Rescue Story: Ruth and Jonah

Jonah and Ruth Article from “The Mickaboo Bird Rescue Companion”
Published October, 2020

By The Editor

This is the story of two rescued budgies, Ruth and Jonah, whose stay in our rescue flock began inauspiciously.

These two budgies were rescued by the Sonoma County shelter from a severely ill person who could no longer care for herself or her birds. These two were the only members of their small flock to survive, the others having literally starved to death. We assume their plucked condition was due at least partly from extreme stress and near-starvation. One of our volunteers picked them up from the county shelter and brought them to a Mickaboo foster parent.

The foster parent set up a cage with crumbled Nutrian cakes (a seed/pellet mixture) and millet to coax them to eat. After two hours, it appeared that they hadn't eaten anything, and there were just two tiny poops, mostly urates.

We were getting desperate about getting the budgies to eat. They were so nervous, the foster parent stayed out of their room except for an occasional peek around the corner, in an attempt to calm them down to where they might start eating.

Finally, in desperation, the foster parent sat next to their cage and started talking to them. They came to sit near the foster parent, watching and squeaking. The foster parent started to whistle. Both of the budgies ran over to their dish and started eating ravenously! If the foster parent stopped whistling, they stopped eating and watched the human. After a little while, they were willing to keep eating on their own.

Today, Ruth and Jonah are happy little budgies and doing well. They eat on their own without any prompting. Their voices are unusually hiigh for budgies, and they use their voices - especially a high-pitched twitter - often to express their affection for each other. They are very cute to see at night, huddling as close to each other as physically possible to sleep.

Ruth and Jordan are available for adoption. See this page to learn more about them and contact their adoption coordinator.

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Rescue Story: Ruth and Jonah