If any of you see or have seen the movie "Up", it's teriffic. I don't want to give any of it away, but a bird is one of the main characters. I watched this movie with my stepkids today and they are 10 and 7. However, the bird's favorite treat? Chocolate. That's how the other characters lure it with them. I'm pretty sure my stepson is old enough to know better but the 7 year old sometimes gets crazy ideas in her head. I still made a point of letting them know that birds cannot have chocolate and that this bird was just special and it was a movie.

Just a heads up to everyone who may have really little ones who may think its OK to pass off some chocolate to the family birds when no one is looking!

Well thank you to, I believe it was ZandPearl who replied to my last post and told me that I was taking all the right steps to de-sexualize my birds who had become convinced it was mating season. It is working great. Dusty is back to being a wonderful little cuddle bug (wow, even better than be was before?!) and Serino is back to her old laid back self.

Now I have a different problem. Even though they are separated, getting different out times, and getting enough sleep, Serino just laid an egg. I immediately checked her over to make sure that she wasn't injured (that I could see?) because there was a little blood/stool mix on the egg. Is this normal? Is it something I need to be immediately conscerned about?

We have not interest in little baby birdies. Will just shaking the egg real hard be enough to "scramble" it and make it non-hatchable? I haven't taken it out of the cage because I want to discourage laying more.

How many eggs should I expect? And I know she is loosing at least a lot of calcium doing this. What kind of suppliments should she be given and are they safe to give my other non-laying supposedly hen. Can I get any of this out of my kitchen cabinents because honestly we are broke but if need be I will scrape up money somewhere and make sure she gets what she needs.

Please, any help as quickly as possible would be much appriciated. I don't want to endanger her health.

So I am sad to say that just over two weeks ago my male wildtype, Islington, died. Following his departure I am now the proud footstool to two rescued birds, Clyde and Tay.

The male, Clyde is a ten year old yellow suffused ashenfellow, quite shy, won't go to hand and the female, Tay is of unknown age and a wildtype. By her behaviour she is an escaped handreared.

The ting is this: owing to Clyde's shyness he will not yet go to hand or perch on anything on which I can transfer him into the cage at night. As he won't go in, Tay won't go in and they sleep on the curtain rail. Owing to current temperatures I am a little worried about their health if they stay in potentially so cold a place (for context I live in Lowland Scotland).so If you have any suggestions as to how I could get Clyde to perch, either on the hand or on something, anything so that I can transfer him into the cage at night I would be hugely grateful.

In order to appease the Gods, pictures will be posted as soon as I can get the damn digicam working.

Thanks in advance,

Matt

Crossposted to parrot_lovers

It looks like it is getting time for me to decide about Sasha's wing (see post here for info).

Lately she has become startled by sudden noises a lot more than she use to which causes her to try to take flight, no matter if it is in her little hospital cage or on our shoulders. Several times she has landed on her bad wing and still struggles to fly if it is a bad enough fright. Other times when she falls to the floor she wonders around as if in a daze before she finally sees me and slowly gets on my hand. After about a minute she finally notices where she is at and acts her normal self. I know the falls have got to seriously hurt her.

In a way it seems safer to just keep her in her cage, but even then she is climbing all over it and falling from the roof of the cage to the bottom or else getting stuck under her only perch which is close to the floor of the cage when she gets into her fits/frights. So she injures herself in there as well.

After I had to stay in the hospital for a few days, I came back and noticed her bad wing is considerable lower and she isn't eating as much as she use to and when she isn't doing her high pitched screaming wanting out of the cage she is fluffed up in the back seeming ignoring us. If we let her out of the cage, she cuddles with us and her sounds are at a more tolerable level. But after a while she'll want to explore and then she tries to fly only, to end up hurting herself again.

So we are nearly decided to see about getting her bad wing amputated. We go to the vet on the 7th for radiographs and checkup and will make the decision then.

I know the vet will answer most of these questions when we see her, but I'd also like to hear others advice and opinions and have time to think more on this. Have you ever had to have your bird's wing removed or have had any other type of serious operation? How long is the expected recovery period and what can I do to help? What is involved in the recovery/healing time? Any questions I should ask the vet before proceeding with the operation?

Sorry for all the questions, but I'm worried and want as much info as I can get before I make such a huge decision for her.

Look at how pretty! Kimono + birdies = my favorite things!

I have a bird right now whose name is Chippy. Everyone in my family loves to make jokes about him, mostly because his name is funny. Often we'll call him things that rhyme with "Chippy". I made some bad photomanips of him to take the jokes to another level.
So I present them to you!

Lippy:


( More silliness! Plus a cockatiel painting! )

I am learning how to use a sewing machine and thought that a cage cover would be fairly easy (at least I hope so! ^_^;). What type of material would you recommend? I'd need one that would be fairly warm since it is getting colder, and perhaps a lighter one for the warmer summer months. Right now I have a towel that covers 3 sides of the cages.

Also my mom is positive that if I cover the entire cage little Sasha could sufficate. ^_^; For those of you that have cage covers, any reassurances for her and the type of covers you are using?

Many thanks! ^_^

Blue loves when I wear these orange sweatpants because even though they are tacky, he thinks they make his cheek patches look brighter.

Don't mind the mess, I was in the middle of making the bed.

Since I have/will be home bound because of illness for a good while and have always wanted a cockatiel (I use to have one when I was really little) my Mom found someone at her work that takes in rescue animals and she happened to come across a female cockatiel that is about a year and half old. Mom was able to get her and a really nice cage. The person at work that took her in said her wing was broken but it had healed, but she was unable to fly.

When we took little Sasha to vet, her blood work was fine, but her wing had not exactly healed. About a third of her bone in the middle is gone from the wing bone closest to her shoulder. the next bone that is two parallel bones, the outer one is snapped and is bowed because of it. The other breaks, one in her other wing and another in her leg have healed. The vet was unsure if it may have been caused by malnutrition and/or serious injury, or maybe the chance of cancer. So she sent us home with a painkiller I give her every evening and to keep her in a small cage so she wouldn't fall and injury her wing further. If her wing is worse on her followup next month, the vet has suggested amputation of wing to prevent pain and to check to see if it is indeed cancer.

Soon after when Sasha had got use to Mom and I she has been quite active, chirping and yelling for attention and wanting to be part of conversations, loves to be on our shoulders as much as possible and have her head rubbed. She is a very affectionate bird. ^_^

Unfortunately, I hadn't read about cockatiel breeding since we weren't planning on using her for that, so we ended up doing the wrong things and now she is laying eggs. I have since searched the internet on what to do since I am concerned that the calcium she is using for the eggs needs to go to helping her wing. But most of what I have read is how to prevent it before it happens, not while she is laying.

I know to limit the amount of daylight to 8-10 hours, don't pet her back, don't let her find small dark areas for egg laying, and convert to a more pellet diet. Any other suggestions? And do I do this while she is still laying eggs or wait until after? And do I only do this when she is "in the mood" or is this a constant thing?

And one more question, since she has started laying eggs she is eating on her poo, not playing with it, but eating it. I read that means that she is lacking in some B vitamins and put some Brewers yeast on her seeds. What do you think of this? If it is okay, do I do this all the time or just when she starts munching on her poo again?

Thank you soo much for any help on these questions and any other info/suggestions you'd have on Sasha's situation. ^_^