10 Commandments - Cheap Bird's Plea - Darby & Heavy Metal - Do Not Buy a Macaw If...
Feather Picking - Harlequin or Catalina? - Harley Comes Home - Harley's Halloween
Hmmm... - Hybrids - Important Phone #s - Macaw FAQs - Macaws of Bolivia - Merlin
Microchipping - One More Thing - Pet Macaws - Plight of the Parrot - Right Bird for Me? - Tahiti
Tahiti
Siobhan, I love your web page, (thank you, I'm blushing) if I knew how to do one, I sure would have one up and running as I have 8 animals who are my children, ( I would love for others to see our Family) our newest being Tahiti, our Blue and Gold Macaw we purchased from PetSmart on October 12th, 1999. When we bought him, then we did not know if it was a him/her, he was only 3 months old and still being hand fed baby bird food through a syringe and feeding tube made of rubber aquarium piping. This was what PetSmart was using to feed all of their birds, (we did not have any idea at the time that this was not the proper way of feeding baby macaws.) Anyway, we took him home after feeding him three times at Pet Smart, as they required us to do so before we could take him home,
On the fourth day of having him home with us, my husband Keith, was feeding him, the tube (which was about an inch and a half long) came loose from the syringe, and Tahiti swallowed it. After 5 minutes of trying to get it up from his crop, with no success, we rushed him to the Colorado State Veterinary Teaching Hospital, which is only 2 minutes away to have it surgically removed as it would not come up from his crop. Needless to say, we were just devastated by this, and found out that this was the completely wrong way to be feeding him. (Tahiti is our first parrot, we have 2 cockatiels, 1 cat and 4 dogs.) We were told by my avian vet that we needed to have a plastic ketchup/mustard bottle that are typically used for picnics, to feed him with. It is a bottle with a plastic lid that comes off for inserting the ketchup/mustard. The lid is in one piece, no plastic tube, just a long spout for the ketchup to come through. Well, we went right out to our local supermarket and purchased one, and then went to PetSmart and informed them of this, they have since bought 5 bottles for their birds.
All is well with Tahiti. He is a beauty and the love of our lives. Please feel free to post this to your website in case others buy hand fed birds so that this does not have to happen to any other bird.