The Dino-Aspie Ex-Café (for Those 40+... or feeling creaky)

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hahahahahahahhahahhahhhahhaahahaha. sniff. that's cute.

me it's august, september, no idea what i'm allergic for either, and i have asthma as a reaction too
the worst days it itches everywhere, nose, eyes, throat, ears, etc
tests did not find anything either

...Marmoset, there'll be days like this
there'll be days like this, my marmoset...

Which half, I wonder? Maybe the muslin part is under his clothing?

Yup - still waiting for the revolution -- then again maybe it is happening right now

Love that finch!! Love that finch!

...a couple of oldies...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98jXpPxdya8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPa-PZWhLY4
...then off to work...
...again...

yeah spikey ! !!
must be special to have a bird so close


i updated my portfolio, maybe someone feels like browsing some of my art ...

http://www.coroflot.com/public/individu ... _id=169417

Iheard it's not being televised.

Damn it...dloes that mean I have to go out and participate?

started back at Uni thursday 25th. I'm not sure I really wanted to go back, but anyway, everyone who thinks they know better, reckons, I should. I know i'ts a good thing to do, and I'm glad I'm doing it, but.

Loads of buts.

I'm just not academic. I spent most of my life playing the fool, and now I don't know how to take anything serious. I have absolutely no sense of myself, so I can't put in an academic paper, I can't even write a paper, because I don't beleive anyone could take me thaat serious.

Add to that, dyslexixia, and dyspraxia. I'm not looking for sympthy. I'm more angry at myself for not being able to take certain things serious.

rant over

hee hee bloody hippies lol

love the patterns, lemon.

yeah, spikey is cool. now that he's able to eat seeds for most of the day and only occasionally wants formula, there's no reason he needs to come to work with me. i'd as soon have him with me, as it's very cheering to have the little guy bouncing around and chirping happily all day, taking baths and then preening in the sun - he even has a fan club, other workers who come down several times a day to take a break and visit with him. but it's against the rules for him to be there and my boss has been looking the other way because she knew he would die if not fed every hour, and now that's not necessary, so....

it'll be a bit more lonely at work for me, and i'm not sure HOW spike is gonna take it. he's really a social little guy. this morning he's been up and had his bath in the twist top that recycled off the top of the pickle jar, and had some food, been rubbed with a towel, and is how happily playing with a millet branch on a towel next to my keyboard. he wants to be within about 10 feet of me at all times or he starts calling. i've been leaving him in a very nice cage that has a view out our (upstairs) window where he can see the neighbor's bird feeder below when i've had to do housework or go on errands. the cage is also next to the big cage (5x4x3ft?) where the other finches live. i figure the worst case he'll have something to watch. but he's going to be all alone in his cage for 10+ hours a day starting on monday, when the most he's ever been alone is about 3.

he's been sleeping, up til now, in a box next to my bed. i'd put a heating pad under a towel on one end of the box so he could go there if he got cold. had a grating over the top of the box for his protection, since other members of the household of the feline persuasion have now realized, just recently, that he's a bird.

last night i heard, after a bit after putting him in his little box with a towel over it (it was a bit chilly in here last night) a pitiful calling noise. i thought it was one of the little ones in the big cage so i ignored it - they do that sometimes when they're calling for one of the adults to come down from the top perches to feed them.

anyway, in another moment i felt a rush of air on my face and spike landed on my shoulder. seems he managed to climb up the side of the towel, squeeze his way through the bars (hence the calling, it must have not been pleasant), and fly up to land on me. i sat up and he laid down near my pillow, assumed the "I'm a Sleepy Bird" position, tucked in, and nodded off.

ok, it was cute. i went and got a towel and put it on the bed for him and laid back down with him for a while and listened to the radio. he snuggled in really close, put his head back over his shoulder, and peeped himself to sleep. since i'd have squashed him if i rolled over on him at night, once he was really good and asleep i put him back in his traveling cage and put that in the night box, so he'd stay warm, and put a towel over it. he couldn't escape - if he tried - and was just waking up for the day when i checked him this morning.

sigh.

he's on my lap now, preening since the bath sort of plastered his feathers all down.

we have another baby finch, just about the same age. there's something wrong with his wing so he can't do more than flutter from place to place on the bottom part of the cage. he used to be part of a duo that were identical as far as looking at them, who used to sit on one particular perch near the bottom of the cage and bellow as if they were 500 pound exorcist birds when they wanted to eat. the other baby died recently (as did two others, unexplainedly) so little bookend is all alone at the bottom of the cage most days. the others come see him and feed him occasionally still, but he's pretty much got no regular company. i thought it might be nice if he and spike hit it off they could play together and stuff. but spike is scared to death of those birds. bookend is not hand-tamed at all, so we have to be careful about dealing with him. we're going to try, later today i think, putting bookend and spike on the floor together and see if they will interact. if the results are are as they have been so far, i'll have to give up on the idea as bookend will have a heart attack and spike will be traumatized.

this seemed SO simple when we picked spike up from the rocks under his nest in august....

I came into this really late. Are you breeding pet finches?

I at first assumed he was a wild bird rescue.

hi botti. zebras are domesticated birds. if it had been wild, there's a wildlife rescue organization i could have turned to here in town. we had not planned to breed any babies as spike's mother was really very elderly for a zebra - hadn't laid an egg in a couple of years. spike and his sibling, who managed to strangle itself in its nest one day on a human hair, were quite a surprise. we'd gotten another female to add to the cage with some relative safety as they're supposed to be monogamous (the first pair had been together for several years). looks like that was a myth, and the girlfriend bird ended up laying 5 eggs! all five hatched. of those, two (including bookend) are still alive.

we're still not sure what happened to her three young ones. i bough some lafeber's premium finch pellets and added to the food they all got. the really young two were still being fed by the parents, and i was still primarily feeding spike formula. the birds do not readily adapt to new kinds of food, so i am assuming that the juveniles were the only ones eating the pellets. i added the pellets on a monday night (i think. it might have been tuesday night.) the first of the juvies died on the following saturday morning. another on sunday, another on monday. i took all the perches and feed and water cups out of the cage and bleached the beejeeezus out of them. put millet sprays and only their old food back in the feed cups. nobody has died since.

i don't know, it could be a coincidence. the new food was very highly recommended. but i had three dead birds who ate it within a few days, and none since it was discontinued. i've had little finches for years, but NEVER had three seemingly healthy young fledglings drop like that. they were fine and playing happily at night before bedtime, and i'd find one dead in the morning.

i looked on the top of the jar and see that my local PetSmart sold me a jar that is almost two years old! i called them and they offered to refund my money, saying it shouldn't have been on the shelves. i don't care about the money, i've had three little family members die. i've left a voicemail on the Lafeber's company's phone, as the date on the lid is in the middle of the time all those melamine-tainted foods were in the petfood chain. might not be tainted, might be perfectly fine and something else killed the triplets. but it's worth checking to see if the company's heard anything else.

i bought the stuff primarily for spike, but he kept wanting to be hand-fed. thank goodness!! !!

you know, it's kind of odd that they do this, but when one of them dies - and we have had the occasional bird die over the last 10 years - the others bring it over to the cage door and leave it there. the last one, on monday, was by the cage door covered by a part of the paper towels we put in there to absorb moisture. they'd ripped it off the floor and covered the baby with it.

gives one pause, you know?

Last edited by Nan on 28 Sep 2008, 10:50 am, edited 1 time in total.

Yes it is very sad to lose a pet. And about the bird behavior, I have seen a large group of little wrens, who had a comrade injured and struggling in the street, gathered around in distress and trying to encourage it to get back up. That is heartbreaking.

We have pet dogs, and to us they are very close to human.

I feel so sad for the baby birds that died!. Why can't the people in the store be more responsible? Selling food that old. If they were shopping for themselves, they would have noticed, I'll bet!

Anyway, I'm glad that Spike is okay!