Caryl

Meet the latest addition to our family. It is a green, maroon bellied conure. No idea of sex as, unless it lays an egg, we will have to have it DNA tested. At the moment it is being called Pepper cos it is green with a touch of red and has bite. 8) It loves baths apparently... I think the man said he was about 3 or 4 months old and hand reared. He was loose in the shop and happy to be passed from customer to customer. They had 2 and the other one was sold the day before so it is probably missing its companion It has been quiet so far and only given light nips on occasion. It rode home loose in the car moving from person to person as the fancy took it. Grant and Ryan managed to get the cage built so we had somewhere to put it! We bought a really big one on wheels so it can be moved about and maybe get outside for some direct sunlight (if I can keep the neighbour's cat away :evil: ). It came with a starter pack of food and toys so ew are all set for a while.

Thank you all. He gets reassessed at the vet today 2.45. He has improved a little but is still a sick budgie so I think it will be kindest to have him put down. He certainly does not have quality of life and we put off getting Misty put down so I think she suffered longer than she should have just because we couldn't bear to make the decision. We have not heard a sound out of him for a week now and he is usually bouncing about nattering away and playing with his toys. As to names, Deidre (one of our members) works at a supermarket with several Brazilians and Sth Americans so is going to ask them for South American name. Of course we will have to trust us when they assure us the name relly does mean something nice! :lol: At the moment it is being called Pepper cos it is green with a bit of red on the front and it has bite I understand you can train them to poo in designated areas so will need to learn more about them. We are not even sure what they can eat apart from bird seed. The guy at the shop said they love raw peanuts in the shell but I could only find roasted ones. Anyone know where else they can be found and how often they can have them? Also, what fruits and veg can I give, and how often? Any advice on training or any aspect would be appreciated.

I have to delete that first one Navarre. Not only unflattering lower areas but your eyes were shut too :lol: The one with you and Grant in it was good though. Hopefully I wil have time to post pics later. I hope nobody objects to being identified? There are no photos of anyone doing anything embarrassing or anything like that! 8)

It was a delicious cheesecake wasn't it? So was the carrot cake and the cup cakes :lol: I hope to upload photos of the weekend in the next few days but have a lot of other stuff to do, including finishing off the AW!

Well we had a fantastic weekend and met many fellow fish keepers. Thanks Navarre for hosting us for lunch and showing us your fish room etc. Thanks to the Totally Tanked members for joining us on most of the shop crawl and to those who showed us their tanks too. It was great to meet our Auckland member, Adodge and her husband, and MarkLB. I like putting a face to the name 8) Thanks DonnaM for opening your home for us in the evening for a delicious BBQ. I hope Milo has recovered from the onslaught! We came home with quite a number of fish and plants (plus a new bird and large cage with accessories). Good thing we took 2 vehicles in the end!!! :bounce: Thanks to all involved in making it such a fun (if expensive) weekend - from Caryl, Grant, Ken, Deidre, Joe, Ryan and Paul At some points we had all the above plus Alanmin4304, carznkats, humvee, bdspider, DonnaM, jenniferh & wilson with us too. I hope you all enjoyed yourselves as well. We must do it again sometime! :lol:

Well, there may or may not have been an improvement over the weekend but he is still a very sick bird. I want to take him back to the vet on Monday to make the decision of whether to continue treatment or put him out of his misery but I feel he is not going to get any quality of life from now on and, if we are right about the tumour, getting over the pneumonia is not going to help as the tumour is killing him anyway Now is probably not the time to say this but we bought another bird today (Grant fell in love instantly). We now have a maroon bellied conure which we haven't named yet. It has a very big cage and stand and a lot of toys. We will not tell Bud though as he will think we don't love him anymore and that isn't so :-? Of course, if he makes a miraculous recovery he will get to meet it eventually but at the moment he is still with his grandparents.

Kerry

thirst

We are in ChCh this weekend so rang mum to check on him. No change I am afraid. I htink we wil get the vet to euthanase him on Monday

It is DELICIOUS!!!! I speak from experience here as I have tasted wok's ganache icing. The chocolate cake underneath it was sublime too

Beautiful

We haven't left yet (go in the morning) but he is worse If he is still alive on Monday I think we will have him put down by the vet as he is obviously suffering. He can only fly short distances and I am now pretty sure there is an underlying tumour causing the rest of the problems as I think I can see it from certain angles (either that or he has developed a beer gut) He still has a raspy breath and is breathing very heavily and sitting uncomfortably. He is still eating but otherwise just sleeps. Today he spent quite a bit of time on the cage floor rather than his perch - not a good sign He can't die today cos it's my birthday! :-?

Great pics! Thanks for sharing

I have found my font size increases when I put my glasses on 8)

Definitely Let it rest 10 minutes or so, the sides will shrink away from the tin. Ice when cold. Eat immediately as it will go off otherwise :lol: So, you using chocolate or banan flavoured icing? 8) There is a thread somewhere here on the "proper" icing for banana cake :lol:

pain

Hiya Ras, check out the MAC trip to ChCh thread under the FNZAS club section. Our club in Marlborough is heading to ChCh tomorrow to do a crawl around the shops, and a private home tank or three. Perhaps you would like to meet up with us at some point and join in. There is also going to be a BBQ at DonnaM's place (she has mowed the lawn especially) so you would also get to meet some fellow local fishkeepers

OK I am now locking this thread. It has gone off topic and everyone has had their say (some more than once). I know some of the shops mentioned have taken on board some of the issues raised and have also appreciated that the repeat customers have been kind enough to express their positive views as well.

I have no idea but I would like to know why they can't just share the hedge??? :lol:

Well he had his 3rd dose tonight and I think he may be showing a slight improvement. He is quite alert this evening, threw some things off the bench (for the first time in several days) and is currently having some banana with Grant as an American vet friend suggested pumpkin and banana were good for constipation. I think he is looking a little cleaner tonight too. His poo looks like it normally does and is a mix of black and white. I suspect the black may actually be a dark green but my eyesight is not what it used to be. :roll: Come to think of it, although I can still hear him breathing, I don't think it is as loud or rattling sounding (but I could be kidding myself) and he has not sneezed today (that I noticed). Before we started the meds he was sneezing a lot. Thanks for all your suggestions and help. His grandparents are going to look after him and give him his meds on Saturday. If he dies while we are away mum said she will bury him in the garden. This is good as we don't have a garden to bury him in (ours is all bark chipped, hers is easy to dig in! :lol: But, feathers crossed, he may be improving :bounce:

I have had an Animates card for years but never received any emails (and I would have added my email I am sure, if there was a place for it). Perhaps I signed up before email was invented :lol:

No idea. Can't imagine needing one. Probably won't get one as I have yet to buy an i anything I still only use my mobile to text people (and send a max of 3 messages per week).

Sorry to hear after you tried so hard to save him too. I know nothing about seahorses but do know a lot can go wrong during birth so I suspect this was the case with your poor fella

Joe, the junior member we have coming with us, has some flag cichlids, Laetacara curviceps, for sale and is willing to bring them down with him if anyone in the ChCh area would like some. He is hoping to get $5 each for them (probably so he can buy more fish). PM me if you are interested please, and how many. I believe this is a pic of one of the adults...

Microworms are very small. Grindals are bigger and white worms are bigger again.