Until today, I woke up to find Snowflake - who I've only had for 24 days, was dead on the floor of her cage. I don't know what happened. She was healthy, active, and showing all signs of being a content bird. She was still in the process of settling in with us, being rather skittish and flying around a lot when you would get near her cage, but then eventually calming down. She was slowly getting better and more acquainted with me and my home.
I'm just completely clueless as to what could have caused this to happen. I've only got two vague ideas, one of them being the temperature change outdoors. However this was about two weeks ago where we went from about 50 degrees to 20-30, and even then I've been keeping my room and their environment around 60-70 degrees. Not super warm, but not exactly cold either. It's my understanding that Zebes ( or maybe finches/birds in general ) can do a good job of hiding when something is wrong, but she seemed perfectly normal to me. Not cold, not sick.
The other, requires a little bit of back story. I have Cystic Fibrosis, and to keep a long story short, it affects various parts of me but most importantly my lungs and digestive system. All my life I've had difficulty gaining weight, and at one point I had to undergo surgery to have a feeding tube placed to help gain extra weight. Overnight I'll run a pump ( similar to an IV ) that gives me the nutritional liquid. This machine will beep when being turned on, and also if there's a problem ( sometimes it stops for no reason at all, or it gets kinked or what have you ) and when it does this it'll let out a continuous BEEE-BEEEP until its told to continue running. In the middle of the night last night I woke up to my mom entering my room to reset it for me ( I'm a heavy sleeper and usually wont even notice this ) and then we went back to bed. Several hours later, I woke up.
So my speculation is that, in the middle of the night, it woke her up and scared her and either gave her a heart attack or frightened her enough to make her hurt herself. I find this a little far fetched, that she would be literally scared to death, but it's pretty much all I've got to go on.
Closure would be nice, but at the same time I can't help but feel like I don't want to know because I might find out it was my fault and I will feel even worse. But at the same time it would be helpful to learn and avoid any mistakes in the future.
Meanwhile, my other bird Melody, who I've had since February of this year, has still been hanging in there just fine through both of these ordeals. She's never once appeared to be unhealthy or have any issues. I'm thankful for that at least. However, it really sucks that she has to be alone yet again, and I'll have to get another bird for her again. And face the fear of losing that one as well. But I can't let her be alone.
This post is starting to drag on a bit now. I feel like I should say more about Snowy, but there isn't a whole lot to say. I loved her, she brought a lot of joy to my life same as my other birds did, and that's the important thing. It breaks my heart to see her go, especially so soon. It just doesn't feel fair, to have two of my little babies taken from me in the span of a month. Life can be pretty cruel, but we manage I guess.
I love you Snowflake, and I'm going to miss you. Rest in peace sweetie.
Storm & Sky
