A Recent Rescue Situation

Back in June, I answered an ad for some finches and a cage. I could see in the picture that one of the finches was a black-cheek zebra, one of my favorite mutations. After the seller stood us up the first day (grrr!), Robert went to look at the birds the following day.

When Robert got there, he was appalled at the birds' living conditions. The cage was absolutely filthy. The nests were nasty and falling apart. The perches (and underneath them) were piled with poop. Worst of all, the birds' two water cups contained only 1/4" of "poop soup" ... nasty, filthy, undrinkable water that was more poop than it was water. The food cups looked like they'd JUST been refilled, based on the lack of seed hulls in them. (I got the impression that they'd seen Robert in the driveway, and hurriedly tried to make the cage presentable, but only got as far as the food cups when he knocked on the door!) There was a cuttlebone in the cage, but it was upside down (making it useless) in the cage floor, covered in poop.

The cage was sitting right in front of the air conditioner, with cold air blowing on them, and a very loud TV right beside them.

One of the woman's kids stuck his hand in the cage, and poked at the black-cheek zebra, saying "Look! You can TOUCH this one!"

Well, it's no wonder the bird could be easily touched. It was obviously sick ... weak, droopy-winged, unable to fly well, and wobbly. The woman mentioned that there was a 5th bird, and that it passed away, but I don't know what happened to it. It was useless asking her anything.

Although I was originally interested in just the zebra finch, and didn't really "need" any more societies, there was no way any decent human being could have left those birds in the care of those "people". Robert brought them all home, hoping we could do something for the little zebra. Thankfully the societies seemed no worse for the wear, other than having overgrown toenails.

We immediately put the societies in quarantine in the bedroom, in a clean cage with fresh food and water, and put the zebra in a hospital cage with a heat lamp, vitamins, food, and water. Unfortunately it was already too late, and it passed away shortly afterwards. :-(

On the good side, the societies are happy and healthy, and are doing fine. All three of them are best buddies. :-)

Those "people" don't know how close we came to reporting them for animal neglect! :-(