Things started well this morning. Zuri's weight was stable and he even ate some seed in front of me.
He was still a very active bird, trying to climb small ledges (unsuccessfully though).
However, later in the afternoon we ran into a small issue. For the first time since we moved him to the very small cage, he's figured out how to get to his bandaged foot. He didn't need to roll over like he did that first night we brought him back home. No - he managed to figure out a way to bring his foot up to his beak. Fortunately, he only managed to get at the tape.
I think part of the reason why it might have happened today and not previously is that I didn't load his cage up with as much paper towel to chew - I quickly fixed that by adding more paper towel, in a fashion that it would be hard for him to bring his leg up through it.
We also touched up the bandage with some medical tape and I made the bandage bigger, so that the edge would be far away from the toe so that if he were to figure out a way to bring his leg back up, he'd have quite a bit of tape to chew on before getting to anything else, which hopefully will allow us plenty of time to fix things once more.
With that going on, I didn't really get him to interact with Shade today and I'm very happy we are home once again tomorrow and that Monday he has his follow-up appointment at the vet, where he will get a new bandage and, possibly, a broader collar (so that he can't bring his foot up to his beak). The Boy thinks that part of the issue is that the collar might have loosened up a bit, allowing Zuri to have more play with his neck and bend his head further down to meet his foot. In any case, I hope the vet will see to this new issue.
2 comments:
I'm sorry to hear about Zuri's toe, I hope he feels better soon!
I've learned from my own experience that Meyer's are quite feisty. My Meyer's, Rico, gets along great with one of the Sennies, wants to kill the other, and pretends the Grey doesn't exist unless she wants his food.
About a year ago I was cleaning their dishes so I left the feeder doors open while I ran back and forth getting them fresh water and food. Rico snuck out of his little door, and went straight for Bailey (the Sennie he hates) in his cage which was two cages away. When I went back in the room Rico was on top of a spare cage and I saw blood dripping from his foot. Luckily he loves me and will let me do anything for him so I grabbed him then got a damp paper towel so I could clean off his toe and get a better look.
Needless to say, his toe looked awfully mangled and I thought he was going to lose it. The bone was broken and his toe was pointing up. He didn't seem to be in any pain, and didn't care that I was examining him. Luckily it clotted pretty quickly and I made up a "hospital" cage for him with a very low rope perch and a towel on the bottom and moved the cage to where everyone in the house could keep an eye on him. I kept him in that cage during the days when I was at work, then he would sleep in his travel cage in my room (which he still does to this day).
I kept him supplied with lots of his favorite foods and snacks and whenever he would put that foot near his beak, we would distract him. I made sure his toe was always clean, and I would squeeze some aloe from a plant onto it to hopefully speed up the healing. I did talk to his vet and vet tech during all this and they said i was doing everything right.
After about two weeks his toe looked a lot better, he had never pulled the scab off, so it had started falling off on it's own. It was still crooked, but there wasn't much I could do about that. I put him back in his normal cage so he could be with his flock instead of constantly calling to them from downstairs.
Now, his toe looks almost as if nothing happened to it. It's slightly deformed, but still functional. His nail grows a little slower than the others, but all that matters is that he's safe and happy.
Sorry for the novel, but don't worry too much. These little birds are surprisingly resilient little creatures.
Thanks for your story.
Oh feisty they are! It's not the first time he tried going for the other Meyer's, in fact when that other Meyer's (who dislikes me) tries to attack me, Zuri will often try to be the brave one and defend me.
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