No rest for the wicked

What a time you've had, Teresa.

I am so sorry to hear that Lawrence and Kali haven't been feeling well.
Sure glad things have calmed down, not only for their sake but for yours as well.

I'm really looking forward to seeing your 'special' Halloween picture!!

Poor you, Teresa! It's not bad enough that Kali was sick but the weather sounds just horrible!

When the weather is bad it just makes everything so much worse!

I too am glad life is looking up.

Today was still adventurous enough, because, as a result of the storms, there was a blackout in our part of town that lasted for hours. The repair crew only got a move on when we threatened to sue for compensation if the freezer contents thawed.
So, with no power, it was back to hot water bottles for Ana, but her nest is all toasty now!

It's at a time like this that I realise how spoiled my cats and dog are, that it never occurs to them to get out of the way for a human... cooking dinner by candlelight, I had to turn them out of the kitchen so as not to trip on them!
My mother thought I was being paranoid when I hedged my bets between electricity, gas and solid fuel, but my paranoia meant that at least we had hot water and means of cooking even with the power down. All I need now are infrared glasses to spot the blooming cats in the dark!

Maybe Santa will put those glasses in your Christmas stocking.

Matilda wrote:

Maybe Santa will put those glasses in your Christmas stocking.

But he can leave them on the doorstep -- I don't need reindeer poop in the house, too!

Teresa wrote:

Matilda wrote:

Maybe Santa will put those glasses in your Christmas stocking.

But he can leave them on the doorstep -- I don't need reindeer poop in the house, too!

Teresa wrote:

Matilda wrote:

Maybe Santa will put those glasses in your Christmas stocking.

But he can leave them on the doorstep -- I don't need reindeer poop in the house, too!

Silly...it's only Santa that comes down the chimney. Leave a not on the roof for him to remove his shoes first.

Matilda wrote:

Teresa wrote:

Matilda wrote:

Maybe Santa will put those glasses in your Christmas stocking.

But he can leave them on the doorstep -- I don't need reindeer poop in the house, too!

Silly...it's only Santa that comes down the chimney. Leave a not on the roof for him to remove his shoes first.

Then Santa and all my presents will end up like grated carrots... my chimney has netting round the top to prevent birds from falling in!

PS. Shoes are fine. In fact, they're recommended... Ask Soni about it, she stepped on the catsick in her socks...

Little Ana is doing very well. The urates are back to white and she's feeding herself. She's finished her course of meds, and when she's put on a little more weight I'll stop providing constant heat in preparation for release.

I'm still not too happy with Hercules' poops. Still too soft. He's had another course of Flagyl, but no difference. Otherwise he looks healthy, and his weight is normal. Piper has no symptoms, in spite of their intimacy.

The others are doing well, almost over the moult and looking good, especially Abby whose perfectly feathered head is a joy to see after her nasty head injury.
And George has finally started to exercise his bad wing! The vet was right, it takes much longer to get over neurological damage than a break.

The cats seem okay now.

Teresa wrote:

Matilda wrote:

Silly...it's only Santa that comes down the chimney. Leave a not on the roof for him to remove his shoes first.

* Then Santa and all my presents will end up like grated carrots... my chimney has netting round the top to prevent birds from falling in!

PS. Shoes are fine. In fact, they're recommended... Ask Soni about it, she stepped on the catsick in her socks...

*
On you keeping the birds safe.

Glad to hear everyone is doing well, Teresa.

Good news Teresa!

I hope Hercules will improve after this next round of Flagyl.

Teresa wrote:

I'm still not too happy with Hercules' poops. Still too soft. He's had another course of Flagyl, but no difference. Otherwise he looks healthy, and his weight is normal. Piper has no symptoms, in spite of their intimacy.

Oh my Teresa, you seem to have a busy time - somehow this reminds of times I rather try to forget...

Regarding soft poop - I had this problem with Pina for so such a long time that I thought she would never get back to normal again. Even with regularly giving her probiotic joghurt her poop would remain soft. Then I ordered Bird Bene Bac or Bene Bac which is a gel, containing concentrated live culture of seven common bacteria found in the intestinal tracts of birds and reptiles. Bird Bene-Bac gel guarantees 10 million colony forming units (CFU) per gram of viable lactic acid producing bacteria. Bird Bene-Bac provides help for birds and reptiles under adverse conditions such as showing, weaning, worming, surgery, traveling, boarding, breeding, antibiotic therapy or simple intestinal stress.

here is a link: http://www.petag.com/products_items.asp?SubcategoryID=18&CategoryID=1

I have given this stuff to her every 2 days for about 2 weeks (I used Bene Bac because that was cheaper and only took half of the recommended quantity because it contained twice as much colonies as Bird Bene Bac) - and the miracle happened - her poops firmed up to normal after a time of more than 9 months...

Bad, bad news! Ana died an hour ago...

Yesterday she was fine, feeding herself from two bowls, one with thawed peas and corn, the other with small seeds. Her weight had just passed the 200 g mark. She had finished a full week's course of antibiotic+Flagyl, she was active and curious and I thought the danger was over. But I still kept the heater on for her 24/7.
This morning she didn't look at all well. She was sleepy-looking, her breathing was shallow, her poops had a watery rim and undigested food particles, and one or two poops had a reddish-brown colour and mucousy appearance, as if they had dried blood. So I switched to tube-feeding her 15 ml of formula per meal and restarted the antibiotic. Six hours ago she was much better. Then, an hour ago, while I was teaching, I heard a couple of wingbeats, ran to check on her, and she'd breathed her last. I didn't say anything to the student, just pulled the heater away from the cage and carried on working as best I could.

This is so like what happened with Xi-ri, the baby canary, and it's really heartbreaking. I keep going over everything and can't find anything to match her symptoms. Don't know whether to try for a necropsy, as it's frustrating not to have any of the pathogens identified -- the two I ordered before mentioned nodules and rounded foreign bodies, but didn't identify them, even after doing the cultures, so no chance to get disease-specific meds.

I'm so sorry. This is heart breaking news.

Undigested seed can be a symptom of coccidia and giardia as well.

Oh no Teresa, this is truly breaking my heart. I cannot believe this happening again after it looked so promising. I do not understand what is going on there. This is so extremely sad. What kind of hellish sickness do these little angels catch? I really don't understand. And I can hardly believe how you cope with this new tragedy. I am very sad

Teresa...I just looked up the cuae of undigested seed in droppings and found other possibilites which include, tape worm, round worm and E-Coli.

Thank you, Charis and Petra.

Charis, I was going to give her cocci meds and worm her soon, just wanted her to have a little break after the other meds as she was still quite underweight. I hope it wasn't the wait that condemned her...
I think we can discount E-coli in this case, as the antibiotic would have cleared it. And I found another source associating undigested food with salmonella. Too many questions...

Teresa I am so very sorry to read that Ana Has joined the angels.

We have had necropsies done on different species throughout the years, sometimes we are lucky and the problem was solved but many times on the exotics it was an unidentifiable
orginism that was the problem.
Hearing that news is so very frustrating! Not knowing always brings sleepless nights.

I think the culprit was our old enemy, canker, plus opportunistic bacterial infection, plus ?cocci?

I've just been cleaning up her cage, and discovered a number of things: first that she'd vomited her last feed, between the far side of her nest and the back of the cage, and that her last 2 poops smelt sour and the urates were back to yellow. It all seems sadly familiar.

I got a photo of her last 2 poops -- the smaller one I saw her do after her last feed; the large one is the last, still with seed from yesterday, and definitely with blood.

It seems it's never just one thing making them ill, especially when they are young.

I'm sorry you lost her Teresa.

I am so very sorry to hear about Ana, Teresa.
I can't even imagine being in the situation you were in and still being able to conduct a class.
I know that must have been one of the most heart wrenching moments ever.
Bless your heart.

Thank you all for your kind words.
Cindy, thank you so much for the lovely tribute to Ana. It's so moving!

Fly free, little Ana!

Teresa wrote:

Thank you all for your kind words.
Cindy, thank you so much for the lovely tribute to Ana. It's so moving!

Fly free, little Ana!

You're very welcome.