parrot update early April

On Friday, Kianga crushed her remaining egg. I had been noticing that she was starting to look a little bored with sitting anyway, so I cleaned everything up Friday evening and - voila! It was like flipping a switch. I have my parrot companion back. She's back to her normal smartass self, talking, making her usual rude noises (she loves to make belching sounds), and asking to come out in the evening so she can get into things and have head scritches.

Aziza, on the other hand, has been more of an issue. She was due for a hormone shot last Saturday, but on Monday and Tuesday was already acting the way she did in the week before she got eggbound. Oh no, not again! I called the vet and got her in for a shot last Wednesday, but apparently it was not enough. She was just beside herself all weekend, and Sunday night she kept waking me up with shredding and digging in her cage papers. Finally at 2 am I removed them, but she spent all night on the floor of her cage. The next day and night she did act more normally, and was on her perch most of the time, but Tuesday morning I woke up to find that during the night she had laid a soft-shelled egg off her perch. It was broken on the floor of the cage, but I had slept Soundly enough (being tired from the previous night, I guess) that I didn't hear a thing. (I was at least relieved that she had managed to pass her egg without needing intervention!) I cleaned up, and called the vet.

The next option is to try a different hormone (more expensive no doubt, and it has to be given more frequently, so I will have to administer the shots myself). I hope we can work the schedule out, because there are three injections during the first week, and it just so happens I have to be out of town for two days next week at the local SETAC meeting, presenting a poster. If we can do them Saturday, Wednesday or Thursday morning, and then Saturday or Sunday, it will work fine, but if one of the shots has to be on Friday, we may have to delay, because nobody will be around who can give her that shot. Matt will be feeding and watering the birds and giving Aziza her oral meds (we can put them on a treat that she will eat), but he is scared of needles, and probably couldn't administer a shot to a bird without some help anyway.

I'll see what the vet says when I take Aziza in on Saturday. She has been eating and seems like she is doing pretty well otherwise - she has been engaged and even feisty since Monday.