Mucha died on Saturday.
It was completely unexpected.
:(:( we came home from visiting Bloomington, IN where I will be gointg to school in the fall. He was staying with my parents. He looked all fluffed up and glazed eyed. We went straight to the emergency vet, who sent us to another emergency vet wtih an avian specialist on duty. He got so much worse on the car ride there. I held him against me under my coat (something he would normally never let me do). When there they said he was REALLY bad... down to 25 grams and totally dehydrated :(:( he had water and food at my parents' but we had just switched him from half pellets, half seeds to all pellets. He did sometimes eat pellets, so he knew they were food, but I know the last time we tried to switch him straight onto pellets he lost weight and we did the half and half thing. But now we had run out of seeds so we just gave my mom the box of pellets. So now we feel like we starved him to death :(:( , especially since at the vet, just minutes before his death, he dragged himself over to some seeds the vet gave him and ate them.
But my dad says that he flew onto his pizza and other food and just flew /ran around, didn't try to eat any crumbs or anything. So... maybe he reallyw as sick? Of course he was running around and bugging people the day before and even the morning of the day he passed away. Still DH and I have doubts...if only we had been there we would've noticed earlier. (My mom actually did a sketch of Mucha, apparently that afternoon, and looking at the sketch I could tell he wasn't looking right).
We are thinking back and think he's been slowing down subtly the last few weeks, eg. steping down to my hand instead of hopping, and taking longer to wake up in the morning. Of course, we can't figure out if we are either 1) inventing these things or 2) should've realized sooner. He was on his third molt in as many weeks, redoign his head once again. Maybe he really did have a hormonal imbalance... :( this vet said (while we still thought maybe we could help him) that he SHOULD be on a mixture of seeds and pellets (as well as table foods).
Anyhow... he passed away standing on DH's hand. He suddenly convulsed and fell over. DH felt terrible that he fell off his hand, but he was gone already then, though I didn't understand it at the time. The vet grabbed him and brought him to an oxygen chamber and tried to resusitate him but it didn't work. So, suddenly we had gone from happy reuninine after we had been gone for 3 1/2 days, to ... no family.
:( poor little Mu.
He was the best thing in our lives, the center of our lives really. We loved him so much. He made us so happy. I think we made him happy too. Just the thought of him starving to death...
DH starts bawling every time he sits down to his desk without his "study budy", every time he grinds his coffee beans, every time we find a dropping (formerly partly gross, partly amusing), etc.
He is determined to find out where Mucha came from. Since we are pretty sure he must've been hand-raised he is looking all around the town Mucha "found" my cousin in (he flew to him outside one day and rode home on his shoulder). DH is going to all pet stores, etc and trying to find out about breeders. He is also going to scatter Mucha's feathers (of which there are many) around the town and put up a poster on a tree near where my cousin found him.
DH thought you all wouuld like to know, since there were some Mucha fans in the group.
He thought about taking down Mucha's site (which has had some new videos on it) but decided instead to change it. There will be some more Mucha info. Also we are planning to donate to some sort of bird rescue organization. We will put up info on whatever organization we decide to give to.
DH really wants to get another birdie, though he feels guilty about it. I don't think the timing is right since we will be moving in August. I expect that not all Birds would enjoy driving as much as Mucha did, and all of the commotion and movement just as a guy is settling in to our home wouldn't be the best. Of course DH is bound to see a lot of birdies in his search for Mucha's origins...
thanks for listening...
marisa2