Angry/disappointed/frustrated/down right furious!!!!!!

[Olympic_Aiairies]

I am so angry right now. I've been away across the country on holidays for the last 10 days. We had my brother in law house sitting and offerd to pay him 200 dollars to look after the birds, cats and house. On Thursday I got a call that one of my birds had died. I thought it was one of my males that I've had for over 6 months. Naturally I thought I was doing something wrong with their diet and created a post asking what I was doing wrong. Turns out it was my hen, one I'd only aquired a few weeks ago.

I came home today and found six of my fawn juvinilles and my Eumo pair and their two juvinilles in horrible shape. They were all puffed up and lethargic. On closer inspection they had 0 food. I have 2 inch deep seed cups so for them to have zero seed it means he didn't check them once in 10 damn days. I left extremely detailed instructions so there is no excuse for this BS. He flipping starved my hen to death and almost killed 10 more of my birds. If I'd been and hour or two later I'd have more deaths. It makes sense that she died first. She was my newest acquisition from a pet store so she'd be the weakest.

I gave them food and vitalize in their water. Should I be doing anything else to help them
get through this?

I also have another side effect of the near starvation. My cage with six of my fawn babies obviously started to fight when the food got low. Five of them are covered in bald patches. I think they will be ok but one of them is in rough shape. It looks like her foot was injured in the fighting. The ankle is swollen and is dark red not light orange. She has no use of any of her toes on that leg. I checked the band on that leg as I thought maybe it has swollen and the band was cutting off circulation but it's still loose and can be slid freely up and down the leg. Any chance she'll make it? Can I do anything for here except make her comfortable? Should I consider humanely putting her down? She's in a hospital cage under a heat lamp but I'm not even sure she'll make it through the night.

I just don't understand how you can do this!! If you say you're going to look after things and were going to be paid why would you not look after them? He didn't do anything. He said he checked the cups and they had seed but that's a bunch of BS because the cups were completely empty/bare.

Spent two hours crying after I looked after them. Now I'm feeling numb because the poor hen is suffering and I don't know what to do for her.

[lovezebs]

Hi Heidi.
Brother deserves a kick in the butt with steel toe boots. Wouldn't pay him a rusty penny and would make him replace your poor dead bird.
As to your injured hen, I would check her leg carefully and see where the injury is and clean it. Perhaps apply some antiseptic ointment. Keep her warm and comfy and offer food and water where she can reach it easily. Hope for the best.
Oh, and give brother an extra kick from me as well.

[MiaCarter]

Oh. My. Goodness.

I'm so upset for you, Heidi. That's just awful.
How could someone be so damn careless?!
How hard is it to toss seeds and water in a couple of cups?

Let's see....
I'd do just as lovezebs recommended with cleaning up her leg as best as possible
Redness can mean infection, which may be likely if they were tussling. So I might give her antibiotics to help with that.

Starvation/neglect is actually an area where I can help, as I work with a couple rescues, so I'm part of a network of foster homes that gets birds who are rescued from bad situations. Many are neglected, starved, etc. So I know this! They can turn around VERY quickly --- within a few hours. Others take longer. It depends on how strong they were to start.

I'd give them all their favorite foods, with an emphasis on protein.
When your body goes into starvation mode, it breaks down fat stores. Then when those are depleted, the body starts breaking down muscle (and that causes weakness). It's all protein. So I'd do some eggs and bugs and other high-protein foods.

I'd also offer something high-sugar. Fruits are especially good. I might even sprinkle a bit of sugar on some fruits for an added boost. That will help correct their blood sugars, which are likely very low. And it will give them fluids too.

Do you have some unflavored pedialyte or NV powder? Or is that the other thing you mentioned in addition to the food an electrolyte? I'd offer some to help them with electrolytes, as they're likely depleted there.

I'd also give them all a heat lamp if possible. That will help speed recovery.

Keep us updated, Heidi!!

Added: Do you think that leg band could cause her trouble? You mentioned it's moving okay right now, but do you think there's a chance the swelling could get worse before it gets better, cutting off circulation?
I wouldn't give up on her yet.

[Corkysgirl]

I'm sorry! There's no excuse...but I also understand the thinking there's seed thing. He should have dumped the seed cups and added seed. For some reason my husband always says to me, why are you giving them seed when they already have seed. I tell him...again, because that's not seed, those are empty hulls. They look like seeds to people like my husband who are a little clueless about birds. He's a sweetheart but doesn't have any idea about the birds...and is not left to take care of them. This man may have really thought that they had seeds left because of the empty hulls...or not.
Do you live near a health food store? I really swear by (Bach "Rescue Remedy") It is used for people, animals, children. It's used for shock situations, trauma, in people at times of death, taking exams, anything like this. It's saved my birds lives when they were near death...actually I thought they were dead on the floor already. I use it in my bird's water even now, one drop. It has a calming effect. It's made with flower petals. http://www.holisticbirds.com/pages/bach0501.htm There is a Rescue Remedy drops, spray, cream to rub on their feet/skin or Rescue pet. Any of them will work fine. You can get them online at Amazon or Vitacost, etc. Yes, I agree with what Mia said is very good about the protein and the electrolytes, which are very important!

[delray]

Did you pay him before you left?!?! I am sorry and hope all the others are ok.

[Olympic_Aiairies]

Lovezebs I checked the leg. No blood, no visible wounds. It's swollen at the ankle, the skin is dark red not orange and she has no use of her toes or the foot. There is nothing really to clean so I don't know what else to do besides wait, and keep her warm. She's resting in an open nest right now. I have vitalize (glucose and electrolytes) in her water and miller hanging by the nest so she doesn't have to go anywhere to eat.

Mia I've given them all vitalize which is glucose and electrolytes in their water. I've filled all their seed cups but I didn't want to give them anything super nutrient rich right away. I've done a lot of work with horses that have been starved so I was kinda following the same regiment. Was planning to give them eggs within the next hour. I also have a heater set up in front of the cages set at 21C. I have too many cages and not enough heat lamps. Everyone but the five fawn juveniles look much better. The fawns are showing some improvement but are still fluffed and sleeping a lot. As far as my fan when goes I'm planning to check the band regularly for tightness. It's ok right now.

Corkysgirl if there had been anything in the cups at all I would have thought that maybe,just maybe that's what happened but they were completely empty. Not even full of hulls and there was no eaten millet sticks in the cages. They are suppose to get a 1/2 stick of millet per pair each night so there should have at least been millet in the cage. There was nothing. No seed hulls and no eaten millet in some of the cages. My poor crested hen was chunky when I left now she's skinny as anything. I lost all my eggs because they stopped sitting when the food got low except for one nest. My crested hen actually hatched her eggs and has four chicks. I'm so glad they were ok but she is so skinny now. I even warned him I had hens on eggs and if there was any doubt dump the cup and refill it because some should be hatching chicks before I get back. The only way they'd eat through a whole seed cup would be if he didn't give them any millet, egg, sunflower, or lettuce for the whole 10 days. So angry right now.

Dutch no I haven't paid him yet. He won't see a dime from me and. I don't want to even see him for the next while.

[Corkysgirl]

Oh wow...I was hoping at least it was stupidity and not blatant neglect! I don't know how you will ever see him again without lunging! I'm so sorry! I am sick and they're not my birds! I can't imagine how you feel! Do you have a heater for the room so the temp is up to keep them warm enough. Not sure what the temperature is where you are but at least if they can conserve their body heat...the same thing that lamps would do for them...because you don't have enough lamps.

[Olympic_Aiairies]

Corkysgirl I have a space heater set at 21C set by the cages to keep them warm. I feel the same way. If the cup was full of hulls I'd still be mad because I explained and showed him the difference but they were empty so I'm down right livid.

I feel awful for my LB hen than died and my poor juvenile fawn hen who's upstairs in pain and may not make it through the night. I talked to a friend of mine here who also breeds zebras and he said in his experience she'll either died from shock or if I'm lucky she'll loose the leg and live. Every time I check on her I'm angry all over again. I think it'll be a while before I get over my anger.

[MiaCarter]

Sounds like you've got it under control. The heat will definitely help them loads.

Re: avoiding nutrient-rich foods....
You're totally right. Re-feeding syndrome can be problematic in mammals, but it's less problematic in birds, I've found. One vet told me it's primarily because they have such a fast metabolism and their body systems operate at a much faster level vs. mammals, so they tend to pop out of starvation mode much sooner.
It's funny; it seems like birds self-regulate more than mammals do. Whereas a dog or cat will go straight for nutrient-rich foods and eat and eat until they throw up, the birds don't seem to eat the more nutrient-rich foods until they're ready to tolerate them.

Good thing your BIL wasn't there when you returned home. I've never physically attacked someone, but man, I don't know how I'd have stopped myself if I came home to find my babies unwell!
Did he even have an excuse or anything to say for himself? (e.g. got arrested and in jail for several days?) You'd think that after one died, he'd have at least made sure they had food and water so no more died.

How is the little girl with the bad leg doing? Hopefully she'll make it.
Is the swelling really bad? It was a bit hard to tell in the photo. Hopefully it's not too bad.
With really bad swelling, it can cause something called compartment syndrome, where the skin can't stretch anymore, but the swelling continues on the inside, so it basically increases the pressure within the limb, which compresses the blood supply and kills the limb. So in cases where it's really bad, I've actually used a cold pack on the limb to take down the swelling with success on both occasions. Always with larger birds, but it's certainly possible with a small one. The hard part is keeping the rest of their body warm. I usually wrap with a heat pad and position the cold pack so it's only touching the injured area. 15-20 min with the compress on, 30-40 min off and repeat until it starts to go down (usually within 2-3 rounds, so within a few hours.)
But that's where being a finch is hard. The stress associated with that may be worse for her than compartment syndrome.

They surprise you sometimes. Birds are very fragile, but also very resilient. I've seen a few birds come back from neglect and illness when I never thought they would.

[dutch]

Olympic_Aiairies.....the next time you go on holidays give the birds enough food for 3 weeks

The longest I left my birds was two weeks

I purchased large plates filled them up with seed....and that was for 60 birds.....when I came back they still had alot of fresh seed left

Water the same...6 large plates filled with water and put in the shade.......

After 14 days the water was still clean

[MiaCarter]

Oh wow! I was just re-reading and I'd missed the part where you said one of your hens actually hatched 4 babies!
WOW! That's incredible!!
How on earth are they alive? That's incredible.

I have a friend who lived in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. She had no way to evacuate her fish, so she gave them a bunch of those time-released feeding sticks and hoped for the best. But she couldn't return home for over a month. Incredibly, about half were still alive! It's incredible how animals can survive adversity.

Are they perching? That's how I can always tell the ones that will make it -- they start perching within a few hours of eating and warming up.

@Dutch --- That's a good idea. I'd probably do that even if I did have a housesitter, just in case.

We tried that with cats when I was a kid. We were supposed to go on a weekend camping trip and put out enough food for about 4 days, even though we were going to be gone just 2.
Well, our car started having trouble about an hour from home, so we turned around and called off the trip.
We returned home to nearly empty food bowls and super stuffed cats! Twits ate nearly everything!

[Zebrafincher]

Hello Olympic Aviaries,

I'm so sorry to hear about this. Its SO hard to find decent sitters who will care for birds and who know HOW to look after birds correctly. Were your cats and other animals OK as well?

My sister and I both have birds and use each other when we go away. My sister tried a sitter, who had been a veterinarian nurse several years ago and returned from her trip to find her bird half-starved as the silly woman had decided to try and convert the bird from seeds to pellets without asking her. Ignorance is NOT an excuse!

I hope your little birds recover well.

Good luck

Kind Regards

Zebrafincher

[MiaCarter]

How's the little fawn girl doing this morning, Heidi?
Still hanging in there, I hope!!

[Olympic_Aiairies]

Mia she is amazingly still alive and looking brighter this morning. It looks like she came through the near starvation ok. The foot looks about he same but she is using it to help balance when she's perching instead of keeping it tucked up under her.

Honestly it looks like the foot is already dead. I suspected that the ankle has swollen and cut off blood flow which would explain the dark color. I don't know if ice would do anything now and given the near starvation I think handling her and trying to ice it would make things worse. I'm actually hoping the foot will fall off. I know that sounds awful but a friend of mine whose an experienced breeder said that's the only way she's going to survive this. He said it looked like the foot was already dead.

Everyone else is looking a lot better. I attribute that to the vitalize which I think they like the taste of because they are drinking a lot more this morning and the Brady bunch (what I call my group of fawn juveniles) are actually shoving each other off the water dish to drink. LOL. So it looks like they're feeling well enough to goof around. The other set of four that were also in rough shale were bathing this morning so I think they're out if the woods. Two of my fawn males still look rough because they're missing feathers but they should come back in no problem. I think the space heater overnight also did wonders.

He said it looked like there was food in the cups. Which I called BS on because several of them were completely empty. The thing that makes me mad is that if he'd followed the other instructions about egg, sunflower seeds, millet, lettuce and sprouts than they should NOT of run out of seed in the cups in only 10 days.

Dutch next time I go on holidays they will all be in my new flight cages (currently being built) so it will be easer to do just that. Right now they were all in cages while we're building the new flights so there is only so much room for extra food and as I mentioned to Mia if he'd done the other stuff on the instructions they should not of run out of seed.

Zebrafincher thank you. They are all doing much better this morning. Even my poor little girl with the leg injury, though the leg is still the same.

[lovezebs]

Hi Heidi.
Glad to hear everyone is still hanging in there.
As to brother. ..#@&¥₩#@!!! How old is this wonder boy anyway? Are we talking adult?
Regarding little hen... Foot might die, but if not infected, she may very well survive and do quite well just using it to balance.
If you don't have heaters, you can use a lamp clipped to the side of cage to offer warmth, as long as they have a shady spot if they get too warm. It works like a charm and the birds love it. Just keep an eye on it, so that lamp (bulb) doesn't over heat.