Edward Scizzor Poop

Today is Eddie's birthday (or rather her "hatch date"). She is 5 years old. I know you are not suppose to have a 'favorite' but I can't help it, she is my favorite. She is my angel with a dirty face.
She hatched from Linus and Lucille's second clutch in 2005. Four of the six eggs hatched. It was stressful having to hand feed "Fresh Baby' who was only one baby from the first clutch so I was panicking thinking ,"what if I have to hand feed four babies?".
Sure enough, Linus and Lucille started to pick on the babies which meant I would have to take the babies from them and hand feed them. They had not even feathered yet and Linus was already bullying them. I called my local bird shop and asked them if they would be interested in 2 week old baby cockatiels that needed to be hand fed. They said, "yes" which was an enormous relief to me.
A week later, I got a call from them saying that they were having problems feeding the babies and did not want the responsibility.
My heart sank.
I called my vet telling him I would be picking up baby tiels with problems and if he could figure out what I needed to do help them survive. It was snowing that day so I packed some hand heat packs to make sure the babies would be warm for the long ride.
One of the babies appeared to be deformed. The wing was not developing and the legs were splayed (abnormally spread out). "Eddie' was cold and was not eating the normal amount of food. The other two were fine. The vet suggested that the deformed baby should be put down. This was one of the hardest decisions I ever made. Could this poor little bird survive having disabilities or would his care hinder the care of the other birds? Eddie also had a 50/50 % chance of survival.
I had to make the decision and took Eddie home with me. I still feel sick over it but only one bird would've survived.
In order to get more food into Eddie that would mean more feedings. I would have to wait til his crop would empty before feeding him. The problem was his crop was emptying slowly because he was cold. A crop that emptied slowly was not good. It could mean impaction and yeast infections. I would heat his heating pad up but there was a problem of over heating the bird and dehydrating him. To solve the dehydration issue I warmed up some pedalyte solution to give to her as a snack. This would get the needed fluids in her and aid in digestion. I was feeding Eddie small amounts of food (baby bird formula warmed to the exact temp of 105F) round the clock plus her heated pedalyte solution. This meant feedings at 2:00am and at 4:30am as well as daily feedings. I was so afraid she would either overheat or freeze so she slept on my stomach at night. I did this for two weeks until she started to gain weight and feather up. She was bald and helpless.It was nerve wracking and I couldn't sleep in fear that I would squish her. I can not imagine what human mums must go through!
Eddie survived and grew.
I would add a drop of organic apple cider vinegar in her formula to prevent yeast infections once a week. The other two babies were eating and growing normally too. It was strange, once these birds started growing and were past the critical point of survival Linus decided to resume feeding them (!?)
I didn't really trust him too much but would feed them alternatively checking their crops to making sure they were fed. In a way, it was good that Linus was feeding them because the babies needed the "good bacteria" from the parents to boost their immune system.
I put the babies in an aquarium with a small perch and give them cheerios and millet as "starter food" after 5 weeks. It was cute watching them hop and try to fly. Of course, they surprised the heck out of me when "whoosh" they would fly around the room. I had to be careful to make sure I left the toilet seat down so they wouldn't land into the toilet. I would panic when I couldn't account for them all. I would eventually find one or two of them sitting on the ceiling fan or on the top of the stairs.
At 10 weeks, they were completely fledged and weaned. This meant they could fly and eat on their own. I sold two of them to the bird shop and kept Eddie. I could never give up Eddie despite the protests from my husband saying we had too many birds. Hah!
Eddie is now 5 years old. She sits on my shoulder anytime I am at home. She tries to "assist" me when I do the laundry. She will get under the newspapers poking her little head out squawking at any of the other birds if they get near me.
Do I spoil her?
Of course!