Post by Adele on May 21, 2020 18:13:47 GMT -7
Lately, I've been feeling like an unfit parrot mom and put my parrots in life threatening situations by accident. First, a couple months ago Manzi escaped and flew off. After 24 hrs, I had him back, but we were both terrified.
Then, two weeks ago, my parrots got into rat poison. I have been seeing rats going into the aviary at night to scavenge any crumbs Manzi and Maui drop. I clean up their food dishes in the evening, but there are still pieces dropped in the dirt that I don't see. I have tried sticky traps, snap traps and finally went to low grade poison (the strong stuff is illegal to use in CA due to the harm to raptors). I put it out at night, and then carefully collect it all in the morning, searching the aviary in case any was dragged away and dropped. Then, I put Manzi and Maui out for a few hours. The one place I didn't check for rat poison was a little home on the opposite side of the aviary (my neighbor built it for them). It is high up and far from the poison, so I didn't even think that rats might carry it up into that box.
So after a few hours, I went into the aviary to check on them, say hello and hang out a bit. Then I saw Maui come out of the box with poison all over her beak, feet and crumbled all over the box. I realized the rats must have dragged the poison up into their box to eat. I completely freaked out. I started calling vets, beginning with my local avian vet. They were all booked for at least two weeks! There is an emergency vet an hour away. I called them and they said it is a 5 hour minimum wait to see a vet and they didn't have any avian vets available. I didn't think it would be wise to wait that long. I have a good friend who is a registered vet tech, and I called her right away to see if she can call her vet to get some instructions. Her vet was away as well.
Fortunately, I remembered someone at my company who works with chickens (she has an M.S. in chicken biology). She told me to skip the avian vet and that I needed to get activated charcoal into them as quickly as possible, then start dosing them with vit k (along with a fatty meal). She was able to give me all the doses as well. Another thing in my favor is that we have a specialty store just across the street. So I was able to get all the products I needed, and I used some syringes that I have for baby medicine, and I made both Maui and Manzi take the doses. I didn't see Manzi near the poison, but I didn't want to take any chances, and the medicine they needed will not do them any harm. Then, for the next 10 days, I was giving them doses of vit k every 12 hours. After a couple stressful situations with the syringe, I found that I could crush the pills, and mix them with a small amount of peanut butter and they'd gobble it up. The poison takes 3-5 days to kill rats. I was weighing both birds twice per day to verify that their weight wasn't dropping at all. Fortunately, after being incredibly stressed all week, I started to feel better. I was calling my coworker every day discussing what to look for and future actions. After 10 days, she said I could stop the dosing. Now it has been two weeks and the birds haven't shown any symptoms at all.
The vit k is the antidote to the poison though, so if dosed regularly, it should neutralize it. Also, the activated charcoal will absorb any toxins that were recently in the digestive system. I'm so happy that they are fine, but I still feel terrible. I've been pretty stressed with quarantine as my kids and husband were all at home and we've been struggling to work while watching the kids. But for me to slip up and almost kill my parrots is so scary. Sometimes life seems a bit overwhelming, but I love my parrots so dearly and would be crushed if anything happened to them!!!
Then, two weeks ago, my parrots got into rat poison. I have been seeing rats going into the aviary at night to scavenge any crumbs Manzi and Maui drop. I clean up their food dishes in the evening, but there are still pieces dropped in the dirt that I don't see. I have tried sticky traps, snap traps and finally went to low grade poison (the strong stuff is illegal to use in CA due to the harm to raptors). I put it out at night, and then carefully collect it all in the morning, searching the aviary in case any was dragged away and dropped. Then, I put Manzi and Maui out for a few hours. The one place I didn't check for rat poison was a little home on the opposite side of the aviary (my neighbor built it for them). It is high up and far from the poison, so I didn't even think that rats might carry it up into that box.
So after a few hours, I went into the aviary to check on them, say hello and hang out a bit. Then I saw Maui come out of the box with poison all over her beak, feet and crumbled all over the box. I realized the rats must have dragged the poison up into their box to eat. I completely freaked out. I started calling vets, beginning with my local avian vet. They were all booked for at least two weeks! There is an emergency vet an hour away. I called them and they said it is a 5 hour minimum wait to see a vet and they didn't have any avian vets available. I didn't think it would be wise to wait that long. I have a good friend who is a registered vet tech, and I called her right away to see if she can call her vet to get some instructions. Her vet was away as well.
Fortunately, I remembered someone at my company who works with chickens (she has an M.S. in chicken biology). She told me to skip the avian vet and that I needed to get activated charcoal into them as quickly as possible, then start dosing them with vit k (along with a fatty meal). She was able to give me all the doses as well. Another thing in my favor is that we have a specialty store just across the street. So I was able to get all the products I needed, and I used some syringes that I have for baby medicine, and I made both Maui and Manzi take the doses. I didn't see Manzi near the poison, but I didn't want to take any chances, and the medicine they needed will not do them any harm. Then, for the next 10 days, I was giving them doses of vit k every 12 hours. After a couple stressful situations with the syringe, I found that I could crush the pills, and mix them with a small amount of peanut butter and they'd gobble it up. The poison takes 3-5 days to kill rats. I was weighing both birds twice per day to verify that their weight wasn't dropping at all. Fortunately, after being incredibly stressed all week, I started to feel better. I was calling my coworker every day discussing what to look for and future actions. After 10 days, she said I could stop the dosing. Now it has been two weeks and the birds haven't shown any symptoms at all.
The vit k is the antidote to the poison though, so if dosed regularly, it should neutralize it. Also, the activated charcoal will absorb any toxins that were recently in the digestive system. I'm so happy that they are fine, but I still feel terrible. I've been pretty stressed with quarantine as my kids and husband were all at home and we've been struggling to work while watching the kids. But for me to slip up and almost kill my parrots is so scary. Sometimes life seems a bit overwhelming, but I love my parrots so dearly and would be crushed if anything happened to them!!!
