Monday 19 May 2014

Little ball of feathers!

Hi everyone!

This week started out good, the teacup project is finished! After the baking and painting process, the troll received his hair and a few pieces of clothing. The resin-test worked out great so the troll is now sitting in a cup of tea! Success!




I was busy planning new projects when Wednesday we received a phone call from my father-in-law, who has an aviary with all sorts of parakeet breeds. He had bad news..



His young female cockatiel (big bird on the right), who was breeding on 3 eggs, fell out of her nest onto the aviary floor. She was very weakened, was puking and drooling all over the place. 
She was dying, poor thing.. It was heart breaking to see :(

My partner lifted her up and wrapped her in a towel, keeping her warm with his own body temperature. We took her home with us to do anything within our power to help her, as my father-in-law was about to go on a holiday. As soon as we got home we put her in a box with towels and a hot-water bottle, to keep her warm during our trip to the vet. 

At this time she couldn't even lift her head anymore. She was laying very still and the only movement she made was breathing lightly.

The vet told us she was suffering from a serious crop infection and therefore she was not able to eat or keep any food in her stomach.
There was a chance she wouldn't make it trough the night, she was already very weak. We wanted to try it anyway and hope for the best. We are both animal lovers and didn't want to give her up!


For the night we decided to feed her every 3 to 4 hours, so an alarm was set to make sure she was fed and getting her medicine. 

We moved our mattress to the living room and stayed with her the entire night. I ended up pretty much staying awake all night so I was able to feed her every hour.




She got antibiotics mixed with baby porridge trough a syringe (without the needle) and a few drops of water too. She was eating from the syringe very well, of course, regarding the sweetheart hasn't been able to eat for a few days and was starving!

Around 5 in the morning she was able to sit up straight, I was in tears of joy, she made it trough the night and was visibly better than the evening before. So proud of her!










That morning she was still fed porridge and water, around 9 o'clock she carefully ate a bit of her normal food. We put a cage over the box for safety, so she wouldn't fly into a window or meet our cats along the way, who had to sleep in the bathroom for the night so they were not very happy and friendly to our little ball of feathers!





Later on she even sat on my partner's hand, still a little wobbly but already gaining strength! Look at that little mohawk! Fierce little lady! :D 


Because she needs to get her antibiotics for 10 days total, we bought her a cage so she could stay with us a little longer to complete the cure. The cage was bigger so she would have more room to move around and be safe. We have two cats, so cats + a cage-less, weakened bird = not a good combination ;)

At first she not very fond of a cage (the aviary of my father-in-law is pretty big!) but she slowly started exploring it by climbing around and sitting on the perches. 

After a while she decided to try the swing that was in the cage as well. With a little squeak of approval she seem to enjoy it and kept her balance perfectly on the moving swing. 



This was just around 1 in the afternoon, we could hardly tell she was more dead than alive just one night before!

As I'm writing this she's in the cage next to my desk, enjoying the sunny and lovely weather in the Netherlands and she is doing so, SO well! 
She's very curious and mischievous. Every day we see her gain strength and eat, drink, climb and "talk" more.



She still gets her antibiotics twice a day, and she's not liking it! My partner holds her so that I can give her the syringe of water mixed with antibiotics. Works like a charm! My partner does need to wear gloves, she's not a tamed bird so she loves to nibble on his fingers while he holds her ;-) 

We have a strong feeling she got this sick from eating old chickweed.  Remove old green food from the aviary before it has a chance to rot or mould, else it might cost you a precious little bird-friend! We learned that the hard way!

Her medicine stops this Saturday so after that she can go back to the aviary, to her husband who is anxiously waiting for her. The eggs she laid are considered lost, have been too cold for too long, but we are far too happy that our sweetheart is alive and healthy again. 

She is such a beautiful, brave and strong girl. We are so proud of her! 
We now call her Gwyneth, which means Fortunate, Blessed. 



With this adventure I'm afraid I didn't have any time to work on any of my projects for the past week, or even respond to messages at all, I'm so sorry about that! 

Now that our little feathery friend Gwyneth is healing very well, I hope to show you guys more new dolls or progress next week. That is, if I can concentrate on sculpting, cockatiels turn out to be pretty loud!! ;-)

Cheers and take care!





3 comments:

  1. Awesome described, you told what i felt :)

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  2. You are a wonderful person to rescue this beautiful bird- and to restore life to her! I am sure if she could talk, she would tell you how grateful she is! I kept holding my breath all through the story, until the ending, when I breathed a sigh of relief. We love our wild birds here and feed them as much as we can afford, so birds mean a lot to us. You did your duty well and can now go back to work with fresh ideas, and best of all- a happy bird!

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  3. yay you life savers!! Awesome :)

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