Baby Birbs

Hi!! I haven't updated much at all recently so I don't expect there to be visitors, but if anyone has made it out here and is reading this then I wanna say 🙇🏻‍♀️ I'm thankful for you that you've gone out of your way to check up on the trivialities of my life and your care really means a lot to me. Hope you're staying safe and healthy and that all is well—please take care TAT)/ 

[ trigger warning in this post // death ]

I want to talk a bit about my household's um... journey with raising pet birds for the first time recently. I hope not to dwell on it too much because it's already been something that's drained me this entire month but I want to leave a few words here about it. ;v;

In October my parents unexpectedly came home one day with a pair of baby parakeets !!!! without.... discussing with me at all or even showing any sort of serious indication that they were considering welcoming pets into our home. COMPLETE. SURPRISE. lolol though I couldn't object! Admittedly I'd never paid any special attention to birds before but now I find them remarkably cute. Our little baby birbs were given Chinese names that translate to Little Blue 💙 and Little Green 💚 (approximately; it means something more like "pure" than green).

Maybe that lack of communication was the first red flag pointing to recklessness? After this I did a small amount of research and was convinced by all of the videos and articles touting, "A pair of parakeets is a great and affordable place to start for those new to birds!" that they shouldn't be too high maintenance even for my parents who aren't the most responsible or clever, and I semi-trusted them on their pursuit. But more credit was given to them than deserved—as it turned out that even though they were the ones who decided to become pet owners, they did even less research than me; they thought they could be casual pet owners...

On the things that I knew, I would inform and nag my parents—then eventually on some points where my nagging fell on deaf ears I would end up thinking, "This isn't ideal but maybe it's actually fine." And regretfully there were things that none of us knew... such as certain common household items that when used can be unsuspectingly fatal for little birds.......

I was crudely woken up early on a Friday morning by my mom who burst in with the shocking news that both Little Blue and Little Green passed. They were still fine when we said good night the evening prior. The entire ordeal happened in that morning before I woke up and there was nothing I could do. Since then, every morning I wake up with so much anxiety. I've had nightmares, if I could fall asleep. I was physically weak for a few days. It weighs on me a lot. I'm angry at myself, and my parents, and the pet store for selling these creatures for so cheap without preparing newbie owners for the fragility of their lives, and the articles and videos I saw that made it sound so easy without mentioning crucial facts. But mostly angry at the first two things lol.

tw // death

i havent been sure how to break it to my friends & followers here but ;; three weeks ago i woke up to the devastating news that our baby birbs suddenly passed.

they were a lively, silly pair of cuties that always liked to get in each other's way 💙💚 pic.twitter.com/OQKBr3PIa3

— Eva ❖ CODEX // Gemini (@waterpixieva) November 23, 2020

Our silly babies were so precious and didn't deserve to meet careless, ignorant humans like us. T____T I miss them a lot. There's a lot more I could say about them and this matter but I'll stop myself here; I've already been saying too much.

Some tweets I've made about Little Blue and Little Green with our happy memories 💙💚

[x] [x]

Only two weeks after this devastating passing and while my wounds personally were still wide open, my parents were already determined to adopt another pair of baby parakeets. This time I made sure to educate myself and them properly; I drew up an extensive document and sat them down for a long presentation in front of the TV. Cries.. it was so, so painful to research ;;;;

I don't think that I'm well suited to be a pet owner—I'd already known this and it's why I had given up on my personal desires of having a pet and was content with playing with others' pets when I get the chance...... Firstly I don't deal with loss well ;; and I find it overwhelming the burden of knowing that someone's livelihood and everyday happiness is fully dependent on your actions and I already feel like I'm drowning in my own responsibilities... Despite the many obvious upsides, I didn't think that I should own a pet because it would consume me with stress; and now that I'm stepping in as one of their caretakers gUESS WHO IS BEING CONSUMED WITH STRESS RIGHT NOW

The lovely baby birbs living with us now are named Little Cloud ☁️ and Little Luck 🍀 (the latter is a very loose translation but their names are actually based on some old Chinese cartoon apparently?). These two have very different personalities from Little Blue and Little Green—they're much more chill and get along sweetly instead of fighting—and they're also taking much longer to become comfortable around humans. ;o; It's also super cute that their colors remind me of Elsa and Anna!

Unfortunately... Little Luck has been showing symptoms of sickness and it's been a huge source of concern for me, especially after finding out that birds tend to not show symptoms until it's become serious T____T So against my parents' shitty judgment I argued until I cried that he should see a vet, and dedicated my entire Wednesday (oh yeah work has been extremely stressful lately too but thankfully my bosses helped buy me time so that I could step away so basically I was a huge mess that day ;;) to trying to find one—I spent three hours calling essentially every clinic and animal urgent care facility within a 40 mile radius that could potentially see birds. And they would all answer that they didn't take birds, didn't take exotic birds, didn't have their avian vet on staff that day, weren't accepting new clients, were booked up until next week, or were closed early for Thanksgiving.......... screams

Bless fome's soul for dropping everything and coming over to help me despite us living an hour apart. ;__; He and my mom together made a nice box for transport and drove me everywhere while I kept an eye on the baby birb. We actually even had a false start and were on our way to an animal ER an hour away that said we could come in—only to find out that their only semi-avian vet suddenly was slammed with walk-ins until the end of their shift. Eventually the only thing we could do was wait until the 24/7 ER that was also an hour away opened up in capacity.

(Side note: Ironically.... this place, literally the  o n l y  place in the entire Bay that'd be able to see my parakeet the day before Thanksgiving.... was just a couple miles from fome's house ☠ meaning he drove 4 hours that day in order to come over, bring us to the vet near his house, drop me off home, then go home himself orz;;)

The vet found that all of his vitals were healthy, thank god!! She said that it could likely be from lack of quality sleep (I AGREE IT'S EXTREMELY LIKELY and I've yelled at my parents to stop playing loud radio while they sleep and/or close their door—this was the thing I became complacent about before but now look at the consequences) or possibly that he has a molting coming on. If he's still in poor condition in a week then she'd suggest getting him tested for diseases. T__T He's been getting better in terms of liveliness and thankfully has been eating normally this entire time, but gosh I hope his ruffled feathers improve real soon.... 🙏🙏

Every day I'm just worried about how anything we do might affect the birbs' health... It makes me so anxious that I might wake up any day to bad news. Today I got out of bed to find that my parents had already done something possibly (?) somewhat careless (?) that I really fucking hope won't lead to sudden heartbreak tomorrow morning. These babies are so delicate, I can't help but constantly worry. I've read horrifying reviews from bird owners mourning from the unsuspecting death that came out of their vet visits, because their perfectly healthy bird was so stressed out from the situation. When we dropped Little Luck off at the ER, all I could pray for was that I could bring home a baby bird that was still alive. It's been so emotionally draining. I'm always wondering if I should steel myself for the worst. And if something really happens to these baby birbs too, I don't know if my heart can take it TT

Okay sorry this ended up being so heavy aaaaaaaaaaaaa I will protect Little Cloud and Little Luck as best as I can!! ☁️🍀💪