Life and Death
On October 10, 2015, we bought Tesla for 10 francs from a woman who owned a gardening business in Yens, a small village to the north of Lausanne. We were not looking for a particular breed of pigeon, but when we searched online for pigeons, we only saw an advertisement for white fantail pigeons.
She was underweight and was missing a large part of her tail, probably due to feather lice.
We thought she was female, although we weren't sure. Her voice, dance, and behavior seemed like a female pigeon's.
On May 31, 2017, she laid her first pair of eggs. On July 14, 2017, she laid her second pair. After that we started covering her cage at night, and she stopped laying eggs.
When we prepared for our move from Switzerland to the United States, we hired two companies to handle her quarantine and transport: Animals To Fly (Netherlands), and Feathers Elite (Canada). We dropped her off in Amsterdam at the quarantine on May 31, 2019. She was flown to Toronto July 11, 2019 and arrived the next day. Feathers Elite reported that she laid eggs during her quarantine period in Toronto. Feathers Elite brought her across the border at Niagara Falls, and we picked her up on August 15, 2019, and drove back to St. Joseph, Michigan the next day.
Tesla was very sick and weak when we picked her up. She ate a huge amount of pellets, but regurgitated all overnight. After that she did not have much appetite.
We took her to a vet on August 19, 2019. The vet could not tell what was wrong and prescribed antibiotics.
Tesla weakened and started to pant in the early evening of August 21. She also had a few droppings with blood. She collapsed sometime during the night, and we found her body early the next morning at 6:30am.
We decided not to send her body for a necropsy, since we had no other birds who could get sick. We buried her body in a spot on the west side of the backyard in St. Joseph.
Her loss is so final, irreversible. We won't be able to share the future we had envisioned together with her in our new home. She won't be able to play, nap, eat seeds, take baths, listen to music, dance, sing. She will not meet her husband, lay eggs, and raise a chick. And we won't have her chicks. We are left with almost nothing, a few photographs and videos. The 4 years of her life are simply gone, and to the rest of the world it is as if she has never existed.
We cannot reverse her loss, but we can try to capture our memories of her and share them.
May our experiences with her depicted here be entertaining for those curious about life with a pigeon, and useful for those who are learning to care for birds.
Her loss is so final, irreversible. We won't be able to share the future we had envisioned together with her in our new home. She won't be able to play, nap, eat seeds, take baths, listen to music, dance, sing. She will not meet her husband, lay eggs, and raise a chick. And we won't have her chicks. We are left with almost nothing, a few photographs and videos. The 4 years of her life are simply gone, and to the rest of the world it is as if she has never existed.
We cannot reverse her loss, but we can try to capture our memories of her and share them.
May our experiences with her depicted here be entertaining for those curious about life with a pigeon, and useful for those who are learning to care for birds.
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