A YOUTube Video Saved My Bird

Melly is only 4, too young to die

I flicked on the lights, greeted the Amazons, and opened the flight cage to release the cockatiels and parakeets. Then I saw her. Huddling in a food dish, puffed-out feathers, and glazed eyes, were all signs of illness, but it was her rapid breathing that frightened me. Her respiration rate was abnormally high. And her feet! Nelly was standing with extended feet, wide apart and straight, like me standing on tiptoes.

Birds perch with their ankles bent, folding themselves down on their feet. Their knees are hidden under their feathers, and the part we see is their long ankle bone bending as they perch.

Was she egg-bound? She and her mate, Paulie had been engaging in a lot of sex lately. Being egg-bound means the bird is unable to expel an egg from her body. It is stuck, making the bird critically ill, and death follows within a day or two for small birds.

Searching the internet provided a lot of information and advice to get the bird to an avian vet posthaste. I did not heed that advice for several reasons.

1) Melly does not enjoy being handled. She only knows me.
2) She has never been separated from her mate.
3) If she died during transport or at the vet’s, her mate would be devastated.