Not this again.... thankfully i don't have to deal with this again. Obviously now that SBC have sacked so many Parks staff, they have lost the historical/specialist knowledge of parks issues and those left just don't know how to handle this sort of problem.
The problem is that no one ever went to a specialist vet and they all relied on 'what a mate' had told them about keeping budgies, the Animal Welfare dept only really bother about cats and dogs etc. So the it was pretty much left to the gardeners at Town Gardens to try and sort it. Despite being keen and caring they neither had the resource or the time to finally do anything more than make the birds as comfortable as they could.
The issue are SEX, overpopulation, Avian agro, SBC lack of decision, botheredness and money.
A quick run down for those concerned:
1. They suffered from vitamin deficiency caused by excess egg laying, birds will lose calcium from their bodies to make eggs.
2.The aviary itself is over populated and nesting, birds would be donated by the public and no one would check that the aviary's environment could cope and there were no quarantine provisions before introducing new birds into the avairy.
3. The aviary roof structure was rotting and water was leaking in.
So Weakened birds, fought for egg laying space / nesting sites leaving many without full plumage. Some days it would look liek bloody murder was being done. In these conditions they soon developed french moult.
Several guesses at cures just made the issues worse with no one wanting to call the vets in. Then just when it coudln't get any worse a bacterial disease developed that was decided to be be 'incurable'.
Thats were I came in, I got a letter from a visitor to the park who complained about the brids to the RSPCA, an inspector then called me and asked to inspect the avairy. After letting him in he decided that there was no action necessary . So it's no use calling them in because they didn't recomend a course of action last time. I was appalled at this, I didn't know of an EXPERT (sorry Muggins) in avian care and was hoping that the RSPCA would at least help, they didn't, infact the inspector dropped the case just as quick as he could.
I didn't want to drop the issue so spent a few hours ringing round or bothering peope to find a specialist. In the end, if anyone had bothered to look, there is a avaian specialist in Swindon. So I got them to give me there proffesional opinion.
Which was.....
Fix the environmental factors i.e. the damp and reduce the population. Add vitamins in the water and Antibacteria paste to be smeared on the beaks Twice a day until cured.
or
Humainly dispose of them and close down the avairy.
Brutal choice I know, well which one would you choose? I never got to make that decision as I was made redundant soon after that.
I was all for the cure, but was told that NO money existed in the budget to pay SCS to apply the cure. I expect what has happened is that as
normal, no one wants to own the issue, senior officers couldn't care, councillors can't be asked unless its a photo oportunity and somewhere in a bin lies a box file marked 'Ongoing Issues' (including TG avairy) that I gave my manager before I left SBC.
I think your all going to see more of this type of story from the adver.
As Tea Boy says 'Deplorable'
