'll be a healthy,and just a bit "poisoned" , funny but-looking little birdie;-)

[judygram]

You did the right thing to not show any concern in putting him into the carrier for they sense our emotions, sounds like he is not the picture of health but don't beat yourself up about it, no use in crying over spillt milk, you know now and that is what counts. I hope his tests come back with good news.

Good to hear you have sweet potatoes there, my Josey loves them and they are so good for them. Too bad about his tail feathers but they will grow back and he will be back to his old self soon.

Thanks for keeping us informed and let us know what the test results are, hope they are good news.

[Morana]

You'll be the first to know when the test results come in. About his health,..I'm grateful that (at least for now) it doesn't seem to be anything terribly wrong, and hope it stays that way. He has perfect bones but will need to take some kind of Calcium supplements. I new it will be a problem because in the past he didn't want to take his vitamins with anything, ate seed mixes all his life and he didn't have sunlight so that was expected. About my mistake with pellets, I'm grateful that it is not anything that could endanger him further nor he'll have consequences. I didn't understand that dosage on the bag wasn't just because they might get fat if they eat more than specified. It didn't even occur to me that there might be some other reason for this restriction from the manufacturer. I lived long enough in a Stone Age. And when I'll have a bit more time and have learned a deal more myself, I'll make sure that other parrot owners here in Croatia find out about proper care, nutrition and other necessities of their feathered friends! Of course, some were smart to found sites, like this one, on time but I still think that we are, in general, really uninformed and gullible about what our pet store sellers tell us. Did you know that last year came out our first book in Croatia and by Croatian author about CAGs? And I wouldn't even know about it either that one fellow Croatian (also on this forum) didn't tell me. I think he is reading the book now so I'm waiting for an opinion.

 

I want to say, for all folks reading this, ignorance is a personal choice and it can make so much damage without us even realizing it! It can endanger lives of our loved ones. In some cases, it can also endanger us.

This is a very hard cookie for me to swallow but I think is very important to stress out how important this is. Today the taxi driver said to me that they refused to drive one parrot to Dubrovnik because they thought the bird might just die from a ride in a car. To be more precise, that the amount of stress it will endure in a car ride might, more than coincidentally, kill that parrot, and any other for that matter. I suppose it could, if a parrot is very sick and very timid because it is a very long ride there, but I said that you can train your parrot not to be scared of it's own shadow, and you can also ride with her in the car and talk to her, keep her company and calm her down. If parrots would die from a car ride, I don't think that any of us would have a parrot. He was very surprised by my answer.

[Morana]

Today I found out that all the rest of the Zak tests came back negative!!! He is a healthy bird!:-D No chlamydia, no bacterial infections, no anything!!!!:-) And no more pooping funny!:-) He is very active, very playful birdie...:-)

Further more, I finally I found who sells Calcium-Lux in Croatia and tomorrow I'm going to get it:-) I had to reserve it, for it was the last one..

 

And the carrier is back in the game... We'll learn Zak to be a carrier proof parrot;-) No, what I want to say is....I hope we'll achieve soon that Zak is not afraid of the carrier any more..:-)