StephenAndKyleigh
New member
- Jul 29, 2015
- 530
- 0
- Parrots
- Kyleigh, B&G Macaw -
Peanut, Yellow Collar Mini Macaw -
Aaliyah, Green Wing Macaw
So, my life has been rather eventful lately. On June 21st, I was set to bring home and big beautiful baby girl green wing. We brought her home and instantly fell in love with her. Her name was Aaaliyah, named after the young singer the died in a plane crash in the early 2000s. My wife and I had been in love with her since March 24th, the day she hatched. She was the perfect addition to complete our flock of now three.
Aaliyah comes home and I notice she is often panting, wings out, and moving a bit slow. I thought maybe it was because she was young and her lungs were still developing. I took note of it and planned to ask my vet in a couple days had things not gotten better. Well, things didn't get better. In fact, they quickly got worse. After two days of having her at home, the breeder calls me that evening. I assumed it was to check on the status of our little girl, but unfortunately, it wasn't. She informed us that she had not DNA's Aaliyah until the day I picked her up. This precious little girl in my hand - was actually a boy. Before reading the rest of this, I want you to understand that I have zero knowledge or experience in breeding, mating, or hormonal macaws. My initial reaction was a slight bit of panic. I instantly began to think of the male green wing and my female blue and gold mating, I had thoughts of becoming an accidental breeder, and of my female blue and gold and this bird bonding together, and I losing the relationship that I have built with my blue and gold.
It wasn't a good evening for me. Long story shot, I reached out to some experience macaw owners and I made the decision to keep the boy. Honestly, I had already fallen in love with him over the last months that the breeder had been sending me pictures. It was a tough decision, but I completely feel like I made the right one.
While all of this is happening I notice that he had been vomiting his formula. Originally, I thought it was something I had been doing wrong. He had been here for less than 8 hours when he vomited the formula the breeder gave him before I brought him home. He vomited again the first night I fed him, as well as the next morning. This continued and I became more worried. I took him to the vet and learned he had an infection in his crop, aspiration pneumonia, and an anomaly of sort some in his crop as well. That day was nothing short of a nightmare. By this time he had lost over 200g seemingly over night and was gasping for air and keeping his neck out stretched. I thought I was going to lose my baby boy.
Thankfully, we take our birds to a highly skilled, knowledgeable, and professional vet that knew exactly what to do. He's been placed on four medications over the last two weeks. We've been offering formula often to put weight back on him and have continuously kept solid foods in front of him.
This has been a learning experience. Unfortunately, the breeder offered no help during this time. They made a nasty status about me on Facebook to cover their tails. Today, Ali, my baby, is doing well. He's still on meds, but the vet and I believe he will make a full recovery. We go back for X Rays to check out his crop next week.
This has been my life. It's been pretty stressful as I have never dealt with a sick bird.
Thanks for listening.
Aaliyah comes home and I notice she is often panting, wings out, and moving a bit slow. I thought maybe it was because she was young and her lungs were still developing. I took note of it and planned to ask my vet in a couple days had things not gotten better. Well, things didn't get better. In fact, they quickly got worse. After two days of having her at home, the breeder calls me that evening. I assumed it was to check on the status of our little girl, but unfortunately, it wasn't. She informed us that she had not DNA's Aaliyah until the day I picked her up. This precious little girl in my hand - was actually a boy. Before reading the rest of this, I want you to understand that I have zero knowledge or experience in breeding, mating, or hormonal macaws. My initial reaction was a slight bit of panic. I instantly began to think of the male green wing and my female blue and gold mating, I had thoughts of becoming an accidental breeder, and of my female blue and gold and this bird bonding together, and I losing the relationship that I have built with my blue and gold.
It wasn't a good evening for me. Long story shot, I reached out to some experience macaw owners and I made the decision to keep the boy. Honestly, I had already fallen in love with him over the last months that the breeder had been sending me pictures. It was a tough decision, but I completely feel like I made the right one.
While all of this is happening I notice that he had been vomiting his formula. Originally, I thought it was something I had been doing wrong. He had been here for less than 8 hours when he vomited the formula the breeder gave him before I brought him home. He vomited again the first night I fed him, as well as the next morning. This continued and I became more worried. I took him to the vet and learned he had an infection in his crop, aspiration pneumonia, and an anomaly of sort some in his crop as well. That day was nothing short of a nightmare. By this time he had lost over 200g seemingly over night and was gasping for air and keeping his neck out stretched. I thought I was going to lose my baby boy.
Thankfully, we take our birds to a highly skilled, knowledgeable, and professional vet that knew exactly what to do. He's been placed on four medications over the last two weeks. We've been offering formula often to put weight back on him and have continuously kept solid foods in front of him.
This has been a learning experience. Unfortunately, the breeder offered no help during this time. They made a nasty status about me on Facebook to cover their tails. Today, Ali, my baby, is doing well. He's still on meds, but the vet and I believe he will make a full recovery. We go back for X Rays to check out his crop next week.
This has been my life. It's been pretty stressful as I have never dealt with a sick bird.
Thanks for listening.
