No Drum Roll This Time - Heere's Sweetie!

It was kind of heart breaking to see that little Sweetie had been born with funny-looking wings.  You know how the other chicks are when some one is different.  Sweetie was much smaller than than the other two.  We were unsure if he would survive.  When we took the chicks out of the parent's cage, two went to one cage and little Sweetie came to a cage in our room.  I fed him with a feeding syringe.  And boy! was he persistant to ask for food, refusing the spoon or seed.  Today was the first real lesson with a spoon again.  I waited until I could hear his pitiful cries from the living room where I had placed him with his siblings.  I had fed him 15 cc's but he was "dying" or so he wanted me to think.  He grabbed at the spoon!  See below:

                                            

If you could have heard the sounds he was making while he ate, you would have fallen over laughing!  The girls and I heard those sounds(I put some tiny nestling seed in) I can't reproduce it here and laughed so loud! 

 

I let him eat as much as as he wanted.  He was stuffed and sleepy when he finished. 

The pictures below show you how his little wings were formed.

Do you see how he looks like he's wearing a cape?  His shoulders are up there by his neck.  Normally, wings form up there and open out into full beautiful wings. Sweetie's wings at first looked like they were broken somehow.  Then we realized the wings weren't in the right place.  His feathers were forming nicely, but every time he would try to flap his wings, they would get all tangled up in each other.

Even now, after the vet has done some trimming so he won't step on his wings, Sweetie wants to fly.  He jumps flapping headlong from my shoulders to the hard floor and flaps again, jumping to try to reach me again.  I love this precious chicklet as I have not loved a bird since my Dufus died.  I truly enjoy the other 18 **shudder** although they don't feel as special to me as my flightless Cockatiel.

May the Lord send His ministering angels to keep and protect you as you sleep