Goodbye, Sherbet bird

[primsong]

In about an hour I have to do one of those rotten Grown Up things and be the one to take in one of our parakeets to be put to sleep... or whatever they do. I'm not sure if the avian vet has something like a little birdie gas chamber or what...

Gradually over about four months her abdomen swelled up until she was a miserable bird-balloon, so we took her in to the vet who drew off a huge (for a parakeet) amount of what is essentially egg white - a malfunction of the bird innards that are supposed to make the occasional useless egg instead filling up the whole bird. She was back to her svelte, bright green and otherwise happy self but I knew we couldn't keep on 'draining the bird', it all depended on how quickly it came back.

One month later and she's a bird balloon again and a very miserable one indeed. She's been well loved and had a good life, but she's only 6 so we had hoped to have her longer than this - still, it serves no purpose to have her panting and fluffing and trying to waddle around full of albumen. Poor little Sherbet. I'm glad Freckles and Millie, her cage-mates, are happy with one another so they hopefully won't miss her for very long. Freckles has been nursing her, cleaning her feathers and feeding her seeds, dear little chap.

Drat.

Comments

[lurkingcat]

I'm so sorry to hear this. Poor Sherbet.

[primsong]

I'm glad her distress is over now, but... yeah... I told Freckles it was time to say goodbye and he went to her and preened her head and tapped beaks with her, then went to sit with Millie instead so I could put her in the box. Like he understood. I couldn't decide if that was incredibly sweet or incredibly sad.

[kerravonsen]

Oh dear. {hugs}

[nentari]

I'm so sorry. *hugs*

[primsong]

*thank you*

They're chirping their 'Marco!' 'Polo!' type chirp since I got back - I guess they figured out she went with me, but now she's not back too. :-(

I'm relying on their short birdie memories to make them stop wondering soon... It makes me want to go out and impulse-buy another parakeet.

[alouzon]

Oh, that's sad. Poor little bird! I'm surprised they don't have a way of dealing with this (other than puncturing the poor little thing).

So sorry, Prim.

*hugs*

[primsong]

I researched it, but the only option was surgery and lots of antibiotics after with a low success rate even then... maybe if she were a Macaw that would make sense, but not for a little budgie. The vet mentioned her sister (who was also a vet) had a African Grey that she had to 'drain' twice a year, but usually they just put them down when this happens.

[archersangel]

drat, indeed.

[moonbathe_skin]

aw poor little bird-balloon. That's so sad.