# our avian vet euthanized our 12 day old baby cockatiel....



## susanandmatt (Jun 6, 2012)

The poor little guy had many problems: neurological defects; a twisted spine and pelvis; wasn't developing - it still had the skin and fluff of a 3 - 5 day old. It couldn't stand up and was on it's back all the time. The vet said it was probably in pain.

Very heartbreaking. We are sad but accepting. However, the parents are frantically searching for the baby now that we're home. We removed the nest box before letting them see or go to their cage. These parents have been successful in the past. They have a grown baby who is almost a year old.

Our question is: has anyone else experienced this? Is there anything we can do to help the parents with this? Should we put the nest box back in? Should we have let the parents continue to care for this baby until it died on it's own?


----------



## WendyBeoBuddy (Dec 12, 2011)

It was good to euthanize the bird especially if so young and in pain. the parents are going to need to grieve but i don't oppose putting the nest box back in. they are going to search, but they will need something.
Good luck, sorry to hear about your baby


----------



## nassrah (Feb 27, 2012)

Really sorry for your loss,but there was no reason to keep the poor little baby alive and in pain,isnt it lets hope the parents will soon be able to have a new clutch with a lot of fertile eggs.Good luck and all the best X x:flowers::flowers:


----------



## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

If you put the nest box back in the parents will probably start a new clutch, so you need to decide whether this is desirable. If you don't want more babies, my advice would be to change things around even more - rearrange the interior of the cage and move the cage to a new location if possible. If everything is different then maybe the parents will stop expecting to find their baby there.

Is it possible that the parents are brother and sister? If they were bought at the same time in the same place there's a high probability that they are closely related, and the birth defects of this unfortunate baby might have been caused by inbreeding. If that's the case then this pair should not be allowed to breed again because of the high risk of more deformed babies.


----------



## delawaregirl (Dec 2, 2011)

i am so sorry for your loss. I know it must be heartbreaking. Fly in peace little one.

Did the vet know why there were deformities? Were their any more babies in the clutch? What are the parents mutations?


----------



## susanandmatt (Jun 6, 2012)

*dude and daphne*

Thanks so much for your responses. We put the nesting box back in last night, and as soon as we did it, the frantic cries stopped. They both checked it out thoroughly to make sure there was no one who needed feeding. We gave them each about 20 minutes of head scratches and sympathy kisses, then put the flock to bed. 

If we could do it all over again, we would have had the vet bring the baby back in so they could see that it was no longer alive. Not knowing was what was driving them crazy. Who can blame them? We're surprised the vet didn't suggest it. However, Dude was going in for a cyst removal on his wing at the same time, so there was a lot going on.

Dude and Daphne are definitely not related. Our profile pic is of their daughter, Cornelius (Cornie since she turned out to be a girl lol), at about 4 days old. She's 11 months now. She had 2 siblings that didn't make it. This clutch had 3 eggs. All hatched. None survived. 

We wish we would have joined this forum sooner. Elsewhere on the internet, there seems to be controversy over nesting material. Trying to play it safest, we went with paper towels both times. And both times, the parents tore them up and threw them out. We think this is one of the main reasons there's been so much baby heartbreak, and we feel responsible for their losses. Cornie is evidently a miracle baby who thrived despite our good intentions.

Photos below: Cornie a couple of weeks old, Cornie now, and Dude and Daphne. Dude's a normal grey, right? Daphne - a pearl pied? And Cornie...? 
(would love your input) Oh and Uncle Meat the whiteface! We brought Meat and Dude home at the same time, from a pet store. They were selling them as a favor for a local guy whose birds had more babies than he could keep. We were led to believe they're brothers. Is that possible? The answer is important as Cornie is seriously crushing on Meat.

Thanks again. Yesterday was awful. It was good to know you guys were out there.


----------



## bjknight93 (Nov 13, 2011)

Try checking out this thread about nestbox bedding, it will solve your question to a 'T'  :
http://talkcockatiels.com/showthread.php?t=27688


----------



## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

Cornie is pied, Daphne is pearl, and Dude is normal grey. I don't see any indication that Daphne is visual pied, but both she and Dude must be at least split to pied to produce a pied baby.

It's entirely possible that Dude and Meat are brothers. Meat is whiteface and Dude shows signs of being split to whiteface. If they are brothers, then at least one parent had to be split to whiteface (not visual) and the other could have been either visual or split, so they had the ability to have both normal and whiteface babies.


----------



## Dreamcatchers (Apr 17, 2011)

You appear to be very conscentious owners! From your post, I gather you have a regular avian vet and are willing to go the extra mile. Just out of curiosity, what do you feed? Daphne appears to me to be heavy in the photo. How old are Dude and Daphne? It could be possible that there is some issues with the bedding but I would first suspect the parents as having some genetic issues. This doesn't mean you did anything wrong, but if Dude is having cysts removed and Daphne is overweight perhaps due to a metabolism issue, I would hesitate to allow them to breed again until they have had a complete workup. It will save you and them heartbreak until you know for sure.


----------



## sunnysmom (Sep 23, 2011)

I'm very sorry for the loss of the baby tiel, but you did the right thing not to let him suffer. I'm glad to hear the parents seem to be doing better now.


----------



## susanandmatt (Jun 6, 2012)

bjknight93, that nest box bedding thread is exactly what we needed. thank you. 

tielfan, wow, great info. I wonder if we'll ever be able to know mutations at a glance like that. Thank you for clearing that up for us. And omg! No wonder Meat keeps breaking her heart. He knows better! She's so in love with love, though - she's like one of the people in those Swiffer commercials. What should we do?

dreamcatchers, we are definitely willing to go the extra mile for these guys, they're awesome - such affectionate clowns! This was our first avian vet visit, based on an expert's recommendation. He did a superb job, and his staff and office were great. But he was.... well something was up with him on a personal level. We can't quite figure it out. So we're going to shop around a bit more. 

Dude's almost 3, and Daphne's almost 2. We feed them a commercial bird food - KayTee Fortified Diet Pro Health. It does have pellets in it, and doesn't have sunflower seeds. 
They also like millet, of course, and pasta, and rice. Also broccoli, and they love edamames. Are those OK? We don't see them mentioned anywhere, but they're high in calcium and protein. They also like fortune cookies, chicken, scrambled eggs, and, um... homemade challah bread and pizza crust (and those pics of Dude & Daph were taken around Christmas time, when I was making a lot of bread...)
OK OK! - I get why Daphne is looking a little porky in those pics!

She's our first hen, and she came with a totally different shape than the boys did. We thought she was supposed to be a little chunky - you know, like the opposite of Hollywood standards - and she's beautiful! To be fair, the camera does add a few ounces on her. I'm attaching 2 more pics to see if you think she appears to be as overweight as you thought she was. 

As far as Dude goes, we think his cyst came from a trauma to the wing. He crashed into a ceiling fan when he was about a year and a half old. He injured his beak and favored his right shoulder for a couple of days.

below: Cornie+Daphne+Dude,
Daphne giving the "new guy" some tongue


----------



## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

> She's so in love with love, though - she's like one of the people in those Swiffer commercials. What should we do?


Unless you want to get some more birds and hope that these two choose new, unrelated mates, the best thing to do is to keep their hormone levels under control so they don't start trying to make babies. The thread at http://talkcockatiels.com/showthread.php?t=2678 talks about hormone reduction techniques. It's aimed at single hens but is equally applicable to males. The "long nights" treatment is usually the most effective technique, and might be the only one you need. 

Birds have no taboos about incest and at my house they actually seem to prefer it. Teela and Squeebis are brother and sister, and they have the tightest pair bond in the house. Henry is passionately in love with his mother, who doesn't return his feelings. Mims is a lovely and very horny hen who isn't related to them, but they literally won't even look at her. 



> Also broccoli, and they love edamames. Are those OK?


Cooked edamame is OK. It's a form of soybean, and beans contain toxins that can only be gotten rid of by cooking (in most cases; there are a few that can be sprouted instead but soybeans aren't one of them). There's an article on diet at http://talkcockatiels.com/showthread.php?t=27479



> I'm attaching 2 more pics to see if you think she appears to be as overweight as you thought she was.


Feeling the keelbone is the only sure way to judge how appropriate a bird's weight is. There's an article on that at http://talkcockatiels.com/showthread.php?t=17680


----------



## susanandmatt (Jun 6, 2012)

*thanks tielfan!*

Thanks for all the good links. And the hilarious description of the cockatiel soap opera you have going on in your house!


----------

