A long time to die

[GregH]

Well it's taken probably 6 months of decline but my only hen Diamond Firetail died early this morning. I'll take her to the Vet School for necroscopy and hopefully get an answer other than idiopathic (pathology speak for WTF). She had been not been her usual self for a week so I treated her for coccidia last weekend but that obviously didn't help. She's been living in isolation since November so it probably wasn't coccidia. Given her inability to molt I'm going for an endocrine problem but that won't show up unless she has a tumor. I did catch her yesterday morning and she had good condition but I was worried that she had been looking fluffed for a week (I was hoping for molt) and didn't have her usual energy and had stopped calling to her mate/brother in the aviary. Staining around her beak indicated that she had been vomiting before death. When I looked at her yesterday afternoon she looked no different to the last few days but obviously she was on her last legs. I guess I won't be one of the last diamond firetail breeders in the Philippines after all.

That's the bad news. The good news is that my wife landed a job in Australia so I won't have to care about the state of my breeding success here for much longer!!

[Buzzard-1]

So your coming back to Aus then?

Only had the verbal offer on Monday and are waiting for a "letter of offer" then the negotiations start. I'd say I'll be home by Christmas (but only in my dreams - did i think it would asctually happen!) Do you know of any finch-related jobs going in Brisbane?

What are the chances of saucing another hen over there? or isn't it worth the worry?

Odds of sourcing a hen are low. I've only seen unpaired cocks over the last 12 months and no one is letting their hens go. Can only hope that someone imports form Europe one day and that they start feeding more greens and insects.

[Jayburd]

so sorry Greg...
I saw 2 unpaired hens $60 each at Canberra bird sale 13th march

[Diane]

Sorry about your Diamond hen.
Glad to hear you will be coming back to Australia. You will be able to get that many birds your head will spin!

[Jayburd]

but then the Philippines would also be losing one of their best

[jusdeb]

Bittersweet day .... sad about the firetail , good about the homecoming . So how does it work with the birds you have there ? Are they able to come with you ?

[GregH]

Well there's nothing I have in the Philippines, other than the hanging parrots and the yellow vented bulbul, that I can't get in Australia so I'll just sell the birds or give them away. Got rid of 4 Javas to someone at work just this afternoon - only 15 more to go! If I had red-eared parrotfinches I'd be sorry not to be able to bring them home but since I am illegally keeping birds I couldn't actually ask for an export permit either (when they brought in the wildlife registration laws in 2004, just before I arrived, they forgot to include foreigners so while I can own a cat I can't legally own budgie).

I saw the veterinarian who conducted the necroscopy at 4PM. She reckons it was coccidia. She was suspicious about the stained feathers around the vent (which is why I treated with sulfaquinoxaline last weekend) strangely she didn't notice the stained feathers around the mouth. Anyway she said she found two sporocycsts embedded in the lower intestine which hardly sounds like an infestation to me. Apparently there were a couple of streaks on the liver too. Body condition was fine and there were a few developing follicles on the ovary and of course her flight feathers were abysmal. Since it’s Friday they didn’t do any bacterial isolations (too many blackouts and no one on duty over the weekend to monitor either refrigerators or incubators let alone look at cultures). I guess it’s another one marked down to the great list of idiopathologic causes.

[jusdeb]

Will be a fresh start then back in Oz ( bird wise ) ...thats going to be fun for you ...too bad you didnt get the answers you wanted with the firetail.