I was in the bird forum quite often to know that a handicapped lovebird is on adoption. My heart goes all out to it. So i told the fosterer i would adopt unless no one take in. At that moment, there were two interested parties. Whether i get to adopt anot is not a must. Actually, i had ambivalence about adopting. Fearing i cannot give it the best care too. Somehow the two interested parties ended up getting a totally new and normal birds, so i got to adopt the handicapped lovebird.
This is my special FID. And yes, it's missing a foot. Apparently, it was saved from culling in a bird farm by the fosterer. It was a baby when she took it back home to nurse. The breeder used palm leaves material which trapped the baby legs, cutting blood circulation. The left leg was badly affected compared to the right. All the claws and toes on the left dropped off one by one. Although the right leg is usable, there is already one missing toe. One of the three toes present seemed to be fractured or something.
I am supposed to only view it on Monday but ended up bringing it home since fosterer say it's more or less wean. Of course, Yida was the one agreeing to bringing it home first. So i cooked up a lie for my mum. Told her it was found in the bushes where cats were patrolling around. Heard frantic chirps like Twinkle so i decided to investigate and there i saw the bird. Grabbed it up and realised its handicapped. Can't bear to return it to the wild. I thought i could make use of her sympathy but i failed. She flared up like no body biz and demanded me to put it away. She did not want to see it the next day. On our side, we had actually got the Sunset's cage from Jadey on Sunday. It was in the car. We both no guts to bring up. Thus, we only get to set up the cage while my mum was asleep. She never talk to me the next day till evening time. Somehow, her sympathy only got activated after a day. And i got to keep the special one!!
I went home yesterday and found the red spot at the end of the stump redder. He doesn't seem to eat the millet spray i gave. He was just lying on the micro-fibre cloth (which was meant for scrubbing face) to sleep. As shock as i was, i quickly put him on the weighing scale. His weight dropped badly. I am so scared nasty things would happen to him in my hands. So i took out the syringe with rubber tubing (found in while ransacking bird stuff for cage set up) and tried VERY hard to feed with that. He seemed very hungry upon seeing the tubing. With the help of Yida, we pumped 5ml into his crop. The nicely 'ballooned' crop was felt and his weight increased by 6g. This meant there were food in him liao. He looked much better after the feed. Guess he was not weaned!!!!!!! Geez, safest way was to feed him twice a day- before i go work and at night. But i still need some help to feed with the tube. =x
I named him FooTy. Ju said it was such a apt name. Haha... so can anot? My brother said i will keep remindind FooTy of his handicap
The sleeping tent was finally dry. I put it in and grab him in. He has a hard time trying to move backwards so not to poo inside. Still, he didn't managed to poo outside. I guessed i had to buy more tents and change.
His cage. I am extremely UNsatisfied. Seriously, there are so much to improve but i just don't have the material. With the partially covered bottom grill, he seemed to love that area more. Well, i guessed i would have no choice but just use 100% towel for the bedding. At least they would absorb the poo immediately. With the vertical cage bars, he really had trouble climbing. Sigh!
I saw some of these platforms online and probably would purchase a few. FooTy still has his bird instinct of climbing high high up.
The broken leg was in the picture. Whatever is left was also fractured. I didn't get a good shot of the right leg though. Oh, ignore the poo. It was not sticking to its ass. He can't really move back and poo like normal birds that's why.
Please give me more suggestions on the cage if you have any!!
Labels: FooTy
Twinkling@
10/08/2008 07:50:00 AM
Such a lovely baby. Why were they culling birds on a bird farm?
Anyway, you want a bigger cage? Peaches' old cage is just sitting there, and I don't foresee myself getting another bird, so.. You want?
On second thought, the picture looks like bigger than mine.. Haha. Mine's the one you said Twinkle used to be using.
But if you still want the cage, let me know.
, at
1:23 PM
SinglePickyGwen, at
1:53 PM