The horrible realization just hit me moments ago, but perhaps I knew it all along.
Once, about 4 or 5 years ago, I saw the bird’s nails had grown quite long and my sister wasn’t taking care of them, so I got an ordinary pair of fingernail clippers and thought even a little bit of a trim would help. However, somehow he moved or I slipped and I nicked one of his toes and made it bleed a little bit. It was just a little scratch so I didn’t think much of it at the time. But a week later he died. I wondered if I was to blame, but didn’t say anything.
Today, I overheard of one my co-workers discussing the bird she’s getting and she mentioned that she’d have to be sure the cats and dogs didn’t get it because their saliva is toxic and even a scratch will cause a lethal infection. Even a scratch. And she said they won’t even act sick until they’re on death’s door. Like my sister’s parakeet.
Granted, I don’t think my cat or dog had been licking the nail clippers, but I’m sure they were far from sterile. Now I can’t avoid the truth: The “just a scratch” I gave the bird probably did him in. The guilt is monstrous.
It is true that birds will hide illnesses until they are VERY sick. In the wild, safety is in numbers. If a bird shows it is sick or injured, the flock will abandon it. So, birds hide their problems until they are simply too ill to do so any longer.
I seriously doubt that your claw trimming had anything to do with the bird’s death. If your sister wasn’t taking care of the bird’s grooming needs, how good was she at meeting its other health requirements? How old was the bird?
As to dog and cat saliva being TOXIC to a bird…I have never heard anything like that. Sheesh, we treat birds all the time for being attacked by other household pets, and they do just fine. Cat bites are notorious for being infectious, but as long as they are treated they are hardly deadly. Tell your co-worker to be more concerned about the cookware she uses around the birds enviroment.
I had a couple of finches once. they got lost in the garage while i was cleaning their cage. dumb birds, i think they died in there. we still haven’t found their caracasses yet.
I’m not sure how old the bird was. Maybe 3 or 4 years old? How long do parakeets live? If you say 20 years, I’m going to feel even guiltier.
Coincidentally, yesterday afternoon some of my co-workers found a parakeet fluttering around outside our building and smacking into windows. One of our attorneys who’s a real animal lover took it home and bought it a cage. I’m not sure if she’s going to try to find the owner (Humane Society, lost and found ads, whatever) or if she’s going to keep it.
I understand the guilt Gr8Kat is feeling. When I was a kid, my mom raised chickens. We often had baby chicks running around.
Once, we had one inside the house, in a box, because it’s mother had abandoned it. Well, I had it out of the box and was playing with it, letting it run around on my lap, etc. when I lost track of where it was. I got up and looked all around, but couldn’t find it. Finally I went back to the chair I had been in and sat down.
peeeeep
Shit! I leaped up but it was too late.
I felt so low. I think I was only about eight or so, and this was a real tragedy in my eyes. After all, I don’t think I’d ever killed anything before . . .
Birds have very little blood and even an uninfected scratch can kill. I’ve had shop owners tell of birds they’ve had dying from light bruises. That said, Tweety would have kicked it long before a week had passed. You are absolved, my child. Pray for me.
And I’m guessing Monster didn’t use duct tape. This was a rare chance to use DUCK tape.
Has anyone else read James Herriott’s stories? (James Herriott being the nom de plume for a vet in Northern England.)
He tells the tale of once having to trim the beak of an old lady’s budgerigar. Upon lifting the bird out of the cage, the budgie died on him (the vet assumed out of fright), but since the old lady had poor eyesight, he told her “I need to get my special clippers from the office”, rushed to a pet store and bought a new one. A while later, the old lady upon meeting him said “I never thought that clipping the beak could make such a difference in character! Now my bird chirps and talks all day long.”
Working in a pet store we had a canary brought in to get a nail clipping. They were horribly long and curly. When we tried to clip them the bird died, apparently from fright. We called that co-worker “murderer” for weeks.
