Flapper demonstrates how to clean a feather booger out of your beak.
Flapper heads to the vet tomorrow at 2pm for a full heart work-up, whatever that means. Apparently it will help us adjust his medications and change them if necessary. He is doing really well in the house and seems to like being inside a lot. I love spending time with him in the early mornings before I get up for work. Even Simon is okay with it, as long as he gets some time on the couch or bed WITHOUT having to share with Flapper.
George’s foot continues to do well. The darn scab just needs to go completely away and then he can go to his forever sanctuary. Until then, I do enjoy having him around as he is a little goofball, and is full of fun antics. O’Malley, Petunia and the chickens are doing well too.
We’ll update after we’re back from the vet tomorrow night.
Flapper has many stories to tell me every night and every morning. He is alone during the day so he saves up his stories until I get home. I really like to hear them all, except for when he wants to tell stories at 3am, then I wear earplugs and Simon hears his stories instead.
Flapper looks pretty good this morning. His blood work came back totally normal so it is really likely that his heart is the problem. I may take him in for more of a good listen to his heart, but I’m not sure I want to stress him more. We’ll see.
He has been on heart meds for two days now and they do perk him up a bit. The first night they perked him up TOO MUCH! But last night was better, and they actually make it easier for him to stand up, so that is great. He can stand and preen better, and he seems to have a bit more energy. He is also eating good. It is nice to have some borrowed time with him, and I appreciate every minute of it.
The weather is cold for Seattle today and tomorrow, so the other feathered kids are locked in their night pens. It’s going to get down to 25 degrees tonight, brrr!
The chickens have their heat lamp, so they think they are at a tanning salon. They tried to order some mai tais but they couldn’t show proper ID so I turned them down.
George is still sweet as ever, and his foot looks great. We’re giving his forever sanctuary some time to get some repairs done to their waterfowl areas, and then we’ll talk to them about when is best to deliver George. He’ll still have one last vet visit to get the all clear, but he’s pretty good.
Simon is also getting old and feeble. He sits funny like this sometimes now. I think it is because his back legs hurt a bit. His back legs are weak, which is one of the symptoms of diabetes in cats. He has been on insulin for about two weeks now and we’re working out the right dosages. His biggest problem this week is that the wet food he loved was discontinued. So he has tried 10+ different foods and does not want any of them. He only wants his beloved discontinued prescription-only, limited ingredient food (which incidentally was a food he refused to eat for a long time, until one day he decided it was his only favorite). Being a cat is a tough job.
That’s the update from this motley crew for today. We wish everyone a very Happy New Year, and we thank everyone for their continued support.
It sounds like Flapper has a heart murmur, and so he had an x-ray to see what his heart looks like.
I always forget that the vet’s x-ray machine is kind of crap quality. I wish I had gone to the better x-ray place, but their hunch is the same as my hunch, so I won’t bother for now. They think his heart looks too big, which isn’t great.
We had blood drawn and the results will hopefully be back tomorrow.
The vet doesn’t think that Flapper has the same thing that Chewy had. And whatever Chewy had we’ll unfortunately never know.
They suspect that Flapper has heart failure. I suspect that as well. In fact I was telling a friend the other day that Flapper reminds me of how Racquel L’Oreal was acting before she passed away from congestive heart failure. Flapper sleeps a lot, tires easily, over-exerts himself and then has to sit down and rest, and doesn’t eat great anymore.
But he perks up for french fries.
Flapper has been living in the house full-time now for almost two weeks. Thankfully, he really seems to like it. He is comfy, he can get to his food and water easily and he loves to talk to his mirror. I wake up early in the morning and bring him up onto the bed with me. He snuggles next to me and just stares at me while I tell him how beautiful and amazing he is, and then we both fall asleep.
Tomorrow we should get blood results and later this week we should know more details about Flapper’s condition. I might take him back in Saturday for more of a heart work-up, but we’ll see how he feels.
This is Flapper home from the vet’s office tonight. As you can see he came home and ate some food, so that is good!
All I want to do is spend all day and night with him, but that’s not realistic. I have other feathered and furry kids, not to mention a full-time job that needs my full attention. Flapper is the most interesting, amazing, loving, special animal I have ever had the pleasure to know, including all the humans I know (sorry people). And he is way more emotional and expressive than any cat or dog.
I’m lucky to have him in my life for as long as I get to know him, and every day with him is a great day.
Flapper is looking okay today. He ate a little bit of food and of course he ate some french fries. We’ve bought McDonald’s, Jack in the Box and Wendy’s fries for him so far and his preference is all of them, and more. Giving him a few fries really perks him up and gets him to eat some regular duck food, so I will continue to do it until he is eating more. He still wears out far too easily and he can’t keep his feathers oiled, which makes it tough to swim. If he swims for just a minute he gets so tired that he rests and closes his eyes. He also gets sopping wet. That’s not his normal routine by a long shot. He is doing okay though.
We did get a call from the vet’s office on Christmas day, asking how Chewy was doing. Unfortunately he had already passed away that morning. We also heard from the vet today about Chewy’s blood results. They were all within normal range which means they don’t tell us anything about how or why he died. On Christmas morning I took Chewy’s body to the emergency vet’s office to be cremated. I couldn’t bear to save him for a necropsy. I didn’t want anyone cutting into him. It would have been good to know how he died but I couldn’t do it. Some people have written comments about the vets and assumed they didn’t contact me. Please try not to make assumptions. We’re trying to juggle everything right now and update as best we can. The vets did everything they were supposed to do and more. I spoke with them five times today. I also ask that you please don’t speculate about what caused Chewy’s death. I can’t bear to listen to all the different imaginary scenarios about his death right now. I know people just want to help however they can, and I appreciate every bit of your support.
Flapper will go to the vet on Tuesday afternoon at 4pm to see if we can find out why he has lost weight, isn’t eating well and can’t keep his feathers oiled.
Right now, I think last week when I warned everyone that Flapper’s health was declining and talked about why I brought him into the house for his arthritis, he was sicker than I knew. I thought his arthritis was the reason he couldn’t stand up. I now think both he and Chewy were already sick, and Flapper is only alive today because I brought him in the house. Because Chewy isn’t quite as friendly and is more self-sufficient, I didn’t notice he was sick until it was too late. Chewy also hates being in the house, so I would never have thought to bring him in. By the time I noticed he wasn’t feeling well, most likely his organs had already started shutting down. While it seemed like Chewy got sick and died really fast, he had lost a lot of weight so that means he was sick for a while and he tried to be strong… until he couldn’t any more.
Here’s a video I made of Flapper tonight for his #1 fan Catie, and you can see he is feeling pretty good.
Our hearts go out to our feathered friends Stuart and Marmalade who are both very sick right now as well. All the best to them and their people.
I owe Chewy a proper farewell, but I’m not ready for that yet. So in the meantime, here’s a little update on Flapper and how he’s doing.
He doesn’t have as much energy as he should, and he wears out really fast. This morning he looked really good so I let him go outside for a bit and visit with the other ducks and chickens (and goose). That was a bad idea, as he got too tired and too wet swimming. So he slept for most of the rest of the day. He perked back up after I had him on a heating pad for a while.
He ate well yesterday but he didn’t eat well today so I bought him more french fries. He goes bonkers for french fries and if that’s all he’ll eat right now, that’s better than nothing. He is also eating greens and a bite or two of real food as well.
After eating some french fries, he tucked his beak into the couch cushions but kept talking to me. Here’s a little video of that.
We’ll share more as we learn more. Chewy’s blood work should be back Monday or Tuesday, and even though we realized he was sick after it was too late to help him, those blood results might tell us what’s going on with Flapper. If we need to get Flapper in to see the vet we’ll do that as well.
Thank you to everyone for your concern and the well-wishes and the condolences. We are doing okay. We think it is best not to speculate on what happened to Chewy until we know more, so please refrain from guessing.
Lastly, the night Chewy died, my good friend Jen stayed up until after 2am to help with his care. She runs a rescue operation in North Carolina that helps over 1500 birds a year. Today, snow collapsed her large aviary injuring several rescue birds. If you’d like to help her out, you can read more about the situation here: http://www.wcnc.com/news/Snow-collapses-roof-at-bird-rescue-112477614.html
We’re so grateful to Jen for helping us with Chewy, and for always being on call to answer questions for me and tons of other duck nuts. We hope her sweet rooster Marmalade, and the other rescued birds who were injured today, are able to recover and thrive.
Flapper and Chewy are both feeling crummy, so today Chewy went to the vet. He hadn’t been there in a year so it was his turn. They’re not eating well and they’ve both lost weight. It might have been a bad bag of feed, but it also might be an infection.
George also went to have his foot checked again.
George’s foot looks just great. The scab on the bottom is super shallow now, and down to 2cm by 1cm in size. We will do one more vet visit to ensure he doesn’t have any more infection and keep trying to get that scab to heal as soon as possible so he can go to his sanctuary. He will always have a weird foot with an old broken foot bone, but if the scab heals well, he won’t be at much risk for future infections. And as you can see, he walks just fine.
Flapper is sleeping in the house and he took a bath in the people tub this morning. He took another bath tonight. He isn’t eating well and right this moment we think he might have a respiratory infection. Chewy’s blood work could show what’s going on with both of them, and we might just do a round of antibiotics just in case.
Flapper’s arthritis is really bad now. He barely walks at all. He has also lost weight in the past few weeks and yet he still can’t get around even though he is lighter. He supports his weight by holding out his wings, which is a sign of pain. He can’t scratch his face very easily and he can’t reach around with his beak to get oil from his tail gland and spread it to his feathers. This means his feathers don’t stay oiled and he can’t stay dry when he swims.
Basically this all means Flapper is declining in health and he won’t get better.
His cold right now will get better, but it is important for everyone to know and prepare that Flapper may only have a few more months with us or maybe a little longer if he is not in too much pain. Please respect that we are not looking for tons of advice on building contraptions for him to walk around in or home remedies to cure him. Flapper will have the most comfortable and natural life he can have, and it will be his decision when he is ready to say goodbye. The leading cause of death is… life. And Flapper has lived a good one so far. We wish we had much more time with him, but that’s out of our control. We’re not going to rush him, but it’s time for everyone to start coming to terms with it.
This may seem out of the blue because I don’t always share everything that we’re going through here. But Flapper is struggling, and you’ll just have to trust me. I will not be sharing much of his struggles. It won’t help him and it won’t make it any easier for me.
In other news, O’Malley wanted to snuggle and sit together in the rain. It was really wet and muddy today so I took a raincheck. He is a cute kid though, and I’d snuggle any other time.
When George came back from the vet today he had some serious business to attend to.
George has a “test flight” routine he does several times a day. I could tell you about it, but instead I’ll show you. Once, twice… and a third time. This is test flight #1.
Test flight #2.
Test flight #3.
We’re not sure what George is planning with all his test flights, but it’s sure to be amusing. We’ll keep you posted on that, as well as Chewy and Flapper’s cold (or whatever).
Santa came early to our house and brought Flapper a play pen.
Flapper will be sleeping in the play pen in the house when the weather is cold to see if it helps his arthritis at all. When all the feathered kids went to their pens for the night, I picked up Flapper and brought him inside to his play pen. He ate his dinner, turned around and fell asleep. He is such a calm, happy-go-lucky kid. He didn’t mind the play pen at all and has been sleeping soundly for hours now.
In other news, Simon might have diabetes. The vet said he does for sure, but after a week of giving him insulin twice a day I did a blood sugar test 6-hours after his insulin and it was too low. That means he’s getting too much insulin. So now we have to cut back and test more. He is doing just fine with it all thankfully, and we should have time to check him closely over the holidays to get a really good picture of his overall blood sugar patterns. Until then, he just sits on me and stares at me until I get up and feed him, and that works well for him (but not so great for me).
After the rain on Saturday, everybody enjoyed the sunshine on a chilly Sunday morning.
Can you pick up on the body language here?
O’Malley decided he wasn’t going to be very friendly today. I stopped O’Malley from attacking George just in the nick of time, and George is fine. Then everyone ELSE enjoyed the sunshine.
George nursed his bruised ego.
And O’Malley sat on my lap, insisting that George had started it.
Flapper and Chewy enjoyed a swim in their fresh pool, and then settled in for some preening and a nap.
George took a bath too, and then chatted with me about his morning.
Janet and the other chickens went all floppy in the sunshine so they could sun their feathers. They love to lay spread out on the ground so they can soak up as much sun as possible.
That’s about all that’s going on here this weekend. Preening, napping, swimming and sunshine.
Flapper was not too keen on sharing his pool with George the rescue goose this weekend.
He will share it sometimes with Chewy, but just a little bit.
Eventually he wants the pool to himself, so he kicks Chewy out.
Then he’s free to watch the birds fly by.
And splash up a storm, all by himself.
George eventually got pool time, but he had to wait until Flapper was done.
In other news, O’Malley is a snuggle-saurus again. He has been mad at me for weeks, and running away from me when I tried to pick him up. He was mad over a combination of molting, George being here, and having to take a round of antibiotics to clear up a cold. But he finally decided that I’m okay again, and now comes to me when I call and sits on my lap. I must say, I didn’t miss the ankle-biting, but I did miss my quality time with my snuggle-saurus. I’m glad he’s friendly again and back to trusting me.
It was a good, chilly weekend in Seattle. And we had plenty of yard time with treats for the chickens and everyone else.
We hope everyone is having a great holiday season.
From all of us (plus George) to all of you and yours…
