How cute is my Matey-bird?!
For those of you who have never met my gorgeous bird, this is Mate. We've enjoyed his company for about 16 or 17 years. I'm not sure exactly how old he is. He was originally my brother's bird. For some strange reason, he didn't feel the need to record Mate's birthday and celebrate it every year. When Tim moved to Canberra several years back, I inherited Mate. I don't know why, but Mate had always liked me. Maybe it's my hair - he used to like landing on my head!
For the first time in his life, Mate visited the vet today. He took it quite well actually. Impressive - he's apparently the equivalent of 70 years old! I can tell he's getting on in years - he's slowing down a bit and getting grumpier - but he's still going well.
I was a bit suspicious of vets since my budgie died last year the night after a visit to the vet. However, Mate had been getting quite agitated, squeaking and picking at his feathers. So, off we went to a specialist bird vet in Waterloo, Mate's cage strapped into the passenger seat in my car. I don't think he enjoyed the car ride much. The intertia from accelerating and decelerating disturbed him a bit, but he was still happy to chirp and whistle to me.
Mate coped very well with the vet - I was very impressed. He even had a blood test and an injection of antibiotics. I could tell he wasn't happy with me, because he ignored me all the way home, but after a bit of a rest he was talking to me again. It's probably nothing serious, but he does have a slight skin infection, and the vet also tested for kidney and liver disease (still waiting for those results). Apparently, feather-picking can be brought on by boredom and hormones. It seems that this wasn't the best time of the year for me (his 'girlfriend', as the vet called me) to have gone away for a whole month!
The main outcomes of this experience: I have to give Mate antibiotics twice a day for 10 days - holding him in a towel and putting two drops directly into his beak. I just tried this for the first time. He was not impressed! Also, Mate's diet is apparently not good, and while his weight is on the low side of normal, he has some fat deposits somewhere he's not supposed to. I didn't know this, but bird seed is the equivalent of fast food. Sunflower seeds are like McDonalds. So, Mate needs to eat more greens and stuff like pasta, rice and potato. It will be interesting trying to train him to eat this stuff! Such an old bird - he's quite set in his ways! And I've tried to give him more things to play with and destroy with that powerful little beak. I think he's a bit confused by all this new stuff!
3 comments:
Poor little fella. I am sure he will work things out sooner or later. If he is eating food like that, then you can join in with him!
My housemate Dave has a cockatiel very similar to that. He's got heaps of character and is really happy to see me when I get home from work. He loves destroying things especially thos big ropes you can get. Recently Dave gave him a chup a chup stick to play with which he loved!
Yeah, most animals who go to the vet's tend to be stressed out, not due to the vet's fault of course. Anyone who tells me that I'm being cruel when I vaccinate an animal can just stop going to the vet's. But hopefully Matey will improve. (Just don't blame the vet if he doesn't.)
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