Free Bird
Last October I accepted an offer of someone giving away a bird. After all, who can pass up a free cockatiel?
After Pi Bird lived with us for about a month, he got sick. I don’t know exactly what was wrong with him, but I finally took him to a local vet. Months have gone by, and Pi hasn’t gotten better. So today I took him to the University of Illinois vet clinic in Champaign. We spent over two hours in the exam room, while a team of docs and trainees checked him over. So now we have even more of an expert opinion that we don’t know what’s wrong, but we have more things to try. We’re also $200 lighter than we were at the beginning of the day.
So the next time someone offers you a free pet, just remember the advice given to me a while back by some horse owners: The cheapest thing about a horse is the purchase price. Same goes for any other animal, as far as I’m concerned. And “free” pets are the most expensive of all.
Posted in Everyday | 
2 Comments »
February 10th, 2009 at 11:45 am
One Saturday I found a Red Tail Hawk that I thought had been injured. We used a huge hammock to capture it and it sat on my lap for the long drive to U of I (this was before I became so involved in getting rid of the racism of the “chief”) = ANYWAY – they took her and months later we called to check on her. She had a pest in her that would make it so she could never fly. They gave her to a zoo for educational purposes. The Red Tail is my husband’s totem, so we were very glad these people were there to help this special bird. I hope your bird fares well also.
February 12th, 2009 at 2:22 am
you are so right Christie, we have experienced this with all the animals we have and have had in the past. From cats to Chinchilla’s, dogs to fish.
Recently, we had the same issue with the newest animals in our household: 2 of our 4 ginea pigs were ill. Buying them was not expensive, they cost like 15 dollar each. But multiple visits to the vet and medication…. After sore eyes and a snif and a cold, Luna and Lily got sick after eating too much lettuce and beans. Luna is Jesse’s white Lunkarya ginea pig and Lily is Lauryn’s dark-coloured roughhaired one. Bridget has Flower and Blossom, 2 sisters, Sheltie ginea pigs of 10 weeks old, and fortunately, they were ok.
Because ginea pigs have to eat all day, their guts have to keep working. If they slow down or stop completely and not get active within 24 hours, the animal will die.
Luna and Lily had diarrhea, didn’t eat and eventually no poo any more. I was very worried so I got up in the middle of the night to feed them with a siringe. If I hadn’t done that, they would have probably died the next day….
But now they are OK and soo cute and all of us are very happy that they eat tons of hey and poo all day..
o and by the way, it is snowing over here……
love, Karin