This story comes from our friends Burge Bird Rescue. Burge Bird Rescue, located in south Kansas City, Missouri, helps over 300 birds every year from several states. They are affiliated with Burge Bird Services, a veterinary practice that cares for birds exclusively. Learn more about them here!

When an owner stubbornly refuses to listen to our advice on how to provide better care for their pets, it is incredibly frustrating and sometimes depressing. Spanky the Red Lored Amazon lived for decades in a cage suitable for a parakeet, bombarded by the smoke of thousands of cigarettes, eating unfortified sunflower seeds and peanuts from the feed store.

PHOTO COURTESY OF BURGE BIRD RESCUE

He had overgrowing upper and lower beaks, fat deposits under his skin, discolored feathers, and large fatty tumors on his lower body. You can see a hint of one of the lumps in his photo, hanging down below him and often rubbing on the perch. When his owner's health declined so they could no longer care for him, he came to our rescue.

PHOTO: BURGE BIRD RESCUE

Spanky learned that healthy eating can be fun! Between his bowl of multicolored pellets, and the variety of fruits and vegetables we provided, he suddenly had the nutrition his body had probably been craving for years. He had to have surgery to remove one of the fatty lumps from his belly, and we were surprised to find that he had a hernia, a defect in the muscle layer, underneath. He might never look completely normal, but he is now happy and loved in a big cage with fresh clean air and all the toys he could ever want.

PHOTO COURTESY OF BURGE BIRD RESCUE

This story came from Burge Bird Rescue. Burge Bird Rescue, located in south Kansas City, Missouri, helps over 300 birds every year from several states. They are affiliated with Burge Bird Services, a veterinary practice that cares for birds exclusively. Learn more about them here!