Giving up my cockatiel; had a huge fright yesterday and lost a lot of blood

[yellow]

I have a lutino cockatiel. It's been a while since I've been on here. Last night she had a fright episode and I can't go through this with her anymore. She tore her wing up pretty bad and I truly don't know if she's going to make it. She has bled a lot. The nearest avian to me is over 20 miles and its 5 degrees out. And they aren't open 24 hours. I work a lot of hours now and so she is home alone a lot. If she makes it through this, I would like to find a nice caring home for her. Somewhere that has the time and knows how to take care of these fright incidents. It's been her 2nd one in less then 6 months and happens in broad daylight. I'm just afraid that it's going to happen when I'm not home and there will be nothing I can do about it. The one last night happened just after 6pm and this morning she picked open the wound only to bleed again. I used corn starch to stop the bleeding. I do know that Tweetie is a "she" as this last year she dropped several eggs. She is tame and a very sweet bird, just I don't have the time to be home with her anymore and I want her to go to a good home. So, if she makes it, if you guys can help me find her an excellent home, I would be very greatful. Thanks!!

[Pipers Mom]

Hi Tim,
Your not that far from me. I'm in Roseville. I use Warren Woods Veterinary Hospital on Schoenherr just North of 12 Mile Road. It will be a commute from the Waterford area, but I have seen in the waiting room people bringing their beloved pets from Port Huron and the Romeo area's. They have 2 excellent avian vets. Dr. Cappel and Dr. Khalifah. I have a lot of confidence in both and I highly recommend them. I too had a female lutino cockatiel but she passed away almost two years ago. She lived to be 16. There is an Animal Emergency Center near downtown Rochester. It's on Second Street just off of Rochester Road, which will be much closer for you. What is nice about that clinic is that it's open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and does have an avian vet on staff. I have brought my tiels there when Warren Wood's office was closed. For some reason, my tiels always seemed to get ill over the weekend. If your Tweetie does need medical attention, I suggest that you warm up your car really well and place Tweetie in a carrier and wrap the carrier in a warm blanket. Our fids don't like drafts. My lutino, Piper did get a crop infection in this frigid cold weather that we are having and that is what they recommended me to do. Usually, an emergency vet will fax or email a report to your regular vet so they can keep it on file. Perhaps you can call one of the clinics that I suggested and they may help you re-home Tweetie. I know for sure that Warren Woods in Warren does help find animals homes.

[yellow]

I did look at her, she seems to have quit bleeding, now if I could just get her to leave the damaged wing alone. This time she has been a little different then times in the past. She is acting as if nothing is wrong this time. In times past when she lost this much blood, she wouldn't even chirp or move from her perch. She is very active this time, so I have her covered and in a darker room. I will contact them and see if they have anyone that will take her. She used to get out of her cage about 4 hours a day with me, now its much less. So I would love to give her up to someone that can take care of her and take her out and let her out of her cage a lot more.

[Pipers Mom]

It's a good sign that she seems more active. The vet may bandage the wing so she won't pick at it. My Piper bit Woodstock so hard that he bled and I couldn't stop it. I ended up taking him to the vet and they bandaged the wing. It was on for about 10 days. The vet wanted to make sure it was healed and if he were to pick at it, it wouldn't bleed anymore. Please keep us advised on Tweetie's wing and the progress on re-homing. I hope I was able to help you out.

[jaspersmama]

I can trust my tiel at night enough to leave her out of the cage..she likes to sleep on top and I leave a dim light on for her..I leave the cage open so she can eat and get water when she wants..I only lock her up if I have to leave for a long period of time during the day..it has helped her night frights alot...

[maxollie]

Carolyn has given you some great suggestions. I hope you will be able to take her advice and find help with the several options she suggested. As to the night frights, tiels are very sensitive of sound. They can hear sounds for miles away. I've had earthquake minor tremors hundreds of miles away from where I live, and my tiels would always pick up on that shaking of the earth and of course they too would be afraid. Also, if you have neighbors that have cats or other animals roaming around outside your home, that also can trigger a scared response from them. Do you keep Tweetie in your bedroom at night, or is she in a room away from you. Do you keep the cage covered at night, and/or do you also cover the cage part way in the daytime. I have found that tiels that scare easily seem more secure when you put some sort of cover on three sides of the cage. Leave the cover off the front of the cage, but cover the other three sides in the daytime and completely cover the cage at night and leave just enough space on the front toward the bottom of the cover that the tiel can see a light in the room, such as a night light. Another possibility is that before you got her she became terribly frightened in her prior home, aviary, etc. and tiels carry all of the "scars" of fright, and/or mistreatment abuse with them when they are rehomed. And also, even a baby bird that was frightened in its very first days of hatching can be very afraid. I purchased a little baby budgie in November from a Pet Shop. It has taken all of this time for my little Muffin to feel at home here, as well as to trust me. I've homed many, many budgies and tiels in my lifetime, and this poor little guy had to have been in an environment where there were many "bullies" to scare him, or in the alternative, a bigger bird, or some loud sound, etc.

I sure hope your little Tweetie will be o.k. I'll be praying that she will recover, and if you feel you still need to rehome her, I'm sure the suggestions Carolyn gave you will be of great help. I definitely can understand your concern about keeping her, and I admire you for realizing that she could end up very injured. And further, since you have to be gone in the daytime that also would be a concern for me too.

[maxollie]

As to leaving a tiel out of the cage at night, personally I would never allow any of my birds out of their cage while I was sleeping and/or when I am away from home. In my opinion, there are too many dangers lurking in ones home they can get into and end up seriously injured or even die.

This is only my own opinion. I am not nor would I tell anyone how to take care of their little birds, however, if it were me, I'd sure have my birds caged at night.

[yellow]

The funny parts so far about the frights is they have all happened in broad daylight when I've been home. I have even begun to think that maybe she got a feather caught in her cage somehow.....

[Marrie]

Is there an open window, or anything like that near her cage? She may be seeing something that spooks her, that you can't see. My tiel will spook about the oddest things and I have to rack my brain to figure out what it was! Once it was a cat way across the street in the grass not doing anything, that I couldn't even see until it moved enough. Another time it was a spider on the ceiling, that I didn't notice until my baby was sitting there terrified shaking and just staring up at the ceiling like it was going to eat him.

Have you tried half covering her cage during the day? It helps to give them a "safe" corner they can use if they get scared, something guarded so they can't see/be seen by whatever it is that spooked them.

Poor baby hurting herself like that. I can sympathize, my tiel had the worse night frights for the first year I had him... broke a blood feather, cut his foot, would wake us up at like 2am most nights flailing about, I even had to move him into my bedroom for a few nights to try to keep him calm they got so bad. A lot of it was noises the neighbors made that I couldn't hear, but he could. A white noise machine helped that, then keeping an eye on him when he did the "crest up, rigid bird" move which said he was upset about something so I could remove it from his sight helped too. He still spooks anytime anyone sneezes, but I can't help that.

I also wouldn't suggest leaving a bird outside the cage that is prone to frights (works for some, but dangerous for others) - my tiel had one outside his cage once and he ended up with a black eye and bruised beak from flying heard first into a door, scared me half to death. I spent the rest of the day babying him worried he'd hurt something I couldn't see. He's usually a perfect little acrobat in flight, even hovering in front of doors if they are closed, but when he's scared... nothing matters but "ESCAPE!" and if any doors are shut he doesn't notice it. I find it better to just use a sleep cage and arrange it so if they do have a fright, they don't have much to flail against (my birds sleep cage is the bowls, one perch and a cuttlebone). And the doors are always open so I can hear if he freaks out.

[jaspersmama]

I was definately hesitant about leaving her out of her cage. But she is an older bird and doesn't really explore much. At night went she is ready for bed, she stays right on top of her cage ad doesn't move all night. We've done this for quite sometime, but I know not all birds are able to be trusted to stay out lol.. When I am away from home I do cage her. For her the cage is much more dangerous. I would never do that with my lovie, she loves to explore.

[Marrie]

I wasn't criticizing your choice, if your birdy is OK out only you can know. I was just adding the warning of, if the OPs bird is like mine, it might be more dangerous for them. When my tiel has a fright he goes flying and doesn't take notice of doors, windows, walls, etc.