1st Visit

Remember, vets went to Vet school but YOU know your bird better than anyone. Some personal stories regarding the vet: We got Herbie by himself. Herbie was our best buddy. He’d do his “speed skater” pacing back and forth in the cage until we let him out and he would either play on the playpen we had set up on the living room table so he could play as we watched TV. Birds love to be by where you are because you are part of the flock but they still like to do their own thing.

(I made this playpen so that seeds would be kept on the table and they can shred all the paper they want. Birds LOVE to shred paper. *WBDL)

 

 

 

Or he would hobble up to our neck to snuggle and beaky grind away in his contentment. Anything to be by us at all times. See 2 snuggle Pics.

We were both working out of the house at the time and he’d sit in the cage all alone all day. Granted he was by a SEALED window (*WBDL) and we had bird feeders outside so he could at least look out the window and see other birds. This may have actually been more torture than helpful since he’d see birds he couldn’t interact with but that’s another story. So we decided to get him a companion. My wife INSISTED that we get a yellow bird.

Holly’s 1^st pic. Again, judging by looks isn’t always the best option. Well it turned out she was a female as that particular yellow coloring is a gender linked gene. We figured that wouldn’t matter much. As you’ll see, it came with a great many joys but also sorrows. After he got used to not being the only source of our attention, he being about a year old began displaying mating behavior. That’s story #2 but here’s our first run in with the vet.

 

Since we wanted them to become friends I bought a new bigger cage that could be sectioned off and took a piece of plexiglass and separated it so that’d they’d get used to being by each other. That way, if they were ever able to get along, I could simply remove the plexiglass and they could simply live together. See Pic.

He would try to bite her feet from the bottom of the cage as her toes would stick through the bars at the bottom of the cage. That eventually went away over time as he came into his maturity and with the disintegration of the “girl germs” mentality but he did it the first few weeks. We had her for a couple weeks and luckily my wife was sick the night in question with a cold so I slept on the couch that night. I luckily had off work that day and about 10am I hear Holly doing her scream that she’d make when Herbie got ahold of her feet. He never drew blood (which was lucky but it happens A LOT when you have nesting birds and other birds’ curiosity has them climbing and looking inside the cage and exposing their feet to a defensive mother so have corn starch on hand at all times which will be discussed later *WBDL) but I woke up and said “Hey knock it off” expecting it to stop as she would run out of his reach… butt it kept on. So I rolled over and saw that Herbie was nowhere near Holly. I saw a fluttering of wings coming from her yellow Happy Hut.

Now the Happy Hut can be a great product. You can throw it in the wash (dye & perfume free detergent and NO fabric softener but that will be discussed later *WBDL), and it’s got nylon string reinforcement to make it strong and its durable. But… that same nylon string almost killed my bird. So be weary of them especially if they start tearing the fabric away or off this product. Anyway, she started picking at the clear nylon string and managed to put her head through the loop she had pulled out and got her head stuck. Then in a panic she tried to push herself out and got more stuck. She was probably a few minutes away from choking herself to death. Again, luckily I was on the couch AND had not been at work that day. If I had been at work or still asleep in the bedroom I would have walked into that room to a dead bird. She ended up bruising her beaky (see pic) trying to push her head backwards out of the loop and since she was new and didn’t trust us yet, it was really tough trying to not only get that hut detached from the cage with her fluttering as to not hurt her but to then fit a pair of scissors into that hut to cut the string and not hurt her with the scissors in order to save her before she choked to death. I’m telling that story here instead of in the “what NOT to do section” because even the most innocent things can literally kill your bird. Story after story after story on Facebook and bird groups will prove that over and over again. Whether it’s Teflon, candles, other pets or my own friend dropping a laundry basket on his birdy buddy cockatiel that was wing clipped and would follow him everywhere… birds, like kids require a watchful eye. (Bruised beaky pic)

The vet bill was a simple exam at about $40 if memory serves but I wanted to reiterate safety and being mindful of your little feathered friend.

 

 

 

 

Our second vet visit involved a rather common issue with birds. Plucking. Now I’m not a plucking expert but I will say that preventing it is key because once it starts, it’s usually psychological and unless dealt with ASAP, it will continue forever.  We literally tried…. EVERYthing. Aloe spray, oatmeal spray, Bactrim antibiotics in case it was an infection… too many to list. The only thing we haven’t tried is coconut oil and that’s for very good reason. *WBDL. When Herbie was a lone bird, after a few months as he reached maturity, he’d CONSTANTLY hump his happy hut (aptly named in this situation) since in bird years he was a teenager but he certainly was a horny little bird. Introducing a female into this mix was not a good idea. Again, we didn’t know so how would we have envisioned what was to come. Once he got past the “new bird go home” mentality and realized that he had a female in front of him and that was going to be the Yin to his hut humping Yang, he started struttin’ his stuff even though she was too young to even know what he was trying to do. That lead to a frustration that most guys understand and that most women can certainly recognize.

In frustration, Herbie began to pluck his feathers out around his neck and shoulders. I’ve seen a lot of green lovebirds with orange faces having plucking issues with their shoulders so it very well may be a genetic condition with that color mutation but we noticed that he would do his “clicky dance” that male lovebirds to and when the too young Holly would not reciprocate he would get frustrated and start plucking. An action he does to this day whenever he is frustrated. We didn’t realize what was going on until we happened to see him try to mate with my wife’s thumb after attempting to regurgitate on it and woo it via his “EEEP scratch” followed by his “clicky dance”. You can see from this pic that the feathers on the right and left of his collarbone are becoming bare. His shoulders were soon to follow.

We didn’t know what it was at first much less what to do about it. When it got bad enough we went to the vet and they gave us not one but 2 rounds of antibiotics called Bactrim. This medicine tastes terrible and it upsets their tummy. To this day, we have to turn the lights off quick and grab him because he has such bad memories of this experience that even though he snuggles and give lots of kisses, he doesn’t like being held like this much anymore. After 2 rounds of medicine that didn’t work because it wasn’t an infection (and after more money was wasted), the local vet said there isn’t much more they could do other than aloe or the Featheriffic/oatmeal spray and they directed us to the 24 hour vet that supposedly had a more experienced avian vet. They attempted to put an “E-Collar” (E stands for “Elizabethan” as in Queen Elizabeth I) on him with pipe cover foam. Not only was he miserable and didn’t like it, since birds only weigh 30-40 grams, the thing would weigh him down. Yes, foam is heavy to a bird. We had to put him into a glass aquarium with a towel on the bottom so that if he fell off his perch he wouldn’t hurt himself. After spending money we didn’t have on those supplies and the vet tests, he managed to tear it off an hour after we got home.

So since that didn’t work and we were out the money from the vet bill (probably around $200-$300 for both vets combined), I decided to try other methods. The ones that are conventional are the 3 in the pictures here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The one on the right is the foam collar example. The one on the left is an E-Collar that if memory serves you can only order through a vet. As you can see, within minutes he was tearing at the black center padding, just like he did with the foam one. Since the plastic was so thick plus the snaps, I had to take the outer snaps off because it weighed so much that he literally couldn’t keep his head up. So needless to say that didn’t work. Great design if it was lighter and he couldn’t get at the padding. Birds can preen almost every inch of their body so most deigns inherently have flaws because they ban get at it with their nimble beak. The one in the middle is the spherical collar. Now this one is good but it’s tricky. First off, the snap connector is VERY difficult to connect while not breaking your bird’s very skinny neck and also to not get feathers or skin pinched in. If you do manage to get this on you have to spin it around to make sure that no feathers get stuck. It may yank a few out but he’s doing it anyway so it’s a loss to take. HOWEVER… I will say that this is made by an engineer which means all parts are of equal dimensions. You need a bigger hole at the bottom than the top because shoulder muscles need more room to maneuver than the upper neck near the beak. Also, just because they’re vets, don’t trust them to do that if you have a knack for it and think you can do better. Again, vets don’t see many birds and if they’re honest they’ll probably tell you “I’ve never done this before.” Yes they’re trained but that doesn’t mean they’re experts at everything. Just because you can swap a car’s engine doesn’t mean you can replace, bondo and paint a fender. I flat out told my vet that I would do it at home even if I had to order it through her. Granted, a lot of vets won’t let you in the room if they’re giving your bird a shot, or X-ray or collar. It will look like it’s hurting the bird even though it may not be but that doesn’t mean it can’t get to that point. Again, they’re human. Hence the reason I made my own collar.

As for the sphere collar, you will also have a massive buildup of heat which causes the ball to become filled with sweat which is uncomfortable. Again, do to your bird what you’d do to yourself or your children. You wouldn’t subject yourself to that measure of discomfort so don’t subject your bird to it even if you’re trying to help. Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. Plus with sweat you can build up salt and bacteria that since its a collar can’t we washed away when bathing so you run the risk of that especially if pinch skin putting it on.

You’ll notice I drilled some holes in the sphere. But I only drilled holes by the thick edges near where the clip is to make sure it was less subject to cracking and breaking. I drilled them at an angle to drip downwards at the bottom and to evaporate out at the top. I did not drill perpendicular (a 90 degree angle) to the plastic. I did drill 1 hole in each center at the top to help with sweat evaporating which alleviated almost all of the sweat build up. Having the extra vent hole on the top and not the bottom means less holes which helps the sphere maintain its structural integrity. You’ll also notice that I took a Dremel tool and sanded off both top and bottom for more room and to get rid of the edges. The edges were sharp and liable to poke and pinch more. Smoothing the edges helped eliminate that. I sanded off more on the bottom for the shoulders to have more room. If you’ve ever been in and MRI machine you’ll know how important this is to not be constricted, especially around the neck. You’ll notice that in the pic, the bottom is facing up so you can see the bigger hole. This worked very well and even though it was uncomfortable for him, especially at first (and we had to wait until he didn’t have any offspring to feed because that requires regurgitating which you can’t do with that ball collar on) and it weighed him down until he got used to it. So you need to be watchful especially at night. He’ll freak out at first not only getting it on put after its on, which is where millet comes in. This is VERY important and *WBDL but having a go to treat that always works in these types of situations is priceless. Plus kisses and comforting reassurances help. Once he gets used to the weight and stops falling forward he should be OK. In fact, the birdie coitus pic I snap shot from a video, he’s wearing this collar so he OBVIOUSLY didn’t find it too inhibiting after while. We had this on him for a about month if memory serves and it worked. His feathers grew back. When we took it off… he went right back to plucking and I couldn’t put it back on because by then he had another clutch of babies to feed due to his virility so I had to design something different that allowed him to feed his young yet keep him from picking AND for him to be able to get in and out of the brooder box where the eggs were being nested.

Since we’re on the subject, I did find something that worked. Its lightweight and does the job but due to people’s misguided benevolence, I am not going to reveal what I do for this collar here because I don’t want complaints to force us to take this information site down. Welcome to America. However, if you need a diagram or help in making one, feel free to contact us. This may very well save your bird’s life. The only reason that someone might think this is a bad thing has never experienced the pain of watching your most beloved friend go through this and have NOTHING work. So once you find something that gives both you and your bird your life back, criticism means nothing. But I can’t risk having my life turned upside down by anonymous cowards who think they know everything and are thinking they’re trying to help. Unfortunately there aren’t enough Titanics to rid the world of the “unsinkable ship” mentality. So if you need help, contact us. But I can say that a frown can be turned upside down. See pic.