Last week at the CVO event in West Virginia I ended up missing most of the Saturday night dinner because our parrot was having an issue. We were in the campground across from the hotel.
Anyway, no avian vets in the area and he turned around and seemed to be OK.
Thursday he started to act up again and by the time we could find an avian vet it was Friday afternoon. The vet took some blood for a quick test and told me "your bird is critical and needs a blood transfusion".
I don't know what the count actually means but he said it was a 10 and should be around 50, and on a scale of 1-10 our bird was a 9.5, for being ill!
Made the arrangements to try and locate a donor bird and wrote the all important check for services to start.
Less then a half hour after I left he passed away.
Cagney was just over 13 years old and we have had him since 16 weeks.
With our cats and dogs we always realize the mortality of them, figuring if they made 10 years, every year after that was a bonus to treasure.
With Blue & Gold macaws you typically have to make arrangements for them after YOU pass on, as they can easily live to be well over 70 years old.
He was very much a part of our family and quite the character.
He, as well as the dogs was the reason we ended up RV'ing, so we could take them with us when we went away.
In hindsight, we missed some important clues with his health and I don't know if it would have helped, but finding an avian vet a day sooner might have made the difference.
This coming weekend will be our annual trip to Goldstock, a Golden Retriever rescue event. Cagney has always been the hit at camp with the children, even the adults who wonder about bring a bird to an event with 400 “bird dogs”.
It will be a long 5 days.