Killing Elephant

November 2006: I found myself needing something small and helpless to care for. Enter Milo. She stood out among the other birds in the cage at the D&B, and I had to have her. I thought she was a male, but turns out I was wrong. Isn't she a beaut?

In the wild, parakeets flock together by the thousands, so Milo got lonely. She would just sit there on the perch all day long, barely moving. Even two parakeets together are lonely, but at least they're not completely alone. So in March I couldn't stand seeing such a lonely thing, so got her a she-friend, whose name is "Ele" (short for "Elephant", named by nephew Ethan.) Milo was beside herself with joy. Here they are together.

Last week I almost killed Ele. I thought I'd wait to write about it just in case she actually did die, but she's still alive.

Long story short: I clipped their wings (you have to do it every few months or so if you don't want them flying around the house). I thought while I had them there I would go ahead and clip their toenails. If they get too long they get their feet caught on things. Don't clip their toenails too short, or you might hit a vein and they will bleed. I hit Ele's vein but she only bled a little and it appeared to stop--so I didn't think much of it. Until I came home a few hours later and found bird blood all over the perches in their cage. Aaaaah!!!!

I ran and googled for help. They said use corn starch or flour. They also said that a bird can die after losing just a few drops of blood. Ele had lost much more than that. That's when I started to panic. She wouldn't stay still to let the cornstarch work--she just kept bleeding.

I took her to the vet (first time in my life--taking a pet there!) who said she wasn't sure, but it looked like not just her nail but part of her toe had been cut off too!!! Aaaaaah!!! That's right around when I started to cry. She had me come in the back while she worked on Ele, because "birds often die when they are in trauma like this, and I need you to be here to witness it. For vet liability issues." Aaaaaaah!!!!!!!!!! "I killed my parakeet."--that's all I could think, and the tears ran down. But I knew I had not clipped that much off--I'm very careful when doing that.

About 5 traumatic minutes later Tana, the vet, got the toe cleaned she said that actually it did look like just the nail had been cut after all. She applied "bloodstop" and the bleeding immediately stopped. She sent some bloodstop along with me and wished me luck. I'll admit I was grateful that she didn't charge me anything. The whole way home I wondered if Ele would die because of all she'd been through. So far so good. She's still chirping as annoyingly and loudly when "Amelia" is attempting to nap.

Here they are after a bird bath, looking like wet dogs!