The vet trimmed Pidge's beak and claws, but was concerned because the beak looked abnormal; he does have what looks like scratches near the tip. She also noticed something I couldn't see: he has a little growth on the very underside of his lower beak.

She examined his right leg and found no signs of a break or swelling in the area. She did show me the underside of his left foot and there is a raw spot on it. This may explain why he was favoring the leg Sunday before last. It's at the very bottom, and is probably caused by his perches being too flat and even; uneven and rougher ones are better. It's so ironic because I was glad to see the wood perches in the new cage because I was told plastic perches weren't good, but we could never get wood perches to fit Bandit's old cage! I had tried to get the uneven perches when we first got the cage, but all the pet stores were out of them. After that, he was used to the wood and he had the smaller plastic perches and was out on top of the cage and other places a lot, so he wasn't spending all his time on the hard wood.

I'm worried about the beak thing, though. It certainly could be a tumor on the lower beak. And lameness is often the first sign of internal tumors.

He still has an appetite and wants to do his normal things, including preening, despite limping around. I suppose that's a positive sign.

For now I've put some facecloth around one of his wood perches. He doesn't like it and is glaring at it from his upper perch between preening.

Sometimes life hands you lemons and all you can do is bear the sour taste...

Labels: Hallowe'en, pets, sickness

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 12:09:00 PM

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