Our little Berdie died this morning. She was just 6 1/2 years
old, half what her lifespan should have been! For the last
year she had been going lame from tumors and ever the opportunist,
AGY took hold of her and wouldn't let go. It broke my heart
that she suffered but she is no longer hurting. She flew away
but her little body joined Alex and Anthony under the apple tree and
I think someday that tree is going to grow budgies, not apples!
Berdie was
my very first budgie. I got her in January of 2003. When I
first got her, she was very quiet and I felt she was lonely so I got her
a friend, Bluie. They were inseparable for a few years until Jada
came along and Berdie was totally smitten with him. After some
time, Berdie and Jada were
no longer a pair and Berdie seemed to prefer Caesar's company. Poor Bluie...he was a single fella for a long
time...but he then had Alex and Jada is now paired up with Sweetpea.
Berdie had
suffered from xanthomas (fatty tumors). She had
gotten them
mainly on
her abdomen but sometimes I had seen them on her back. We
struggled through one major xanthoma back in January of 2006. We took her to the vet and the vet basically said
other than surgery there wasn't much they could do. She
said she probably wouldn't survive the surgery and the surgery
was well beyond my means, anywhere from $3,000 to $5,000.
Berdie's xanthoma was ulcerated and Berdie kept picking at it,
which meant at some point she was going to bleed to death.
The vet didn't give us very much help or advice and we were
pretty much on our own. But necessity is the mother of
invention, and so we made our own collars to stop her from being
able to pick at her tumors. The first ones were awful.
We had made
them from foam insulation and medical tape but that didn't work
out so well as she would manage to chew them up and we'd have to
keep replacing them. We
then made an Elizabethan collar (see under how to make a collar)
for Berdie. We got very soft plastic that would bend
easily,
and little round Velcro circles, plus some pink bias tape.
The results are below. We kept the collar on her through
the weekdays, took it off on Saturday or Sunday to let her bathe and do major preening.
Meanwhile we would put
polysporin on her ulcerated xanthoma. My vet was not happy
that we collared Berdie and asked us how we'd feel if we
couldn't scratch an itch. That very well may be true,
and she's entitled to her opinion, but
really how would we feel if Berdie bled to death some night
while we were sleeping!??? We kept her in her collar for a couple of months
and after we saw that the ulceration had healed up, we let her
out of her collar again. Later in that year, her tumor
had disappeared altogether. Unfortunately, Berdie grew
another tumor. It didn't ulcerate that time but we
watched her very closely.
She
did hate being in
a collar and I
can't blame her. But it didn't get in her way when she
was flying or eating, it was very flexible so it wasn't cruel,
but necessary. It has saved her life that's for
sure. The tumors seem to be seasonal, they seem to appear in the
colder months from about November onwards through to anywhere from
February to April. So far, they come and they go. It's now
June of 2008 and she's been without them since probably about
February of 2007.
She requires a lot of exercise. That isn't a problem for her
as she loves to fly .
Unfortunately, for a time she couldn't get any exercise as she was
confined with Jada (as you will see below)
Berdie
was my little angel for another reason.
Jada had megabacteria/AGY and he had lost so much weight. We fought so hard to feed
him by syringe but he kept losing weight despite our best efforts. Anywhere
I looked
for advice, internet, forums or the vet,
they advise to separate a sick bird into a hospital cage
by itself, but I feel there are exceptions. We did separate him at first but we weren't being successful in
making him gain weight and keep it on. Berdie watched all these
goings on, and she was always close to the edge of the main cage
watching Jada. Out of desperation, I decided that since Berdie had been
exposed to megabacteria as well and wasn't sick, that maybe if I put
her in with Jada in his hospital cage, that she could help him...maybe
she would feed him, as they are a bonded pair. Well, she proved to be
just that little angel we hoped for! She seemed to understand immediately what
had to be done and started feeding him. The first few days, she
just ran back and forth between the food dish and Jada. She
would eat and eat and then go to Jada and feed him. If it
weren't for Berdie, I don't think Jada would have made it, which he
did and with a full recovery (see
more under Jada's page).
Baby
Pics
Berdie with her various collars when
she had her xanthoma
