Pet Forum / Birds / Parrots / December 2003

My albino/lutino tiel, Mimi, fell off my shoulder a few months ago and hit the
floor really hard.  I was so frightened for a few weeks, but she did recover,
although she was very subdued and in obvious pain for a while.

I just wanted to relate that for the most part, she's fine.  However, the next
time she laid a clutch of eggs, and I took her out of her cage for some
exercise, she had trouble flying again and dropped to the ground - this time on
carpet and she wasn't wet like the last time, so she wasn't hurt.  She had been
flying just fine once she recovered from the first fall, and as she had been
sitting on a clutch of eggs the first time she fell, I have to think this is
the reason, although she'd never had that problem before when sitting on eggs.

She's also continued to be more closely bonded to me now and I'm grateful for
that because after she fell, I was worried she might be afraid with me.  She's
not as adventurous, and more content just to sit on my shoulder, but she's
still lively, still chirps in response to the Law & Order intro (just the
original seris, not SVU or Criminal Intent!) and is still very opinionated!

I thought the loss of flight ability might be interesting to some of the more
experienced bird owners here and wonder what you all thought about that or if
you'd had a similar experience.