Lord Byron:

"Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life"

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Birthday Family Hike Leilaney by Yvon

Marjon, Stefan & Laney's dad Luthor and Willy, Hans & her mom Inka organized a hike at the Duivelsberg (tr.: Devil Mountain) to celebrate the very first birthday of their pups.
Mom, dad and six of their kids were present
Dad Luthor
Mom Inka
Leilaney's brother Felan

Felan and Mahika
Climbing the 'mountain'
Luthor showed much interest in his former one-night stand Inka because she was in heat
But Luthor had a crush on Lavinya and she, of course, embraced him


Yvon and her girls Mahika & Kaliska, two of Leilaney's best friends, joined in the celebration
Kaliska cooling down


Luthor is still wooing Lavinya




1st Birthday Leilaney


Leilaney turned 1 !!!!


Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Farewell My Sheba


This day, just after 1 PM, my darling and dearest Sheba passed away.

She was my lifetime companion.
We were together for over 21 years. That is more than half of my life.

In 4 months time she would have turned 22.

She was with me from the beginning of my life.
She was a rescue and I found her in an animal shelter only 9 days after I ran away from home and started to live my life.

We have travelled such a long, long way.
We experienced so (many times too) much.

She was always looking out for me.


Sheba was such a loving,
caring, sweet, intelligent, wise, gentle, patient, understanding, sensitive, strong, tough, rough, wild, crazy, agile and beautiful lady.

I did learn a lot from her.

I will miss her severely.
Another (this time very big) piece of me died.
But I am so fortunate that she chose to share her life with me.


Many times already she struggled death, but she always just wouldn't give up.


This time death won




Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Introducing Tizzzya & Tazzz






Since February 27 Owl Finches (NL: Bichenowastrildes) Tizzzya & Tazzz became our pack members.
Here the complete story behind it all:

In December my last Agapornis/Lovebird Dawn died and I thought Kendall, the African Grey, would be okay with it.
I am strongly against caging animals (although I wasn't as sensible at one time over ten years ago) and never wanted caged animals ever again.
However, since Dawn's death Kendall changed in behaviour. He was all of a sudden super sweet, gentle and very easy to handle. Since this was all positive change I didn't worry. But soon after the loss of his neighbours I noticed that Kendall's feathers were not sorted properly. And soon after this he started molting, so I thought.
But just a few weeks ago I was shocked to find out he was plucking his feathers. I immediately consulted a parrot expert and she didn't think it had anything to do with the loss of the Lovebirds and she adviced me to treat him for several physical conditions. I started treatment immediately and within a week his condition had to be improved. But within that week Kendall deteriorated pretty fast. He had started to bite his flesh and was causing wounds. I than rang the expert and she referred me to a parrot specialist, drs. Hedwig van der Horst, a vet at the N.O.P.
Hedwig made it clear to me that indeed Kendall was suffering from the loss of the Lovebirds. His whole world had changed immensely and he just couldn't cope with that.
We discussed everything and I already had decided to find him some new 'inmates' if necessary.
So that turned out to be the case. So I did.
I already had searched the net. I was looking for tiny birds who were able to fly in the small aviary in the living room. But most important was the sound the birds make, as Kendall is a master at mimicking, but this at a volume about ten times louder.
I came across the Owl Finches, very lovely, cute and super sweet tiny birds with a soft chirp. They originate from Australia.
Around the corner from my home is a bird breeder association that had an open day and I went over and found a gorgeous loving couple.
They had to be quarantined, I sent their faeces to the specialist for examination and it turned out that they were completely healthy, but that Kendall had a bowel infection (due to the stress of the loss of the Lovebirds he was very
susceptible
) and he got antibiotics for this.
After a week the Finches, Tizzzya & Tazzz, were allowed to move into their home.

Kendall already felt a bit better when I put up the aviary, but he felt much better when the Finches were in the home, upstairs in my bedroom. He, of course, was able to hear them.
From the moment on when they entered their aviary Kendall was completely back to his old self and he has not plucked a feather ever since.

I am so happy everything worked out and in my heart I already knew this would be the only solution.

It is sad that Tizzzya & Tazzz are locked up as well, but at the moment they seem to be fine with everything, so that eases my mind a bit.