possibly laying an egg?

[SunnyGirl]

they'll do another x-ray on wednesday... I talked about this with EllenD and she made a good point about this, Sunny had a foreign object removed (I don't think Sunny knows or better said her body understands that it was an egg... it wouldn't prevent her from being hormonal again and that's why I decided to do the implants now and not wait till october (like the vet first wanted to), as spring is another mating season and I wouldn't want to risk somerthing like this happening again... not a fan of playing with fire, you know...

 

[EllenD]

See, this is exactly why I didn't understand why in the world that your Vet wanted to wait until October to put the implant in...I have no idea why he thought that having surgery would cause her to not be hormonal for months and months afterwards, but obviously it didn't, lol...I mean, it's pretty basic physiology, just think of a human woman who has surgery to remove her Appendix, or to repair an abdominal hernia, or to take out a kidney stone or her Gall Bladder...She's still going to get her period the next month, or the same month if she hasn't had it already. The only surgery that will stop her from getting her period or stop a bird from being hormonal is going to be one to remove both of her Ovaries, lol...

You're doing everything the right way, you're not doing anything to encourage her hormones at all, you've got her on a Natural Light Schedule, you're not feeding her any mushy, warm foods, you're not petting her belly or under her wings, and you removed the "Hut" and she can't get underneath any furniture or inside of any cabinets or anything. Not much more you can do...You also have to remember that when her body formed that egg that was too large for her to lay, it was produced from lots and lots of Follicles. So she likely had other Follicles when she had the surgery to remove the egg, and she could have even had another egg forming at the time that didn't drop into the Oviduct, obviously because it couldn't due to the huge egg being stuck in there. So I'm glad that they are doing an X-Ray on Wednesday to rule-out another egg...

If she does happen to have another egg in her Oviduct right now it's not necessarily a horrible thing, most eggs that they form are not anywhere near the size of that one, that was one of the largest eggs that I've ever seen come from a Sun Conure or similarly sized bird, it was just massive. That's not the norm, and since it was the very first egg she's ever laid in her life, that could have had something to do with it's size, I'm not really sure on that honestly. "Firsts" for birds usually do go wrong, like the first clutch of baby birds a breeding-pair has when they've never been parents before, that often goes very wrong for a million reasons. So if they take the X-Ray on Wednesday and she does have an egg in her Oviduct, they'll also be able to see it's size and be able to tell if she's going to be able to lay it. If it's small enough that she's able to lay it then they'll hold-off on putting the implant in because it will interfere with her laying the egg, and they'll probably give her another shot of Oxytocin if the egg is in the Oviduct and fully formed/hard-shelled and ready to go. Then as soon as she lays it she can have the implant put in...If she would happen to have another huge egg in her Oviduct, which I highly doubt, there are other ways that your Vet can do besides opening her back up again to remove it, he's not going to want to do that again this soon, she's not yet recovered from the first time...So more than likely he would do the procedure to drain the egg's contents through her Cloaca and then remove the shell piece by piece the same way, which is not an invasive procedure at all and when it's done it's done, there's no recovery from that procedure...The only reason he didn't do that the first time was because of the risk of egg-yolk peritonitis, but now he would have to do it...

Just hang in there, chances are that the X-Ray on Wednesday will at worst show some Follicles present, which will not delay them putting the implant in. And then within 30 days all of these hormones will be gone and so will your constant worry. But I have to say that I'm thrilled that you chose to request the Vet put the implants in now instead of waiting until the fall to do so, because this is exactly the reason that I suggested it to you...It's very common for them to become hormonal right after having an egg removed, in fact it's really the norm because where there was one egg in the Oviduct, that means there were many more Follicles where that egg came from...

 

[SunnyGirl]

EllenD, you were such a huge help in all this, if not for you I would probably not know most of the things I do now and my anxiety would have messed me up pretty much completelly... now here's to hoping there are no follicles or eggs at all and that Sunny is just acting hormonal and not actually producing anything just yet and that the implants start working soon... it will be a long month, no matter what happens... january was horrible, now I just hope the last part of february and then march go way better...

how do follicles look on an x-ray anyway?

on the positive note: we learned that yellow peppers are not dangerous and that brussle sprouts don't bite she seems to like both after I started to cut them into bigger pieces, I was seriously surprised!!!

 

[Aratingettar]

You can also weight her daily to monitor her body weight, it is supposed to rapidly increase when she will develop another egg.. And best if done on the same time everyday, eg. in the morning just after the "morning bomb".

 

[SunnyGirl]

we're at the vet.... he made an x-ray aaaaand NO EGG!!!!omg best news ever! I am so relieved right now....

now we're waiting for them to have room on the table to get her under hass and those implants in... he will draw a bit of blood too for tests so we can be really sure there is no infection or whatever going on... I'll update when we get home again...

she is sitting on my shoulder all fluffed up and pressing herself to my neck, not even a sound, it's so weird... my poor baby... she hates the towels even more now...

 

[SunnyGirl]

and we're finally home

the bloodwork came back fine, everything is ok, just her calcium is still a bit low... I did give cuttlebone shavings over her food, but apparently not enough (didn't want to overdo it so yeah...), her belly healed very nicely and the stitches are all out and with the feathers grown back fully you can't see anything anymore... the implant is in and now we wait how Sunny will react to it, hope it goes well

she is in her cage and is eating like a garbage disposal (we were out for 4 hours and she didn't want to eat or drink anything at all till we got home), she seems fine and is a bit more lively than she was last time we got back from the vet...


and the obligatory pics:

compared to the x-ray from last time this looks way better and she is half the width she was with that huge egg inside...

in the office, she almost fell asleep after the x-ray

and the poor fluff when I got her back after the implant, she looked horrible, luckily you could see her breathing :24:

 

[Aratingettar]

Indeed she looks scary on the "after" picture. It must have been hard for her, but hopefully will properly react to the implant. I'm glad all is OK for now!

 

[SunnyGirl]

it was scary when he brought her in all limp and not moving but yeah, he had to get her sedated (with gas so she was back in a few minutes) to get the implant in at all... but you could see her breathing and make her sleeping squeeky noises so the shock was just for a second...

we were told to expect her behaviour being weird for a few days or so due to the implant and we need to keep all the ''discourage breeding behaviour'' things going as much as possible and most of them forever (like the tent removal, petting and similar), but I can soon move the cage back to her normal spot (it's very inconvenient where it is now, but I had to move it) and give her all her toys back too...

 

[Jen5200]

So glad that she’s got her implant, and no egg! Hopefully all good news from here on

 

[EllenD]

Yay!!! So glad everything went well and she's now on her way to not having to deal with the egg issues...I didn't get to answer your question about what follicles look like on an x-ray, lol, but she doesn't have any!!! Just as an FYI, follicles on an x-ray look like very faint, black circles, usually you see a cluster or clusters of them up above their Oviduct. They can be hard to see because all you can really see are the very faint, white outlines of them, so imagine a cluster of grapes almost, but the grapes are black and all you can see are their outlines...None showing on that x-ray!!!

I know how scary it is to see your bird sedated; birds really do look dead when they are under sedation/anesthesia, more-so than any other animal does. They look completely limp, their feet up in the air with their toes curled up, and it's terribly upsetting, I know...But your CAV uses Isoflurene gas, so it's actually very safe for them, and is out of their system in a matter of minutes, so you've got a great CAV...We've had people come here who have taken their birds to a Vet for something like a simple blood draw or even a toenail clipping, and they've actually put their birds under general-anesthesia for it!!! It's ridiculously dangerous and unnecessary...

If you ever get the chance, I suggest you watch any of the episodes of "Dr. K's Exotic Animal ER", it's a show on National Geographic Wild, but you can watch it for free several places online like DailyMotion, or even on Fox.com or the National Geographic channel website...There are a ton of episodes each season (6 seasons) where she sees parrots, and they show the entire process of her examining the birds in the exam room with their owners, then taking the birds back into their main treatment room, where they easily, quickly, and efficiently do everything from blood-draws and fecal exams (and they use no sedation at all), to putting them under with the Isoflurene gas and then quickly taking an x-ray and doing anything else they have to do under sedation, and the bird waking up and being put inside of an incubator for a few minutes before going back to their owners...They are so good and know their stuff so well when it comes to birds that an entire gas sedation/blood-draw/x-ray only takes a couple minutes from start to finish. And the only thing they use general anesthesia for are surgical procedures...

Hopefully the implants kick-in and you'll start seeing a change in her hormonal behaviors soon. Usually it takes a full month to really shut-down the reproductive system and for all of the hormones already released into her system to dissipate so that she has NO hormones at all in her system, but you should see some very obvious changes within the next week or two, and then more and more after that. By this time next month her reproductive system should be fully shut-down, and all of the nesting behaviors and broodiness should be totally gone.

 

[SunnyGirl]

yay for no follicles too!!!

it was the second time I saw her sedated, but first time for my mum... huge shock...

I asked again and the general-anesthesia isn't used on birds at all, not even on the bigger ones, so it really does take pressure off of the whole thing he didn't sedate her for the x-ray today in case something were wrong so you can see his fingers on the x-ray too haha... we hate towels now... grey towels especially...

I'd need to look up Dr. K online (youtube too maybe) as we don't really get that many foreign television, well I do know we don't have those programs with our TV provider, but I will deffinitelly look it up

she has been hormonal this past week, screaming a lot more and being nippy when you try to preven her from going under your shirt, with all that has happened today she just wants to cuddle and get into my shirt a lot more, but that's understandable with all the torture she was put through today hehe hopefully this stops in a day or two as it's really a bit annoying, she keeps sticking her toung into my ear and prenning me all over the place too :15: I'm just happy it went so well and hopefull that it will go well from here on too and that the implants really do their work like intended...

now that this is resolved, we need to hardcore train my mum a bit more...

 

[SunnyGirl]

for 2 days now she wants to cuddle like this, hasn't done it in months! just now I let her and she fell asleep, I am melting, this is too cute :heart:

 

[noodles123]

Very cute!

*just be careful about where you are touching*
I firmly believe head and neck are really the only safe areas aside from super quick contact elsewhere.

 

[SunnyGirl]

we are very careful only to touch the head and a bit down the neck she was sitting on my finger and started to lean back to get like this against my shirt, I had my hand only as near so she could have her feet on them, wasn't touching the feathers, one leg went up and she was fast asleep... I normally don't let her do it now at all, but today I made a small example, it's her 7th 'birthday' we celebrate her birthday on the day I brought her home cause I never learned her actual hatch day apart from 'some time early december)

 

[SunnyGirl]

short update:

she's on the Suprelorin implants a whole week now... I haven't seen her so hyperactive in months it seems like her behaviour is more and more hyperactive, loud, demanding every day... she can't sit still for a second, demands our whole attention... but luckilly no butt-rubbing or biting or aggression, though she does want to hide in my shirt or at least lean against my arm when not busy flying around and making me chase her all around the place...

she healed amazingly and normally, that means more energy, but it's also the implants making her go a bit into overdrive, I think... it should get better after next week... I can't wait

 

[SunnyGirl]

here we go, second day of moodswings... yeah, I know most parrots are like this on a normal basis, and this one is a hyperactive fluffball too, but it is just different to how she normally behaved... I can't explain well, sorry...

it's a circle of:
- omg cuddle me!
- ugh don't touch me
- sleep
- omg what is this, omg what is that
- FOOD!!!
- AAA DANGER *screams head off*
- cuddle time

it's much more instantaneously and shanges in a second from angry screaming to cuddle bug and hungry liek she didn't eat for a month :02:
and she preens a lot more than she normally does, she's molting still too...

I have no idea if anyone is still following this, it probably just sounds silly now, some might think this looks like a normal parrot or whatever, but I just wasted to keep updating with things I think are weird for my fluffball... it might actually help someone some day haha she's a weird bird as is, this is making her waaay weirder... I never thought it was possible... well I never thought any of this was possible, so yeah...

 

[charmedbyekkie]

Definitely keep updating! When I first got Cairo, having read through the history found in the forum was incredibly helpful. Even seemingly normal things helped to give me an understanding of what is a good baseline normal range and what is abnormal. Like molts - I was totally clueless on how long, what they look like, what changes to expect, etc.

So please keep updating! It'll always be helpful to someone.

 

[SunnyGirl]

thanks none of the sites in my language has ANY information about anything regarding parrots (apart from the basic - parrot is from africa, it eats xy, lives 15-30years or similar), they only sell stuff for budgies, only 2 avian vets in the whole country (a university vet program too but nooen really knows if they are usefull for birds really), it's only gotten better in the last few years that people actually take parrots to the vet, yet you still get weird looks for doing it... cats and dogs get all the stuff, vets, attention though... without this forum and all the info I've read and people I've talked to or that gave me advice my Sunny probably would have been dead or in a bad condition, also I was lucky to find that one of two vets that knows his stuff

there are a few parrot groups on Facebook that I thought were great before, but now those same people seem a bit weird and I see stuff I never noticed before cause I didn't have the same experience about it than I have now... snuggle huts in almost every cage, you get attacked when you say it's bag and to get rid of it just one thing I noticed most... how just one day in your life can change your viewpoint on something completelly... would anyone have told me this last year I would have laughed and thought they were crazy...

I've read half of google on those implants and I found almost no info what happens in the first week or two after getting them implanted... all threads are updated with info that is like months or even a whole year after getting the implants and when you panic the info ''oh it works well, got it done 7 months ago'' sadly doesn't help that much... very useful information, it works, my bied will be ok (probably), people like it,... but... from experience with my knee surgery: my knee before injury, my knee with injury, my knee first 3 weeks after surgery and my knee after xy years are so completelly different things you would never believe it if you didn't go through something like it yourself... so naturally: bird before surgery, bird after surgery, bird before implant, bird first week after implant, bird after a year... you get the idea... add a family that is 'meh' about it and stamps you off as paranoid when you can clearly see the the poor thing is acting different... I just get a bit too obsessed with how what who where why when and every and any smallest detail about a thing, down to ''how many dust particles od calcium do I give'' :52:

 

[Jen5200]

I love seeing Sunny updates. And I think it’s useful information for others. I follow this because I think Sunny is adorable , and I also have 4 female birds so it’s helpful to know what egg binding might look like and what effects implants might have. Hope you keep sharing!

 

[SunnyGirl]

ooooh thank you :heart:

well right now she is beyond hyperactive, I need to watch where she flies from/to cause she is navigating like a drunk, almost landed in my face twice... lands on me, climbs on my head and leans down so she hangs on my hair in front of my face demanding kisses.... then yells at me when I try to get her off or maybe cause she didn't get tho 300 kisses she wanted... half way through typing this she waddled to my shoulder, leaned her beak on my ear and I am deaf now... darn she can yell :34: