Mike's budgie, Jack, is getting on in years for a budgerigar. At around 9 1/2 years old, he is at the "average life expectancy" for a bird of his species.
Of late the 'ol bird has seemingly been losing his balance / grip occasionally, and getting in a right "flap" when trying to extricate himself from being stuck upside down between his feed tray and the cage! I've had to rescue him a couple of times, reaching in and freeing him from his predicament before he flapped himself into heart failure! As tame as he is , the poor old fart is still a bit wary of being handled and sits quietly for a while contemplating the proceedings just past...seemingly in shock..
How much of this can he take?....don't really know...
We have been preparing Mike for the inevitable, telling him he's had a good innings and he's getting old now, and one day he'll be dead in the bottom of his cage. (tell 'em straight I reckon!)
But I feel deep down he is a survivor and he may bat on for some years yet, as he recovered quite unexpectedly from a traumatic incident years ago that we all thought he wouldn't recover from, where he was "drying out" after a "bath" in his cage on the trampoline and one of the dogs got a bit curious and knocked it off to the ground and tried to maul him through the bars...he lost some of his larger wing feathers and was very subdued and quiet for weeks and weeks, but slowly he came back, got active again, and started talking to us again.
(14 or 15 years is not unheard of for a Budgie and the record is around 20)
If we are lucky he should see a few more yet....Go Jack!
1 comment:
Jack has lived to become famous: in the past year 707 baby boys have been named after him--the most popular boys' name! Maybe Jack will go on to further fame by setting a record for longevity.
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