Journal, Day 1391
Tuesday, 09 January 2024
Ukraine War: Day 686
Hamas-Israel War: Day 94
Mass shootings in the USA in 2024: 7
Kiki scared the fuck out of me this morning. It was scary enough that I texted my husband and told him he needed to come home. I thought we were losing her.
She layed an unexpected egg yesterday. She seemed fine afterward, although she was preening her butt area like it was hurting her until it was time for bed. She loves to be covered for bedtime, she flies and hops around her cage in joy.
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But this morning when I went to feed the birds their breakfast, she was fluffed up on the bottom of her cage. She was wobbly and weak and tried to perch near her water dish but couldn’t hang on. Her eyes were half-closed and looked sunken.
I immediately went into triage mode, moved her cage heater to the corner she was hunkered in, and moved her food and water dishes to the bottom of the cage near her where she could reach them without having to jump up onto a perch.
She drank several gulps of water and settled in to eat for a good ten minutes. I fed the other birds and then sat with her. She kept eating and eating. She started looking a little bit perkier, so I went back to work and put her cage camera on so I could watch her. After a few more minutes of eating, she went to the water dish, took a big drink, and then flopped in for a splashy bath.
Relieved, I kept watching. She then climbed up to the top platform perch of her cage to preen and fluff herself dry. She was fine. She even played with her ball and her toys. I wasn’t in the room, so she wasn’t acting healthy to hide an illness, she was honestly fine. I was texting my husband the whole time so he knew what was happening.
She seems to get a little wobbly after egg-laying, and we think she got low energy from a lack of eating and was dehydrated. She wasn’t able to perch near her dishes, so she didn’t eat or drink at all for several hours.
She’s fine now, we had an abbreviated play this evening (I was careful to keep her near the cage so she didn’t over-exert herself), and when it was time to cover her, she was back to her happy flappy antics.
We really have no idea how old she is, but from now on we will be treating her like the little old lady we suspect she’s become.
