Blue Faced Parrot Finch Attacked - This Means War!!!
Posted: 07 May 2012, 18:58
Today a BFPF lucked out and got seriously hurt. At least it had a stroke of luck and I saw it otherwise it would have expired overnight for sure. If anyone has had experience getting injured birds through their recuperation, if it is possible, I would be interested to hear if there is anything else I should be doing. Currently it is in a small shielded budgie cage with a terrarium heater under half the floor, external water bowl for humidity and has seed scattered, a piece of rocket and egg & biscuit vitamin food. Currently covered for the night.
I am almost dead sure this damage has been wrought by a feral honey-eater style bird as they returned today and were clamping onto the wire on the side of the cage and acting aggressively jumping all over it before I shooed them away. I got this little bloke out and put him in the cage on the back "alfresco" area (OK, so they were bleeding verandahs before the home building game went "posh") and left it in the sunshine to recuperate for a while and this bird lands on the table and hassles it. The BFPF perks right up, don't let anyone think you're ill and starts hopping round like a mad thing, fully tuckered out after that it was! I didn't see this but heard a noise, undoubtedly scaring off the honey-eater because I was just watching the BFPF hopping about thinking that maybe the injury wasn't so bad when the honey-eater lands 2m away, so I figured what had happened and took the bird indoors.
From the injuries it probably happened about 3 hours before I saw it, so around 10am today. The little tyke in the mean time has taken a swan dive into the calcium vitamin bowl and was covered in white powder down one side, took more than a glance to figure out what type of bird it was under the mess. When I finally caught it (took half an hour to find the hiding spot after I missed twice then was easy to catch in a corner) it was still quite strong and I could see it has torn its skin badly around its neck on the left side. Which is what I presume the red stuff is, dried blood. I wasn't game to poke at it much as didn't want to exacerbate the injury.
Tried for photos which is hard and only got this: the eye was shut but the other one was open: an hour later it looked a little better: but this is the front shot to show how deceptive cameras are, wouldn't think this bird had long to live (maybe it doesn't): So, care of the bird aside, I need to deal with the problem. It seems the owl scarers only have a defined life, about 3 weeks. Maybe concentrated air propelled Pb is the answer, dunno - not strictly kosha!
I don't suppose it is possible the bird could do this to itself, as in fly into wire that hard playing their chasing games? This one appears to be female so it would be the chasee, but I am yet to get a proper handle on sexing BFPF's.
In auditing the bird stock I sighted everything bar one BFPF, so I'm hoping it was just hiding, which they do spend a lot of their time doing. But until I know I don't know if this was victim one or two.........?
I am almost dead sure this damage has been wrought by a feral honey-eater style bird as they returned today and were clamping onto the wire on the side of the cage and acting aggressively jumping all over it before I shooed them away. I got this little bloke out and put him in the cage on the back "alfresco" area (OK, so they were bleeding verandahs before the home building game went "posh") and left it in the sunshine to recuperate for a while and this bird lands on the table and hassles it. The BFPF perks right up, don't let anyone think you're ill and starts hopping round like a mad thing, fully tuckered out after that it was! I didn't see this but heard a noise, undoubtedly scaring off the honey-eater because I was just watching the BFPF hopping about thinking that maybe the injury wasn't so bad when the honey-eater lands 2m away, so I figured what had happened and took the bird indoors.
From the injuries it probably happened about 3 hours before I saw it, so around 10am today. The little tyke in the mean time has taken a swan dive into the calcium vitamin bowl and was covered in white powder down one side, took more than a glance to figure out what type of bird it was under the mess. When I finally caught it (took half an hour to find the hiding spot after I missed twice then was easy to catch in a corner) it was still quite strong and I could see it has torn its skin badly around its neck on the left side. Which is what I presume the red stuff is, dried blood. I wasn't game to poke at it much as didn't want to exacerbate the injury.
Tried for photos which is hard and only got this: the eye was shut but the other one was open: an hour later it looked a little better: but this is the front shot to show how deceptive cameras are, wouldn't think this bird had long to live (maybe it doesn't): So, care of the bird aside, I need to deal with the problem. It seems the owl scarers only have a defined life, about 3 weeks. Maybe concentrated air propelled Pb is the answer, dunno - not strictly kosha!
I don't suppose it is possible the bird could do this to itself, as in fly into wire that hard playing their chasing games? This one appears to be female so it would be the chasee, but I am yet to get a proper handle on sexing BFPF's.
In auditing the bird stock I sighted everything bar one BFPF, so I'm hoping it was just hiding, which they do spend a lot of their time doing. But until I know I don't know if this was victim one or two.........?