Nidji, the released rainbow lorikeet, has learned to mimic other birds! He'd been missing for a day and a half, which is he doing more often now. He returned this morning and was perched in one of the tea trees near his feeder. He started to make this call which at first I thought was from one of the mickey birds but it was him. He also imitates a grey crowned babbler. R heard him sounding like a hawk the other day. R wondered what a hawk was doing so close to the house, but of course it wasn't a hawk, it was Nidji. He murmurs a lot and when he first arrived I could almost understand what he was saying, well I couldn't understand what he was saying but it was so near to individual words it felt if I just listened a little more closely I'd be able to understand.
We have a new kitten, Natalia. Only temporarily as she is supposed to be adopted if she gets a clean bill of health. Natalia came into the surgery after wandering in to someone's house. She passed four dogs, greeted the seated people then helped herself to some dog food. This house is about 150 metres from the road with no near neighbours. Kristy brought her to work. We noticed she had a problem with urination. She urinated frequently and there was blood in it. Also she had a hard lump in her bladder. Xrays showed an x-ray opaque lump. H performed an ex-lap and found a urolith about the size of a grape. This is unheard of in a 12 week old kitten. Not even the folks at the cat clinic had ever run across anything like it. So now she's on trial. If she gets well and a urolith doesn't return we can try and find a home for her. The strange thing was her urine is acidic not alkaline. But then the urolith might be calcium oxalate rather than struvite. Her urine pH was 5 when normal pH is 6 to 6.5. She's on a combination of kitten food and Hills C/D. She'd so much rather have dry food then tinned but will just have to tough it out for awhile.
She's on a/bs and will get another xray in 2 more weeks to see if the urolith (which has been sent to the States for analysis) returns. If it does we'll put her to sleep. I hate to even write that as she is the most delightful kitten. But she can't go through life with repeated surgeries to remove uroliths.
She's a tiger with a difference. Instead of being various shades of grey, white and black she is brown cream and yellow, with a distinct yellow front paw. She has pale green eyes and a huge confident loving personality. Matisse and Nairobi are very indignant, even hissing and growling at each other because they've been so enraged by her appearance. But things are improving and Matisse watches Natalia from a distance without growling now and Nairobi has descended from her throne to have a look at her now and then.
There have been many accidents as she can't quite control her bladder yet but there are fewer than there were 4 days ago. Last night was the first night she didn't wet her sleeping area. We try and take her to the kitty box every hour or when she first wakes up after a nap to help her do her business in the right place. She doesn't have a problem with faeces. She's even doing them in the 'big kitties' box (we have a set up for her in the bathroom as she must spend the night in there rather than loose in the house).
The deal I made with R is that we would try and adopt her out if she didn't have any more FLUTD problems. Of course, now that she's here and is such a divine little soul I would like to keep her. But a deal's a deal. Naturally I'm quite chuffed when R kisses her little round head and shows her affection. Also, now that Matisse and Nairobi are settling down a bit it's not as disruptive. We'll just have to wait and see.
Jack is fully recovered from his last foot bite by Algernon and is in full attack mode again. Have been re-reading the bird click files and am all inspired to get him on side again. He's such a fine bird that it's a shame that he hasn't got a friend in the world - in his opinion.
No comments:
Post a Comment