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Update on the canary... we still have him, no sign of any owners. But he is not doing so well. We took him to a bird vet who said he either has mites (not serious) or pox (a serious, usually terminal bird disease). Right now I'm thinking it must be pox.
We noticed right away when we found him Sunday that he was missing some feathers on the back of his head and his neck, but he seemed active and healthy otherwise. On Wednesday we brought him to the vet. He said his first guess was that the little guy has mites, so he treated the bird with some oral medicine for mites and said his feathers should start growing back if that was it. Otherwise, he said, his second guess was pox. If it is pox, then he said there was nothing we could do.
I was hopeful and watching for signs of the feathers growing back, but instead he seems to be deteriorating. He is starting to look kind of scabby and scaly around his eyes and beak, and tonight it seems he is not breathing right. He is breathing really fast and opening and closing his beak. Also, he is usually asleep by around 7pm, sundown. Now it's almost 8:30, I think he can't sleep.
Sadly, I'm thinking right now that he won't make it through the night. I wish there was something we could do for him.
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Well... our canary didn't die Thursday night like I thought he might... he suffered through another day, but when I went to check on him before bed last night he was gone.
I'm so sad for him that his last few days were such a scary time of being lost, captured, staying in brand new surroundings, etc. I wonder was he sick before he escaped, or did he catch it while he was "at large" in the great outdoors?
I was really hoping that we would see him get healthy and fluffy like the canaries we saw at Petco, but I guess it's not to be. Hopefully at least we made his last few days comfortable.