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Popoto posted:that is loving horrific and a horrible failure of responsibility. please find a proper home, in time, for the other bird, so that you don't kill it while vacuuming or something. parrots or any birds really should never be without supervision when out of their cages inside a human home. that's how you end up with dead birds. She sadly, was supervised. Somehow ended up in the mass of towels I'd heaped on my shoulder, [having been ontop of a net before this, I didn't hear her fly], loaded, and doomed while I was searching the home looking for her. But honestly, thank you for saying as much, everyone else has been coddling me. I have legitimately no loving clue how this happened beyond; clearly I hosed up, somehow she got tangled in towels on my shoulder, and somehow I didn't realize that until it was too late. I know it's horrific and inexcusable, my leanings are to rehome my other bird because of my failures, I already said so. I had and loved a bird for six years and I let myself do this to her, I have no words for how little I think of my ability to take care of what I love right now. I'm not really here for sympathy, I just feel a responsibility to tell everyone that she touched in some way that I failed her. DrakIris fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Oct 8, 2022 |
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Oct 8, 2022 01:59
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Self loathing and being buried in guilt aside, I haven't redone their cage layout in a couple months, just washed in place Would anyone suggest I do that tonight or tomorrow?
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Oct 8, 2022 02:40
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Popoto posted:that is loving horrific and a horrible failure of responsibility. please find a proper home, in time, for the other bird, so that you don't kill it while vacuuming or something. parrots or any birds really should never be without supervision when out of their cages inside a human home. that's how you end up with dead birds. Jesus, what is wrong with you? That's not a rhetorical question, do you have some kind of an outburst disorder or a personal trauma related to this matter? Accidents can happen to anyone. You're making a massive set of assumptions here based on the rantings of someone who is clearly out of their mind with grief and guilt, and responding in a way that is not appropriate ever, but certainly not the gently caress now. This is one of the worst posts I have ever personally seen in the wild. Please do DrakIris (and the rest of us) a favor and shut the gently caress up until they recover from this. DrakIris posted:Would anyone suggest I do that tonight or tomorrow? What you should do tonight and tomorrow is nothing. You need time to grieve before you do anything remotely substantive, ideally some time with a therapist to help you process the guilt, and I suspect Jasper could use some semblance of normalcy right now.
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Oct 8, 2022 05:03
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Popoto posted:that is loving horrific and a horrible failure of responsibility. please find a proper home, in time, for the other bird, so that you don't kill it while vacuuming or something. parrots or any birds really should never be without supervision when out of their cages inside a human home. that's how you end up with dead birds. This might be one of the most scornful, venomous posts I've read in the forums. Whatever the gently caress you might think about the situation, do you think this is appropriate for someone going through this level of grief?
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Oct 8, 2022 05:25
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Unsinkabear posted:Jesus, what is wrong with you? That's not a rhetorical question, do you have some kind of an outburst disorder or a personal trauma related to this matter? Accidents can happen to anyone. You're making a massive set of assumptions here based on the rantings of someone who is clearly out of their mind with grief and guilt, and responding in a way that is not appropriate ever, but certainly not the gently caress now. This is one of the worst posts I have ever personally seen in the wild. Please do DrakIris (and the rest of us) a favor and shut the gently caress up until they recover from this. Pretty much the plan all around, try and hang out with her and play some games or whatever. The cage can rest as it is for a bit, thank you. Captain Log posted:This might be one of the most scornful, venomous posts I've read in the forums. I feel I deserve pretty much all the browbeating that can be mustered, I hosed up so bad and I don't even have words. But thank you both. DrakIris fucked around with this message at 05:40 on Oct 8, 2022 |
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Oct 8, 2022 05:38
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I'm so sorry Draklris. It was a horrible accident, unfortunately they are a thing that happens sometimes in life, despite our best efforts to avoid them. You don't deserve that post up there and the person who wrote it is showing a psychopathic level of awful busted brain.
bee fucked around with this message at 07:42 on Oct 8, 2022 |
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Oct 8, 2022 06:24
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what the christ, popotoUnsinkabear posted:What you should do tonight and tomorrow is nothing. You need time to grieve before you do anything remotely substantive, ideally some time with a therapist to help you process the guilt, and I suspect Jasper could use some semblance of normalcy right now. Seconding this. Now is not the time to be making decisions about anything. I'm sure you want to punish yourself for this, but you do not have a clear head and Jasper will need you. Anything permanent needs to wait.
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Oct 8, 2022 07:14
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Holy poo poo that is an awful post and I do not agree with it at all. Accidents happen, it comes with the territory of having pets. I can definitely understand how it could happen. We lost one of our birds for a while in a very similar circumstance, he somehow got into a towel and it took us a while to find him, he was the same color as the towel and even when opening it and shaking it out a bit didn't notice him clinging to it till the second search. But agree with the other posters anything permanent can wait, take care of yourself and your other bird.
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Oct 8, 2022 15:44
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I mean, here is something I do not talk about much. Sera is missing a toe and it is 100% my fault. We were all very lucky, and it was on the weekend and I paid a whole bunch for the emergency vet, but he had to have it amputated because I wasn't watching for half a minute and that was long enough for him to land somewhere he really wasn't allowed to be (and he was young and still working out his wings) and a rodent nipped at him. It took me a long time to come to terms with this. He does perfectly well with only having seven toes (seven and a half, really, he has a nub) but sometimes I look at him and I am filled with so much self-loathing. I was talking about it with my mom, shortly after it happened, and I discovered she still has latent guilt from the time I fell down the stairs and needed stitches in my eyebrow when I was two. I don't even have a scar from that. Sometimes terrible poo poo happens, and it is natural to try and find a reason for it, and to blame yourself for not doing something you didn't have any reason to think you needed to do. Right now, you're in pain. Just, be easy on yourself for a little bit.
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Oct 8, 2022 19:13
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I think every single one of us can look back and spot many instances over the years when something terrible could have happened to our birb buddies and it didn't, because we got lucky. That's it. No-one can be a perfect bird guardian 100% of the time. We do our best, and most of the time, that is enough, but sometimes it isn't, and something terrible happens. We almost lost Pookie when she was just a baby because she got startled on the doorstep and flew away. Her wings were clipped, but she had enough lift to get at least 3 gardens away. We didn't find her for several hours and she was completely vulnerable to cat attacks for that whole time. I brought her outside and another family member startled her with an orange basin (she hates orange things). If she had died, we'd have both been destroyed with guilt for our actions, but purely because of luck, we got away with it. I've had a cockatiel, I I know how much they love to hide in and among things like cushions and clothes. My own long-lost Looloo loved to hide under cushions and behind the curtains. She too, was lucky in that nothing bad happened to her as a result, but it was always a possibility. You loved and cared for Beryl, she knew that and loved you right back. A stupid accident happened, and the absolute worst came of it, but the truth is that unless we keep our birds in their cages 100% of the time, there is always going to be a degree of risk. Please don't punish yourself for having been incredibly unlucky - you made no bad choices - you did normal things in the expectation of normal results, and an extremely unlikely thing happened. Cuddle Jasper and grieve with him, but make no big decisions for at least a few days. (that first response to your post was, frankly sadistically cruel and I'd wonder about the kind of person who'd even think about writing something like that) edit: I want to add that while you thanked that extremely cruel post for giving you 'perspective', there is nothing in that poster's immediate history to suggest they have any experience at all in caring for pet birds, whereas I, and everyone else who has responded with support and empathy, is a long-term bird friend. We all love our birds, we recognize they are challenging pets to keep safe sometime. Listen to your peers, not judgemental twats who want to score cheap points. Pookah fucked around with this message at 20:05 on Oct 8, 2022 |
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Oct 8, 2022 19:50
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I don't have a lot to say right now, but thank you all so much. Most of the people around me don't keep birds, so theres been a lot of "Well, clearly..." in my head. Jasper is sitting behind me preening after getting bored of scritchies and while things feel bad, I'm at least here for her
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Oct 8, 2022 22:01
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An awful accident happened to someone you loved, Drakiris. You're not a bad bird parent. Jasper will be a happy birb and you will heal.
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Oct 8, 2022 22:26
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Drakiris, this is for you, the spoilered rest, please skip, as it's not so nice words aimed at the rest of the thread and not at all at you, truly: Yesterday you made me so mad, and for that I apologize. The words and tone I used are not at all proper of use towards someone grieving, and I should have cooled off for an hour to come back and offer proper counseling, instead, please allow me to do it now. I still stand by the content of my message: the situation was horrific, for everyone involved. Healing will be extremely hard, as guilt will want to eat at you. Absolutely make note to get therapy. It will be impossible not to have PTSD from this entire event. You have my heartfelt condoleances for your loss, I mean it, fully. But I have to be direct and truthful: I -must- hope that you learn like hell from this tragic mistake. This is as nice as I can say it. Birds are -not- simple pets to keep. They are not cats, they are not dogs. They're proper wild life that requires an insane amount of attention and even more careful management to prevent any accidents from happening. I've had birds for almost 27 years now. I've cared about them and in a professional capacity and as a hobbyist as time allowed. I have a room that I've always dedicated to them, devoid of anything that can harm them. It's their playground, and when I enter that space, I'm in their domain. That's the kind of dedication bird ownerships requires. Others have said it plainly above: if you don't do that, then accidents will happen, the more chance the longer the bird live. I've seen so many horror stories throughout the decades from friends, family and acquaintances alike. So yes, as they've said, it happens. Should it be normalized and shrugged? gently caress NO! You must always be cognizant of the danger when they are about, and taking things ligthly will only invite disaster again. So please, please, take care to mend your grieving heart, a bond with a loved bird like only they can give is very harsh to break. Every single loss is a part of you that leaves. Take the next months to even a full year to think hard about what to do with your other companion, and find the strength. Do -not- do anything rash while you grieve. Now, I'm gonna spoil the rest, as I will be using very naughty not so nice words, and it is absolutely NOT aimed at you. Grieve in peace, and do some introspection. ------------------- nope not gonna let this be here Somebody fucked around with this message at 20:05 on Oct 9, 2022 |
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Oct 9, 2022 15:39
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Uh can we maybe keep our Facebook comment threads to ourselves
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Oct 9, 2022 15:59
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My very spoiled lovebird died of completely natural causes at 22 years old, close to the maximum known lifespan for those little birds. I don't at all fit into your defensive mental gymnastics about how everyone else but you is neglectful and horrible, and I was the first person to tell you to gently caress off. No one here is normalizing anything. Quite the opposite, we're refusing to normalize cruelty and trying to get you to exercise empathy. For some reason your rage at neglectful pet owners seems to have grown beyond its scope to encompass everyone but you, and led you to be in denial of the fact that you can be the absolute paragon of pet guardianship, do every last thing right, and still have something like this happen. There is no way to optimize away all risk, period. That is a reality of life. Generally, when a large and diverse group of people unilaterally tell you that something you're doing is wrong, you should take that as a cue to step back and re-examine your actions from that outside perspective once you've cooled down. If your reaction a full day later is still to double down with a Principle Skinner "no, it is the children who are wrong" then nothing of value is lost by you leaving. Stay gone.
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Oct 9, 2022 19:25
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Wow. Uh. Good job getting your probe-avoiding re-reg account probed by someone else before I even looked at the thread today, by complaining about it in another thread.
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Oct 9, 2022 20:03
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DrakIris posted:I don't have a lot to say right now, but thank you all so much. As it's been stated, take your time to be there with your sweet bird and mourn the loss of your family member. It was an accident. When I worked at the vet we saw people legitimately neglect, put their animals in danger, or abuse them horribly on purpose. Freak accidents happen. You've had many years as a bird owner and know that this is not only an unusual event, but the extremely unlucky, one exact wrong outcome that could have happened. Jasper needs you right now, and you need Jasper. A decision about what's going to happen next is not something you should come to until you have a clear head. I don't know a single pet owner who hasn't somehow hosed up in some small way, and has gotten extremely lucky that things worked out. As another person who has worked with or lived with birds for about 30 years, gently caress that rear end in a top hat who told you to immediately get rid of Jasper. If you decide re-homing is the right move later, then you'll have done it knowing it wasn't a split-second, emotional reaction that you may regret later, further traumatizing you regarding this event. But that may not be what you decide is best for you and Jasper. It might be to be exceedingly vigilant about monitored out times while doing chores (or separating chore time from playtime altogether), or getting another bird to be part of your flock again, or more than these. For now, you need rest and comfort.
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Oct 9, 2022 22:49
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Chaosfeather posted:As it's been stated, take your time to be there with your sweet bird and mourn the loss of your family member. It was an accident. When I worked at the vet we saw people legitimately neglect, put their animals in danger, or abuse them horribly on purpose. Freak accidents happen. You've had many years as a bird owner and know that this is not only an unusual event, but the extremely unlucky, one exact wrong outcome that could have happened. Thank you for the soft reminder. I'm not sure exactly what the plan with Jasper is, but if we do opt to keep her we're almost surely getting her another bird. She seems to be taking it okay, but she's also had a companion bird for years.
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Oct 9, 2022 22:58
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Accidents can and do happen **even in the most ideal and perfectly-tailored conditions**. One of my birds got her leg wedged between a perch & a cage bar and couldn't do anything but dangle from that leg upside down. I was loving lucky I was home and heard her make an unusual cry of distress, so I was able to rescue her right away. Luckily her leg wasn't broken but it easily could have been, and if I had been out of the house, the poor thing would have been in pain and maybe shock the whole time until I returned. We as bird lovers don't ever want accidents to happen to our beloved companions. Of course we don't. The lesson learned was harsh and undeniable and didn't need anyone rubbing glass into the hurt. That was *low*.
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Oct 9, 2022 23:26
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I'm so sorry for your loss  Also holy smokes the Facebook boomer stuff wow, god drat, that's really upsetting At minimum, there's opportunity to reconsider the control procedures you perform to ensure borbs are contained and away from dangerous activities including cooking and chores. I'm sure you're already thinking of things you can institute to avoid this and other kinds of tragedy. You love your little fellas and, rather than you giving up, I want that little borb to have the opportunity to continue to enjoy the relationship you share. I have a little ferret now, and the amount of stuff I've had to rethink and institute as checks (visually check for him in his monster tower-cage before guests come over or before plugging in a vacuum, check of cage integrity before leaving a door open for things like maintenance -- even if I think he's locked up, for example). I am paranoid about positive control because I used to work in animal care where repeatable control procedures are important for reducing risk of accidents. again I don't want you to give up, that other bird loves you and values the relationship you've built. this was a tragedy but that's not a reason to incur more harm by giving up on the relationship you've created with the other lil alien in your life you can do this Potato Salad fucked around with this message at 01:51 on Oct 10, 2022 |
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Oct 10, 2022 01:43
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https://twitter.com/Mycterops/status/1578850107596099584
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Oct 10, 2022 15:09
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Im a little worried about sharing this, but what the hell, most of the audience here is good, kind, friendly people. More than 20 years ago, I lost my extremely beloved little cockatiel Looloo. We don't know exactly what killed her; it might have been being very startled by a fire engine, it might have been some kind of cardiac problem caused by her excessive egg-laying over the last year or so. She went from being the sweetest, silliest, most loving little darling, to a egg-laying machine. Once she started laying, she could not be stopped, we tried so many ways to distract her, but all she wanted to do was lay a billion drat eggs. We found her dead near a mirror one afternoon when she was only about 2.5 years old. It's hard to express how loved she was. She was so young, so silly, so sweet, so inexpressibly gentle and cuddly. I had to go to college in the days after she died, and my friends noticed I was upset. When they asked my what was wrong, the pain of loss was so bad I literally couldn't tell them what had happened. I wept uncontrollably rather than speak about what had happened to my dear sweet little precious girl. It's been over 20 years, and I dearly love my own african grey Pookie, but I will never forget my sweet little silliness Looloo.
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Oct 10, 2022 21:24
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Still at "crying pretty much constantly and doubting my worth as a person" which, I doubt the latter is ever going away
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Oct 10, 2022 22:47
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AnimalCareIsPsycho posted:I've had birds for almost 27 years now. I've cared about them and in a professional capacity and as a hobbyist as time allowed. I have a room that I've always dedicated to them, devoid of anything that can harm them. It's their playground, and when I enter that space, I'm in their domain. That's the kind of dedication bird ownerships requires. hate to break it to you, but if a living creature can have fun playing with something there's a real good chance that they can find a way to hurt themselves with that something as well
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Oct 10, 2022 23:37
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I've had three parakeets (out of about 20 or so over the last 30 years) die from egg binding, and though I only have so much control over their biologies, I blame myself for it, for not providing the right environment, food mix, vitamins whatever. Every time I've had a bird die--and every bird dies of course, every other death has been by old age--I grieve. I'm a grown man, and I'm not ashamed to say I've cried hard over these losses. I have dreams where I hold the bodies of each of my birds, and they stir to life, and fly away. I will say this: I absolutely never let my birds out of their cage unless I am right there, and I never take them anywhere where there's an open danger (say a toilet or a sink or a pot of water). I never let them out of their room unless I'm willing to be 100% focused on them, like they're a toddler. They're not accessories, they're not performers, they're not tiny people, they're animals kept in an unnatural environment, however safe or homelike I try to make that environment. I'd love to leave the cage open all day, but they have scheduled "outside time" for their own good. I always think about what I could have done differently. I'm absolutely positive that someone on the internet would be able to skewer me for losing three females, who knows, maybe they'd even be technically right. But sometimes the way you learn how you need to care for a pet, is by having them die on you. It's hosed up, but humans have been making mistakes with animals since forever. I didn't have to learn the "watch your bird like a human baby" lesson, but I have had to learn "don't let your females think it's ok to lay eggs" lesson. I don't think I'm any better than anyone else in this thread, and I'll always feel guilty about losing who I've lost. I took my kid to a playground and there were these two girls who each had a parakeet with clipped wings. They took them down the slides, lost them in their clothing, fed them openly on the ground. Internally, I cringed. My kid was absolutely enchanted and asked repeatedly for her own personal bird (we have three at this time, but hell no she's not taking them to the playground). I had to be the bad guy to tell her that it's very neat, but they are way too curious, brave, and fragile, and she'll have to love the ones we have based on the lives they're currently living. doctorfrog fucked around with this message at 01:14 on Oct 11, 2022 |
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Oct 11, 2022 01:11
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Sunny somehow managed to get out of her cage this morning and flew off down the street. I spotted her in the act and managed to chase her for a few blocks but then she just vanished. I've spent most of the day walking up and down the street calling her name when I'm not crying and doing flyer drops. I'm absolutely gutted, I don't know how this happened, she's been outside on the deck in her cage daily for like a year now and I've never seen her try and escape, I don't even know how she got out. I'm so loving worried, I'm scared we'll never see her again because there's lots of predatory birds around here that are nesting right now so everything is swoopy and dangerous
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Oct 11, 2022 03:25
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I am so sorry. I hope sunny makes a prompt reappearance unharmed!
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Oct 11, 2022 21:05
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I spotted her this morning flying around some trees a few houses down from us. So she's survived the night in wilds and she's not far from home. I've put her cage out in the front yard, I'm hopeful she'll fly to it looking for food. Fingers crossed!
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Oct 11, 2022 21:26
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That's such a good sign. She's close to home and fingers crossed, she'll get hungry soon and want to come back to her home for a meal. I'm so sorry your own good girl is lost and hope you get her back soon. Hugs to you all, it's a horrible thing to have a lost bird. There's no peace or relaxation when your little bird friend is out there in the weird world.
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Oct 11, 2022 22:05
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My first budgie flew away, I was about 10. He was well tamed, a great little guy, but I stupidly had the cage door open when my dad came home from work, and BAM, ol' Pete saw freedom and took off. I heard him tweet here and there for about an hour, and that was it. I'm not sure how long he managed to survive, and it broke me up inside. About ten years later I was in community college, and the migratory birds that vacation there in the winter were all hanging out, every one of them a dusky brown-black and with fairly simple songs, but among them was a flash of green and the elaborate song of a budgie. Some other flyaway, like mine. I was sure that he wouldn't last long, an Australian bird in a California winter (however nice those winters are by comparison to some). But he was there, day after day, chirping happily and mingling freely with the sparrows. It brightened my day when I saw him, but in the back of my head I wondered what would happen to him when his flock took off. I didn't see him there the next year, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. He had his life. Who can know what happens to an animal we love when they disappear from our sight? Well, what happens to any bird when it can't survive anymore? They live as best they can until they don't. Still, I took a genuine belated comfort from it. doctorfrog fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Oct 12, 2022 |
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Oct 12, 2022 00:09
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Last year my local magpies Freckles and Pancake lost their chick to a severe storm about a week after it left the nest. They were devastated, and spent several days calling out for little Pikelet from rooftops and chimneys. This year they've hatched two chicks who left the nest about 3 weeks ago. At this age they hide out in treetops or on top of tall buildings, so I only catch short glimpses of them, and for the last two weeks I had only ever seen one chick at a time, so I have been seriously worrying that they lost one. Happily, this morning when they called me outside for First Breakfast, I look up at the neighbour's rooftop TV antenna and there are Freckles, Pancake, Bubble and Squeak. I didn't get a photo this morning but this afternoon the chicks were back with just Freckles this time, and I snapped a pic of them while she was tearing up their lunch meatball into bite-size pieces:  Apologies for the crap photo, they stay safely up and out of harm's way (as they should at this age) and because they don't yet recognise me they don't look at me very often. Not the most exciting post but I'd been steadily convincing myself they'd lost a chick and I'm just so happy to see both of them today
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Oct 12, 2022 08:14
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Good luck bee. You've loaded her favorites into the food dishes right?
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Oct 12, 2022 17:23
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I'm just a lurker but I need to wish y'all well. Feels like hard times have come for the bird thread. Please take care of yourselves.
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Oct 12, 2022 23:43
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Thanks all ❤️ yep, her cage is out on the front deck and the top of it is loaded with millet. If that doesn't tempt her back nothing will. Also while walking around my neighbourhood looking for her yesterday I met a guy who has been feeding the local black cockatoo family (about 24 then I lost count) so they land in his backyard and annihilate his vegetable patch. He was impressed with my cockatoo tattoo so he promised to keep an eye out on his birdbath for Sunny. So while the situation is pretty horrible I'm taking some comfort in that there's so many bird loving people in my area who saw the flyers I put out and said they'd keep looking out for her.
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Oct 13, 2022 00:18
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Good luck, bird thread.  https://twitter.com/tyomateee/status/1580179427761467393?s=20&t=QJdo1RFHRVTZ0LMCdmVVNg
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Oct 13, 2022 22:24
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I'm glad to see the thread is still named after my dear Mayo but I'm sad at all the heart break going on. I hope Sunny comes home.
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Oct 14, 2022 14:38
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I'm assuming that no news is bad news, but I'm wishing sunny the best.
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Oct 18, 2022 18:34
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https://i.imgur.com/M6siYVV.mp4
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Oct 19, 2022 03:08
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Thanks everyone for your kind wishes. Unfortunately, there's been no sign of her. The last time I saw her, she was flying high, headed in the direction of the big group of gum trees in the paddock down the hill from us. There's a couple of big flocks of galahs and corellas that frequent that paddock so my hope is that she's off with a good flock being shown the way of how things are done over there. Still absolutely gutted this has happened though, I keep replaying it in my head which is not helpful at all but hard to move past.
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Oct 21, 2022 08:47
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| # ? Jun 11, 2024 00:42 |
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Well...I wish first and foremost for her safe return to you, but I think you can take comfort in the idea she is making it out there with other birds. So many pets cannot survive the outside.
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Oct 21, 2022 19:18
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