# I thought we might loose him!



## Bagheera (Feb 27, 2014)

I had a huge scare with my little Tiki this morning. 

We had a big thunderstorm early this morning, and during the worst part of it I put my sphynx kitten in his carrier and spent about 45 minutes over at my mother-in-law's house across the yard because we are under a tornado watch until 2pm, and I get terrified during those type of storms; especially because we live in a double wide trailer.

When I came back I heard Tiki squawking from the spare room, so I went to make sure he didn't knock his water over again and what I saw terrified me! 

Apparently sometime either during the night or during the thunderstorm he had a night fright and there is so much blood all over his cage that it literally looks like something was murdered inside his cage and the blood was dry.

I saw that his left wings was all nasty looking and the blood looked dry, but I knew I just had to get a look at his wing so I called my mother-in-law and asked her to come over and towel him for me so I could look at it and I decided to put some kwik stop on it, but with the way the feathers were she thought it might help if she tipped him upside down a bit so the kwik stop could pack into the wound better and I think that when she did that some loose kwik stop powder fell into his eye. (I Didn't notice his eye right away), but when I looked at him after we unwrapped him from the towel he just looked terrible, he was lightly swaying from side to side like he was super weak and might die and he looked like he was going to die. So I told my mother-in-law that I felt like there was a really good chance that he may die and that I wanted to try to rush him to the vet so she went to her house to get dressed to take us up there and I called my vet to see if they were comfortable treating a bird and they said no. So I had to called the only other vet in our area and they said they would treat him but that they would be going to lunch soon and wouldn't be back for an hour and that the vet wasn't even going to be there and that I could not bring my bird in until the vet returned. So I couldn't do anything but wait, pray and hope my bird perked up and didn't die on me.

By the time I saw that there was something wrong with his eye it was swollen, he was keeping it closed and it was getting very goopy. At first I thought that he may have injured his eye in the night fright but then I came to the conclusion that he had to have gotten kwik stop in his eye and I got really worried. 

The only thing I could think of that would be safe to do for his eye is to flush it out with water, but I knew he wouldn't let me do that unless I put him in the tub and sprayed his entire body down with the water, so I did that and I flushed his eye as best as I could then I wrapped him up in a towel and put him under a heating pad.

I made like a little warm cubby for him by using my kitten's condo thingy:








(It looks like this but blue with gray trim)

and when I checked on him about 10 minutes later he was fluffy, dry, warm, perky, happy looking and he looked fine and normal. Aside from the visible boo-boo on his wing and the fact that he wants to cuddle me more then normal... he looks perfect. His eye lid on the affected eye is tinted orange a bit, but it is slowly going back to normal coloring and his eye is looking really good.

So I've got my fingers crossed and I am feeling really good about it, and I am sure he is going to live now. But it was extremely scarey to go through and heart breaking, and traumatizing. But he is ok and now I am ok and I think we are good! If he is looking questionable in the morning then we will take him to the vet, but as of right now he looks good! Needless to say he is not allowed to be put into the spare room anymore, he is to stay in the well lit open space of the living room. And he's getting a night light!!!


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## Tisena (Sep 28, 2013)

Poor baby hope all is well!


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## Bagheera (Feb 27, 2014)

Right now he is over preening and normally that wouldn't be a problem but he keeps getting little down feathers stuck in his bad eye and it keeps swelling a bit and then getting better looking when i get the down off his eye then it just happens again. it is like a cycle 

I called the vet's office and asked that he call me back and let me know if there is anything else I can do at home for his eye like put some visine in his eye to protect it or make it feel better or something.


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## CaliTiels (Oct 18, 2012)

Poor Tiki.

Hope he's ok


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## TamaMoo (Jan 12, 2014)

Poor Tiki! Sending love and scritches his way.


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## Bagheera (Feb 27, 2014)

He seems to be doing good for now. The vet called me back and said that regular visine or Simply Saline drops would be ok to use in his eye if I felt he needed it because of the irritation the kwik stop caused.


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## Kiwi (May 12, 2013)

I'm so glad he is doing better now! You're just going to want to keep washing his eye out with that once or twice a day to help it. I know that helped me and Kiwi so much when something similar happened.

Kiwi has gotten a bit of watered down hydrogen peroxide in her eye before when she escaped the towel and turned her head into the Q-tip. I washed it out right away but the eyelid always looks so swollen until it goes back to normal. I've also gotten straight hydrogen peroxide in my eye before and wasn't able to wash it out right away. It wasn't pleasant, but eye recovered fine with only a slight sensitivity to light for a little while. I observed that in Kiwi too that she didn't like light for a little while and would close her eye if it was bright. Vet also said no damage was done to it when we went in for a check up a month later.

If you have any foods that can reduce inflammation on hand or if the vet gave you some meloxicam that would help. Do you have any dried herbs with you? Turmeric or curry powder are good anti-inflammatories. I learned this from my Indian friend because they use it over in India for minor cuts as well as in food. Turmeric is also a safe herb for birds. I'm going to list all the anti-inflammatory bird-safe foods/herbs in the Phoneix Landing's Cookbook: Calendula flowers, celery- stalks/leaves/seeds (I'm going to put celery because helps with gout and arthritis both caused by inflammation), plantain leaves, and tart cherries- flesh or juice (no pits) are great if you have them they were used for years to relieve inflammation from painful conditions like gout. Also some of the peppers that cockatiels can eat can help with inflammation, not with arthritis inflammation though. Of course, turmeric too. Those are some I can think of right now, there are a lot more. The best anti-inflammatory ones there are tumeric and tart cherries if you're wondering. They're more powerful.


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## sunnysmom (Sep 23, 2011)

Poor Tiki. I'm glad he's doing better.


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## Kiwi (May 12, 2013)

How is the little Tiki today? Feeling good still?


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## tielbob (Mar 25, 2013)

Hope Tiki is still doing ok - please let us know how he is.


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## blueybluesky (Jul 9, 2013)

I'm a bit late to this but I really hope Tiki is feeling better


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## nassrah (Feb 27, 2012)

I hope Tiki is feeling better . Please update us . X x


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