The last couple of weeks have been super rough. The move is moving right along, boxes are packed and ready to go, our room at my parents' house is almost ready, and the concert I've been preparing for is now over, and it went very well.
But last week, our birdy girl got sick, and I absolutely lost my mind.
Quite seriously. It was awful. I uncovered her cage one morning to find her fluffed up in the corner and shutting her eyes. For those who aren't familiar with birds, that's really unusual behavior. She also barfed up seed on Andrew. That was pretty weird, too.
We had an anxious day and night, then my Dad and I took her to the vet the next morning.
It's terrible how few vets see small non-mammals. Even the emergency vet couldn't see her. So we had to wait, which ended up being okay, because the vet we took her to was fantastic.
It turns out that the longer days, combined with extra cuddling time (which I thought would help her be less stressed during the move) were stimulating her to lay eggs. That, combined with the stress of moving furniture and all, made for a very hormonal, stressed out, and wanting to mate kiddo.
Yes, the bird wanted to start a family. With me.
So I went home, did some research, and discovered all the things I've been doing wrong. Tickling her birdie armpits? Wrong. Feeding a seed diet? Wrong. And most wrong of all was my bobbing my head at her when she bobbed her head at me. That's basically bird speak for, "Hey baby. Let's make some eggs."
Yeeeeaaaahhhhhh.
So I stopped all that, we changed her diet, and we are keeping her room a little warmer and giving her more dark time. That's it. And she's back to her old self. Well, except that the petting is at a minimum because it's baby-making season and we're being careful, so sometimes we have some hurt feelings. Otherwise, it's going great.
Thank God. It was just too much there, for a bit.
Now back to stressing about the move. Woohoo!
