Cracked

Poor Pierre. He struggled at the horrible breeder's house, where he never even learned to stand, he struggles at our house as he can't be with his lover at all times, he struggles at the vet where he is today, getting a fractured lower mandible repaired. He's just a tiny, fluffy blue ball of woe.

Fritz and Pierre love each other, passionately. However, they fight terribly when in the same cage, so they each have their own apartments. But, as we are terribly permissive parents (enablers), we let them sleep together. If they aren't separated before they fully awake, though, they fight. They must have had quite a throw down on Saturday morning, left together longer than usual while we lazily slept in. Fritz had a bite on his eyelid, but Pierre seemed fine. However, yesterday morning, I noticed that he hadn't eaten many pellets, and he seemed far meeker than usual. I took him off his perch and saw that the lower right portion of his beak had been completely broken in two unevenly sized halves and that blood had filled his mouth. I threw on my clothes and ran him to our vet, only to see that they were closed on Monday. I ran him to the emergency vet, where they charged me $255 to give him fluids and a pain killer, and then told me to go back to my vet today. I took him home, made a little incubator for him, fed him warm, mushy food and watched him try to understand why he couldn't use his beak properly. It was tragic to watch him attempt to preen but stop in confusion, and then shake his head, as if to try and dislodge whatever was bothering his bite.

He's back at the proper vet now, where they are wiring the two separate beak pieces back together. He could grow it out, he could lose the piece altogether, we just don't know. We simply cannot allow the little birds to be together anymore.

Wow, this is surprisingly like parenthood.