10/08/2025
UPDATE; ruby had a recheck with her Dr. shes healing beautifully. Her facial wounds are completely healed. Her eye looks much better, still has a small area that has an ulcer so we will continue the eye meds. Her spirit and spunkiness is coming back. She’s a little less snuggle bug and a little more sass! Her avain team evaluated her and we took her off one of her pain meds. She hasnt lost any weight!!! This is a big one-no weight loss!!!! She loves her formula feedings. She has eaten mashed sweet potato , banana, applesauce -very soft foods. Her team was very very impressed with how quickly she’s healing.
There’s been some concern that i may be prolonging Ruby’s pain for my own sake . Let me assure everyone, I would never do that. Ive had to make some heartbreaking decisions in my life and it’s always for the pet and person, never myself! Ruby is under the care of a very well known and respected avian specialist, if at any time they did not think it was the right thing to do, we wouldnt be doing it. The plan was and is, to let Ruby show us. Im also not the person to euthanize an animal bc its going to take work and care to save. We don’t start pulling animals to sleep bc they are hurt!!
Ruby is doing better every day!
I want to share a story with you guys. On Thursday, 10 days ago, our crimson bellied conure got down off her play stand, walked across the house to my greys cage, climbed up and they fought through the cage bars. I was upstairs working & by the time I got to her, the damage was done.
I rushed her to the avian vet. I mean no bra, no clothes. I was wearing little cotton shorts and a tank top with a bird bite hole. There was no time.
So the initial report from the vet said that she had a fractured jaw, broken beak, extensive head trauma, her eye was bleeding and swollen, her sinuses were bleeding. We couldn’t tell how badly everything was until she got a ct and we couldn’t get a ct until she was stable enough. Now mind you, this is my 7yr old, Gio’s bird. Like he loves Ruby like non other. She is so incredibly special to him so the thought of losing Ruby was heartbreaking to me, the thought of gio losing Ruby was unbearable. It was $2000 just to have her admitted to icu. I couldn’t do it, so I took her home with a massive amount of medication and instructions on what to do. I took to social media with Ruby’s story and our need for help to save her. And you guys showed up!!! I took her back for her recheck two days later and it wasn’t good. She was hours away from death. Heart was faint from massive dehydration. She needs immediate medical intervention or she was going to die. Her God papa, David, made a call and she was admitted. For three days she stayed in icu. Then the Dr wanted to proceed with the ct. she wasn’t strong enough but the strongest she was going to get with the info we had. We drove over to see her before the ct, there was a strong chance she wasn’t going to make it out from going under. When I say she was happy to see us, she heard my voice and just started screaming and flapping. Snuggled in my hand and went to sleep. Well handed our sweet baby girl off and waited for over an hour. She did great!! No complications! At this time the vet was impressed bc she was showing such strength. I had told the vet at the beginning, as long as Ruby wanted to fight, I was going to fight for her. We were sent home with her after the ct to wait for the report to come back. It was quick-the next day we got the call and were in to see Dr.Lamb, avian specialist vet who has published so much info on birds. She’s a very well known and respected vet in the field. The report showed she has fractures, in the eye bone, sinuses and jaw. Her beak is torn off on the side and her jaw is broken. And it’s torn off all along the side down into the bottom where from my understanding is the most important part of the beak. Surgery will be hard to do, so if we can get her eating on her own, she doesn’t want to do surgery. She’s going to lose her eye and her sinuses need to be flushed but we wait until they heal. She’s being hand fed a special formula 4x a day by syringe. She’s on two eye meds with an eye flush 3x day. 4 oral meds and one injection 2x a day. The pain this little thing has been in is beyond comprehension. She’s in her hospital tote, comfortable, on a heating pad, humidifier full blast. Special untra fine pellets. Egg food. Both offered in case she’ll try to eat. She did try once but hasn’t since. She does enjoy her hand feeding. Her heating pad has to be reset every two hours, even and especially during the night. She went in yesterday to see Dr, she was a little dehydrated so she got fluids and another eye stain. It’s really a wait and see if she’ll eat on her own. We pray she will, if not, we will need to talk beak/jaw reconstructive surgery. She just needs time to heal and find her new norm.
This has been really hard on Gio. He just can’t imagine life without Ruby. And I’m so glad he doesn’t have to.
I’m not a negligent bird mom, the opposite actually. They aren’t in the same room together. This was just one of those things that happened that shouldn’t have happened. I just wanted to share our story with you all. And know that each and every purchase is helping us get Ruby the on going care she needs!!! I’m attaching some pictures of this whole process. Gio’s sadness, Ruby’s injuries, her so happy to see us, so happy to be home and her need for snuggles these days.
