So pleased it all ended well for you...
nice looking cage...

I keep thinking about the cry Lucy made when she saw you. She had probably thought she'd never see you again either. (Okay, I know cockatiels probably can't actualize conceptualize that much, but some version of "I miss you" was floating around in her head.)

The last time I heard a bird cry for not seeing their person for a while, it was an Amazon, making a more human-like cry.



I'll have to make a separate thread for Lucy's recovering progress. Her poops are looking more normal, and she's eating kale now (she wouldn't eat it yesterday). she's getting back to her nosey self, too.

Good, I'm glad the poops are getting better. It's been a long time since my experience with a cockatiel that was found after being lost in the pines so I don't remember much, but I think it was a day or two before her poops were completely normal. I don't know whether the abnormality was caused by pine resin, or if it was some kind of internal malfunction caused by lack of food. Either way you want to see it go away fast.

Is her voice sounding any better?

That crying Amazon is hilarious!

Her voice still sounds a bit low. I can't tell if it's better or not.

Someone on another forum said that the black poop was probably a result of her starving to near death. She would have probably died the third night they had her, so I'm glad the lady called when she did. Either way, the normal looking poops definitely makes me feel better. Now there's just her voice...

I keep reading that it's a possible sign of an infection. I definitely hope that's not the case. Since she's weak, I wouldn't know to put her on a probiotic or antibiotic to fight an infection. Heck, I don't even want to put her on ANY medicine unless a vet tells me, because I wouldn't know what I'm doing!

I found a small number of websites saying that black poop in pet birds can be caused by not eating, but they didn't give a reason for the blackness so I don't know how accurate it is. It's widely reported that bleeding in the upper GI tract can cause black poops. I can't think of any particular reason why hunger/starvation would cause bleeding but I suppose it's possible. It's possible that she ate something that irritated her innards and caused some internal bleeding but it's getting better now.

Food sources can cause black poop too so it's possible that she ate something black and that's what caused it. Pine resin is used for making tar so I wouldn't rule it out. Spike's poops weren't just black, they were also very sticky and tar-like. But for all I know "blood poops" might be like that too. I don't know how long she was out in the wild or how much she had to eat while she was there, but she was very grateful for the sunflower seeds we gave her when she first arrived at our house. We didn't have a bird at the time and it was the only seed we had.

Probiotics won't fight an infection, but they may help restore the normal bacteria balance in the gut if it's been thrown off. It won't do any harm to give probiotics but there's no guarantee that it will help either.

Antibiotics are a different matter. If she has a bacterial infection it will help fight it, but antibiotics don't discriminate between good bacteria and bad so it will also kill the beneficial bacteria in the gut. Her digestive tract is messed up already, so I wouldn't give antibiotics unless recommended by a vet for a diagnosed bacterial infection.

Isn't it nice to have her safe and warm indoors looking out at the nasty wet cold weather we're having right now.

You can help her nutrient intake by giving her a bit of scrambled egg. Egg is high in protein and fat, and contains all the ingredients you need to build a complete baby bird from scratch. So IMO it ought to help build up an older bird too. It's also high in cholesterol so don't go too crazy with it - maybe a quarter teaspoon or less every day for about a week, then back off after that. My birds get a little egg twice a week under ordinary circumstances, and every day during the breeding period. So it's something that she learned to eat with me.

Here's how I feed it. I beat up an egg in a bowl and nuke it in the microwave until it's cooked. Then I cut it up in pieces, put the pieces in a ziplock bag, and store it in the freezer. To serve, I take the amount I want out of the bag, thaw it, shred it, and mix it in with their daily serving of sprouted grains. If you mixed it with a little bit of soaked seed it would be similar to what she was used to getting from me, but she'd probably be very happy to just eat it out of your hand without the seed.

Be ok to add bell peppers?

Hm, I'll try that. My mom tried to give her a piece of fried egg yesterday (she was on the table when we ate breakfast), and she wasn't that interested.

You know... We had some egg food before Lucy left. We put it outside with the bird seed, to see if it would convince Lucy to come back, mainly because my mom wanted to get rid of it all. It would probably be useful NOW.

From what I read, bell peppers sound safe for birds. Could probably try that too.

Where does everybody stand on "bird bread"? I heard its used for transitioning to a pellet diet, but I heard that bread isn't good for birds to begin with, so I'm a little confused on whether or not it's ok.