Bye Bye Birdie Bye Bye

October 4th, 2012

Today was a stellar day.  At least until about 5:00 this evening.  I have two parrots that live in seperate cages, side by side, in mybedroom bay window.  Drake has always been aware of them, but just sort of acted afraid and avoided that area.  Not tonight.  We were in my bedroom, except I was soaking in a well deserved bath. I heard the birdcage rattling, but thought the parrot was playing.  Then I heard another sound, bird screeching, dog barking.  So bath interrupted, I flew into my room.  The cage was close enough to the window ledge, close enough that he had managed to get up on the window ledge.  He was balanced because of the window on one side and the cage on the other side.  Drake had his nose pushed all the way inside the cage through the bars.  He was barking at his new friend or being aggressive, who knows.  However, my parrot Boggie looked at it as a home invasion.  As I got out of the tub I had seen Boggie quickly moving towards Drake, but I couldn't move fast enough.  More Drake did not see or understand what was about to happen, but I saw Boggie's beak on Drake's nose several times.  Looking back now in a calm manner, Boggie did not bite Drake, there was no blood or evidence of a bit.  Boggie will thump you with his beak, which is what I think happened, but it sent Boggie into a dark place that I had only heard about. 

I quickly moved the cage and grabbed Drake, thinking he was injured, he was kicking and barking.  He was hysterical.  I had to hold him in a Heimlich position for over an hour.  I finally called my grandson first to hand me his second pill for the day and then to get Boggie out of the room.  He had to disassemble the cage partially to get through the door, but Drake raged on.  He was tired, his barks were now whimpers.  No matter how tired he was, he continued to fight me.

Once the cage was out of the room, I put him down.  He went to the spot and whimpered, smelling the floor, the window, just running around in that area.  Then he turned on his own crate, which is wire and to him as close as he could find to the cage that housed the BIRD.  Then went on for another hour.  He was on top of the cage, inside the cage.  Barking, scratching, biting and barking with renewed energy.  I used my last resort squirt bottle, only a momentary surrender.  After two hours, I made the decision to give him another pill.  It was his third one for the day, but it was too late to call a vet and I knew he had to come out of this. 

After another half an hour went by, finally sleep.  He didn't sleep soundly, so after another hour, I moved to my bed where he normally slept.