It’s why I find myself writing this post – I want people to clearly see what a difference they’re making to their bird’s future when they bother to do the work that it takes to feed a decent diet and provide a decent environment.Ħ3 years or more is amazing and I know his previous owners would probably argue that their diet and whatever else achieved that. It’s exhausting and I find myself wishing that the knowledge we have now about a decent diet had been around when Cocky Boy was younger, so that this situation might have been prevented. These include everything from blood tests, to Xrays, to visits with a specialist cardiologist (who normally does cats/dogs) for ultrasounds – just to get the diagnosis and the medication dosages right. Then there’s the constant re-working of doses and meds to keep fine-tuning it until we get the desired results. Meanwhile, I’m watching that he is maintaining his grooming as sometimes (due to the lack of movement caused by arthritis) his vent becomes unhealthily blocked and he needs extra help bathing. Plus I’m monitoring his weight daily, his droppings and food intake. To give you some idea – the arthritis medication is twice a day, he’s been on two different heart meds simultaneously also twice a day, a medication to help his breathing 3 times a day, antibiotics for the infection twice a day, probiotics in his water as needed, and now he has a pressure sore that needs attention. He’s gone from voluntarily swallowing arthritis medication 1-2 times daily (which apparently tastes alright), to cringing at the sight of me with a syringe. Pretty sure this is why he regularly roars: "Give it back!!!" I’ve been crushing and dissolving tablets, dividing the powder from capsules into tenths on a set of jewellery scales and mixing them with all sorts of things to make them more palatable to Cocky Boy. It’s starting to be seen more as knowledge grows enough to diagnose it, but not enough for avian heart meds to just be readily pulled off a shelf. Birds with treatable heart disease aren’t yet common in Australia. His avian vet has had to adapt cat/dog heart meds for him. His medication has felt like a giant experiment to me. He is actually developing a pressure sore just under his keel bone because he has lost all of his padding and can’t perch normally due to his arthritis. Ironically, his weight is now the same as my much younger and healthier galahs’ normal weight – it’s just not normal for Cocky Boy. I’m hoping we’ve stopped the weight loss, but Cocky Boy has yet to regain any weight. He then proceeds to try to bash me with it. Stealing the syringe is a favourite game.
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