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Post by aaron on Jul 20, 2017 18:23:36 GMT -5
Thanks biteybird and easttex... The vets at this clinic definitely claimed to know birds... and I saw pictures of other birds they care for, including a Quaker... The other crazy thing is that they gave us a cocktail of medication for her, including an anti-emetic for her original case of nausea, an anti-inflammattory and the same medication that I had to withdrawal from after they gave it to me at the Lyme clinic and my body rejected it... I guess they wanted to give those to her after the window collision as a preventative measure... It just all seems heavy handed to me. On the way out, one of the employees told us that we should contact the corporate office of the clinic and tell them that we want the windows frosted, because, he claimed, corporate does not listen to feedback from employees. This place has a very nice facility, but from the impression I got, it is very much a business first and foremost, and the animals are secondary.
Yeah, I think we will call the vet for advice. Hopefully they don't ask us to come in.
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Post by aaron on Jul 19, 2017 22:24:14 GMT -5
Personally, I haven't dealt with a quaker that is so hell bent on biting, so I don't have much advice... Cupcake has gone through bitey phases, but we've managed to turn them all around by immediately caging her when she bites too hard, for 1-2 minutes, typically... But one of the reasons this works is because everybody in the home knows the protocol, and she also tends to be afraid of guests she does not know on the fairly rare occasion that we have them in our apartment, rather than go on the offensive toward them. She has never launched a flying attack, and I would imagine if she did regularly and uncontrollably display such behavior that we would strongly consider a temporary clip, to force a reset, so to speak. Not something we would take lightly at all, as we adore having her fully flighted and it would break our hearts to take that away... But certainly, clipping your little friend temporarily is *much* better than having to give them up... so I would give that a try first. It will give you a more dominant role in the equation, which may provide the context that will give him the needed incentive to learn your rules.
Good luck! Let us know how things go...
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Post by aaron on Jul 19, 2017 22:10:31 GMT -5
Thanks guys... It definitely was not a fun time. Luckily Cupcake really seems to be fine... Maybe we will call the vet, but I'm sure they'd say to bring her in... I just really don't want to stress her out with another vet visit.
Sadly, our bird doctors can be cocky and irresponsible just like human doctors... I will say, at least, that the vet we had was extremely apologetic. It seemed like it was going to totally ruin her day. And it should, really. Totally irresponsible behavior. I hope she learns from it and is more careful in the future.
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Post by aaron on Jul 19, 2017 22:02:08 GMT -5
I haven't used imgur, but it seems like it has less advertisements than tinypic. I like that.
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Post by aaron on Jul 18, 2017 16:11:07 GMT -5
Hi guys!
So, a couple weeks ago Cupcake woke up and it was clear she was not feeling well. Acting very reserved and fluffy and not chipper as usual. We then looked in her cage and noticed that she had either thrown up or regurgitated overnight, which has never happened before... We were hanging out with her and just trying to be calm and assess the situation, and she suddenly started throwing up again... No regurgitation behavior, it was clearly not hormonal in nature. She was shaking her head side to side and saliva was getting on top of her head... Typical stuff for throwing up.
We decided to take her to the vet immediately, but it was Sunday, and our normal vet does not have emergency services, so we went to the exotic animal clinic at the facility that our vet recommends for these sorts of situations.
They started with a fecal gram stain test and found that her gut flora was healthy, so they wanted to do blood work. We said ok, but asked them to take the blood with us present, and explained that Cupcake can get extremely stressed out when taken away from us and into the back at the vet (last time was really rough on her). They insisted that it was best that we not be present, because they didn't want her to associate us with the unpleasant blood taking experience... We shouldn't have bought this reason, but sadly we did and let them take her back.
A bunch of time went by, and it was clearly taking too long. Finally, the vet came back and explained to us that Cupcake had struggled free when they tried to take her out of her container and had flown into a window. Yes, you are reading this correctly. This place chose to handle a flighted bird (which they knew) with a tendency to freak out in such situations (a tendency they had been warned about) in an examination room with a FULL WALL OF UNCOVERED GLASS WINDOWS. Unbelievable.
We ran back there to see her. She was just dazed, and they had her on oxygen at that point. Thankfully, she seemed fine, just shaken up a bit. Furious, we packed up our stuff and put her in the container and left without paying (they did not charge us--they knew they had majorly screwed up).. We did this hoping she would be ok, knowing there was a chance she wouldn't be... We just couldn't bear the idea of her being under their care any further. Luckily she has been fine, and has been essentially acting normal since.
The only difference we have noticed is that the pattern of movement when she grinds her beak while happy has changed. There is a distinct beak chatter that seems a bit involuntary. Almost like her beak is quaking against itself. It's minor, and literally everything else about her is normal. It's been a little over two weeks. Is this a sign of neurological damage? Anything to be worried about? We might take her back into our vet soon, but for the time being I want to avoid stressing her out if at all possible.
In the end, we concluded that the Swiss chard she had pigged out on right before bed was a little weird and had caused the vomiting. When I ate it, it gave me an unusual mouth sensation that I don't get with chard typically. We also read that chard can cause clumping in the digestive system that can cause upset... She had eaten a ton of it that night, so that was probably it. Just an upset tummy.
Thought you guys would find this story interesting if nothing else! Personally, we will now always ask to inspect the facility before we allow Cupcake to go into the back at a vet, and we'll be pretty reluctant to allow that unless it is absolutely necessary. I have faith that our relationship with Cupcake is strong enough that it would not be greatly damaged by her "associating us with the bad guys" if we are present. Sheesh.
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Post by aaron on Jul 17, 2017 22:44:06 GMT -5
Thanks guys I have a ton of photos to post one of these days. We keep talking about making Cupcake an instagram page because we have so many great photos of her... I will upload some soon And yeah, Caseysmom, tinypic is definitely not for photos that are personal in nature... but great for things like bird photos I also just noticed that photobucket seems to be the owner of tinypic. Interesting.
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Post by aaron on Jul 17, 2017 1:22:27 GMT -5
Tinypic sounds cool! I wasn't aware of that either, but will check it out. Have been on vacation this past week, just getting back tonight! Sorry I have not been around much-- extremely busy these days. I think about you guys often!
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Post by aaron on Jun 24, 2017 0:45:10 GMT -5
I've heard those disolvable stitches can be trouble. Glad you got that taken care of!
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Post by aaron on Jun 21, 2017 23:28:41 GMT -5
So sorry for your loss, Michelle. They have an amazing capacity for companionship... I can only imagine how hard it is-- It's wonderful that you got so many happy years together, though... It sounds like you gave her a wonderful life.
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Post by aaron on Jun 21, 2017 23:24:31 GMT -5
Not religious at all either, but very spiritual... And I find some phenomena of quantum physics to really imply that our existence is likely spiritually complex. At the very least, there's much more to it than what we experience, and the scope of reality that humans tend to regard as possible/impossible is generally a very limited viewpoint... Anyhow, I don't pretend to know what this experience means, but I believe it could have significance.
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Post by aaron on Jun 21, 2017 23:08:03 GMT -5
Wow, sorry to hear about the skin cancer, but I'm glad to hear it's being taken care of! And glad to hear that Bonnie cooperated-- what a good girl!
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Post by aaron on Jun 19, 2017 22:26:17 GMT -5
Cupcake will get obsessed about certain spots too... sometimes she will be so sneaky that she'll keep a small cut open for weeks, even if we are making an active effort to prevent it. But, she is generally pretty good about this, at this point... It's unavoidable that she'll have times that she gets this way, I think... but it's fairly minimal. It hasn't always been that way, and she used to go for moles, which she seems to have learned not to do. They do learn. It will take time, but the better relationship with him you have, the faster change will happen, I think. In recent years, it is very clear that Cupcake genuinely wants to be a good bird. She doesn't always acheive that, but it is clear that it is important to her on some level. There were years in the beginning when this was not clear at all. We'd be chasing after her all day. There will always be challenges, but in general, her behavior consistently gets better over time. Leaving Cupcake flighted has been very worth it to us in the long run. It does make things harder, but it's really worth it.
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Post by aaron on Jun 7, 2017 23:15:29 GMT -5
Enjoy!
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Post by aaron on Jun 4, 2017 23:14:05 GMT -5
Thank you for taking in this little guy-- really nice thing you're doing. Posting photos is a pain on this board, unfortunately. You have to host your photos elsewhere and then link to them from here. There are instructions here: www.quakerparrotforum.net/thread/31/post-photosIf you have trouble with it, just shoot me a private message and I'll give you my email address-- happy to post them for you.
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Post by aaron on Jun 1, 2017 23:31:30 GMT -5
Wow, congratulations to you and Odinn!! What a milestone hatchday... so cool. Glad the two of you were able to celebrate with a sunset on the beach. I hope you have many more hatchdays together!!
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