jmfleish
Cruising the avenue
Vendor
Avenue Veteran
Celebirdy of the Month
Mayor of the Avenue
Avenue Spotlight Award
So, we got Houdini into the vet today. There is something weird going on with his left eye. It appears to be a problem with the nictating membrane. They did the physical with me there and he looks good for the most part but is not 10 years old. The band he has on is a round open band and most likely means he was a wild caught import. We haven't been able to legally import birds since 1992 which puts his age at at least 26. The band is hard to read because it's worn. We can see some numbers and possibly a W on it. Mickey has the same band on him although I haven't tried to read it yet. We're hoping that we can see more info on his band.
Other than that, his feet are pretty worn. Dr. Martel kept calling them old man feet. I'd take a picture of them but they had him toweled and I wasn't thinking of it at the time. He had some crusty feathers in his ears that Dr. Martel removed and his nares are kind of a brown color as well as the back of his tail, most likely cigarette smoke stains as his previous owner smoked. They wanted ophthalmology to take a look at his eye because they have better tools but they were in the middle of a surgery and had a horse scheduled next. I just left him there and they are going to fit him in when they can and give me a call when he's ready to come home.
The seed diet he was on has done a number on the choana in the back of his thoat...the papillae are very blunted. He eats like a champ though and will devour anything I give him so I'm hoping a good diet can turn around any deficiencies he may have. They did pull blood and we will be doing some disease testing on him and a heavy metal test because of the stuff that was in his cage. I suggested x-rays but Dr. Martel said that we'd be better off going with the blood test because x-ray could be hit or miss.
We decided to vet Houdini first and hope to get Mickey in next week. I'm expecting the same basic issues with Mickey although Mickey isn't as hip to eating healthy food as Houdini is. I did get him to dig into some sweet potato mixed in with pellets last night and we are out of the seed mix they came with so I'm hoping I don't have to buy more! I have a Goldenfeast seed mix for the Linnies that I can try if he doesn't continue to eat the pellets...of course, eating the pellets might have to continue happening with the bribe of sweet potato but I'm good with that!
Other than that, his feet are pretty worn. Dr. Martel kept calling them old man feet. I'd take a picture of them but they had him toweled and I wasn't thinking of it at the time. He had some crusty feathers in his ears that Dr. Martel removed and his nares are kind of a brown color as well as the back of his tail, most likely cigarette smoke stains as his previous owner smoked. They wanted ophthalmology to take a look at his eye because they have better tools but they were in the middle of a surgery and had a horse scheduled next. I just left him there and they are going to fit him in when they can and give me a call when he's ready to come home.
The seed diet he was on has done a number on the choana in the back of his thoat...the papillae are very blunted. He eats like a champ though and will devour anything I give him so I'm hoping a good diet can turn around any deficiencies he may have. They did pull blood and we will be doing some disease testing on him and a heavy metal test because of the stuff that was in his cage. I suggested x-rays but Dr. Martel said that we'd be better off going with the blood test because x-ray could be hit or miss.
We decided to vet Houdini first and hope to get Mickey in next week. I'm expecting the same basic issues with Mickey although Mickey isn't as hip to eating healthy food as Houdini is. I did get him to dig into some sweet potato mixed in with pellets last night and we are out of the seed mix they came with so I'm hoping I don't have to buy more! I have a Goldenfeast seed mix for the Linnies that I can try if he doesn't continue to eat the pellets...of course, eating the pellets might have to continue happening with the bribe of sweet potato but I'm good with that!
Last edited:
