Re: Military Macaw labored/loud breathing
Well, finally an update on our Military Macaw. First, in my haste and panic this morning, I said he was 7 years old. Actually, he was 17.
I want to send a very sincere thank you to all of those on this forum who offered their insight and comments. You are a great group of folks.
You may recall that my call for help went out about 7am today after our macaw (Sarge) started very labored breathing early this morning. We had taken him to the vet who normally maintains him for us last Tuesday to see why his breathing was getting somewhat labored. She has always done a good job with Sarge, but in our 12 years of owning him (adoption), he has never been ill. On Tuesday she did a swab of his mouth and found a little bacteria that shouldn't have been there so started him on a bacterial antibiotic (Orbax). We adminstered that daily for four days and saw no change until early this morning. That vet is not in on Saturdays, thus my panic post this morning. We were able to locate a vet who also handles exotics and was an hour away. We got Sarge there by 8am and her staff started him on oxygen. The vet arrived about 8:30am and after settling in soon began to check Sarge out. The oxygen did not help his breathing, but made him somewhat less stressed.
She x-rayed him and had a long discussion with us about him and her diagnosis. She said her best thought was aspergillosis along with pneumonia. We were to leave him there over the weekend for treatment, but she said his chances were less than 50/50. As we sat in our car ready to leave, the tech came out and tapped on our window. She said Sarge had suddenly taken a turn for the worse and we should come back in.
Within 10 minutes he died.
We will miss him very much. We feel huge amounts of guilt and our day has been tearful and dreadful. Again, thanks to all who tried to help.
Very sincerely,
Rick and Chris (and Sarge)
