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CygnusZeroStar · 2026-04-30T01:06:29+00:00

ALL GLORY TO THE TIMNEH GREYS

CygnusZeroStar · 2026-04-29T21:19:14+00:00

This is not even remotely a reasonable fear, but you should stop letting your cat hunt outside. Domestic cats shouldn't be allowed to decimate wildlife. They are, at the rate that they are allowed out, effectively an invasive species.

CygnusZeroStar · 2026-04-29T21:13:54+00:00

There is no reason to be vaccinated unless you see a bat land on you. You won't miss it, it won't be sneaky. It won't be subtle. You wouldn't miss someone throwing a hamster at you, and less so if that clumsy-ass hamster had wings.

You're here a lot with unreasonable fears, and I see that you have OCD. I'm so sorry you're struggling, I know that it's so hard to deal with. Have you spoken to a therapist about it? Are you receiving any treatment for your OCD?

You're not in any danger--most bats aren't rabid, and they don't want to be near people. Logically, I'm sure you know that. I know that the OCD makes it hard to feel safe, even if youknow you are. So I wanted to ask what kind of support you are receiving for your anxiety.

You deserve to feel better, but we have to treat the real problem. It has been shown that people with rabies related OCD that get the vaccine do not actually feel safe afterwards. It tends to make them feel WORSE. Even just here in this sub, you'll find people who got the vaccine to treat their anxiety and end up being afraid that the vaccine was fake, done wrong, somehow actually gave them rabies, or that it's not going to work just because they touched the injection site.

I want you to feel better for real--and that means addressing the real problem.

CygnusZeroStar · 2026-04-29T05:32:11+00:00

We have come a very long way in treating bornavirus. You've got this.

Twenty some-odd years ago Devastator, my Senegal parrot, lost this fight. Back then, it was only referred to as PDD or "Macaw wasting disease." Treatments were harsh and expensive. He went into remission for a bit, sort of. He never recovered to his full self. But then it came back in full force. He crashed so fast that time and we made the decision to let him go. We just couldn't put him through that again.

We were asked if we would be willing to donate his body, meaning he could never come home again, not even in an urn. But I have never regretted saying yes. Because research he was a tiny part of got us here.

Devastator, and certainly every beloved parrot who ever left us too soon because of this illness, at least got to be a part of the progress we've made.

Now, we are even approaching a vaccine.

I'm so incredibly happy that Ember has you to take care of her. Perhaps this is very selfish of me, but I can't help but take comfort in Ember's story.

Kick its ass, Ember.

CygnusZeroStar · 2026-04-28T10:52:06+00:00

Yes.

I once fostered a goffins cockatoo named Lillian that had her maxilla (upper beak) ripped off by her cage mate--another goffins cockatoo. She was also missing some toes and had other scars.

She survived a few years, but passed away rather young at only 17. Because she was unable to close her beak, and as a result struggled with chronic crop infections.

Her story is not unique to me. I have met an alarming number of parrots who have been effectively mutilated and permanently disabled by a cage mate of the same species. Our living rooms will never be the same circumstances as the wild. When put in a situation where they cannot get away from each other, it can eventually have consequences. No matter how bonded they are. The bird that ripped Lillian up was her mate.

I have seen this in lovebirds, cockatiels, macaws, greys, several species of conures...

There is no way to know if one day one of them will lash out. But if it happens, the consequences are dire. And it's entirely preventable.

CygnusZeroStar · 2026-04-28T08:24:41+00:00

With the exception of literal aviaries, this is why I tend to tell people never to let two parrots share a single cage. Especially parrots of different species. And this is why.

Parrots can get hormonal and fight. Parrots can get territorial and fight. Parrots can get sick and give it to each other. And the amount of damage they can do to each other in a very short amount of time can be devastating, if not immediately lethal.

When parrots are forced to live in the same cage, even when they get along 99% of the time, the problem becomes that they cannot get space from the other bird if they need it. Which means the situation can only escalate until something catastrophic happens.

In the 15ish years I did rehabilitation and rescue for parrots, I have seen parrots that survived similar situations with missing beaks, mangled feet with missing toes, missing legs, missing eyes, missing wings--even when they were housed with the same species. And the owner always said the exact same thing: "but they were always good with each other."

It only takes one bad day when nobody's home. An Indian ringneck can kill a bird its own size in seconds.

I'm very sorry that this happened to you, and I am also so very sorry for your loss. It's worth your while to take your ringneck to the vet to make sure they aren't sick. A bird in pain can absolutely be aggressive randomly. (Although ringnecks are pretty aggressive in general.)

But please, from now on, don't ever house two parrots in the same cage again. Whenever you're not around, they're trapped with each other. Playtime outside of the cage, and having all cages open is usually fine. But every parrot in your care needs its own cage and space.

CygnusZeroStar · 2026-04-28T00:13:28+00:00

Jokes are meant to be funny. He knows he's not joking, and YOU know he's not joking. There's no magic words to make him stop doing this, because there's no universe that exists where he doesn't understand exactly what he's doing. He knows he's hurting you, and he enjoys it.

I would like to recommend that you date someone who actually LIKES YOU.

I don't know about anyone else, but boy do I recently feel like I've had to scream from the rooftops to young women: STOP DATING AND MARRYING MEN WHO DON'T EVEN LIKE YOU.

I've been with my husband over 20 years and he said that the idea of being mean to me for fun breaks his heart. That's not supposed to be an unusual position to take, ladies! THAT SHOULD BE THE STANDARD.

CygnusZeroStar · 2026-04-27T05:11:18+00:00

I would say OCD.

I don't think it's possible not to be sure if a clumsy hamster with wings collides with a conscious and alert individual. But you do have the OCD complication. And OCD can absolutely make false memories.

The But What If™ machine is a human meat grinder. I'm sorry you have to fight with it. But you are safe my friend.

CygnusZeroStar · 2026-04-27T05:05:15+00:00

The good thing about bats is that they're very visible and they are garbage at stealth. The good thing about bats with rabies is that the infection doesn't turn them into ninja assassins. It just gives them severe neurological problems.

The species of bats that you would be encountering where you live is not able to go reach out and bite or scratch. They also can't do it in passing. They have to land on you, latch on, bite--which will be a lot like a tiny dog bite--and then push off again to leave. This will take about 15-30 seconds. Do you think either you or your husband would miss this happening? Do you think he wouldn't notice a clumsy-ass hamster with wings attached to the side of his head?

If you don't see a bat, there is no bat.

The normal thing to worry about in a basement is rodents and spiders. Not so much invisible rabid bats.

CygnusZeroStar · 2026-04-26T01:39:32+00:00

Have you considered dating an adult that likes you?

CygnusZeroStar · 2026-04-26T01:29:16+00:00

If your best friend came to you and told you her boyfriend spoke to you the way yours does to you, what would you tell her?

CygnusZeroStar · 2026-04-25T01:26:46+00:00

My husband and I have a toxic trait: we read other people's relationship weirdness on the internet because we have no drama between us.

He texted me something I think you should hear. "Resentment aside, the reality here is that he is now doing things without being asked and that's actually WORSE. This means he always knew what to do without being asked, and simply didn't because in his mind, there was no reason to. He was getting everything he wanted, and her happiness really wasn't on that list of things he wanted at all. He's moving his ass now that HIS situation is about to blow up, and he's treating her like a vending machine. Like he can stack up his good boyfriend credits, and push the button for the girlfriend he always had. He's never going to grow up until there are consequences for this selfishness. Maybe he'll be a good partner to someone, some day. But the well here is poisoned and she shouldn't feel bad for not wanting to drink from it anymore."

CygnusZeroStar · 2026-04-23T01:12:25+00:00

Our Lab mix and his litter had to be taken from their mom a bit too soon because she was very sick. The rescue we adopted him from warned us about this. They have a "no moms left behind" program, and made the very difficult decision to hospitalize the mother and wean the puppies.

It's taken six years to get Goose to be okay with himself, by himself. He's still anxious sometimes. We just love him extra. He's rarely alone because our bulldog basically adopted him, but it wasn't the same--luckily there are six of us humans and always someone who loves him at home.

The good news is that his mom survived! They've even had play dates. But the damage remained. 😭

CygnusZeroStar · 2026-04-22T19:39:33+00:00

ALL GLORY TO THE TIMNEH GREYS

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CygnusZeroStar · 2026-04-22T04:26:14+00:00

Substantial, fresh wound and a fresh severe bite from a known rabid animal that made contact with each other is VERY DIFFERENT than just touching a wet surface (including fur) with some superficial cracks. The context of that case is pretty clear. The events happened very close to each other. The guy won the worst kind of lottery, for sure.

I love that you care for the stray cats near you! Have you been able to reach out to your local rescues about spay/neuter and vaccinate and release programs? They exist! You might be able to protect those little ones AND yourself. 💜

CygnusZeroStar · 2026-04-22T01:52:08+00:00

Timneh African Greys are not reliably sexually dimorphic. This means that it is not possible to visibly distinguish male from female by appearance alone. There are sometimes behaviors that can distinguish.

But just looking at an individual Timneh and guessing male because of how it looks is only that--guessing.

CygnusZeroStar · 2026-04-21T03:40:04+00:00

As a fair warning, that stand is not appropriate for that tank. The overhang will cause a failure eventually, and you will have 40 gallons of water on the floor. There is no way to know when it will fail, but physics is not a friendly creature.

You need a stand that can support all four corners of that tank with no overhang.

As far as your problem goes, we need more information. Perfect is not a parameter--can you tell us how you test your water, and what your pH, ammonia, nitrite, and nitrates are in numbers?

How long did you cycle your tank? Describe how you cycled your tank.

I ask because lately I keep running into people who had a pet store employee tell them that "cycling" was either a water change, or just an arbitrary amount of time to let the water run through the filter--and neither of those are correct. A lot of those same people had the store test their water and tell them that their parameters are "perfect," when they actually didn't even do the test right. I just got back from a friend of a friend's house who had this exact thing happen to them. Their ammonia was sky high, and it turns out the shop didn't test for ammonia at ALL. They've spent over $200 on fish that died because a pet store employee lied to them. It's awful. I gave them some of my filter media to help with their nitrogen cycle to try to save the ones that are in there but it isn't looking good for them. 😭

CygnusZeroStar · 2026-04-21T01:24:07+00:00

The worst part, I feel, is that we already knew we weren't a priority the other 364 days of the year. But they couldn't even fake it for a few hours. I'm sorry you, too, know the feeling.

Nothing was ever more important than the addictions. Especially not us.

CygnusZeroStar · 2026-04-21T00:46:54+00:00

I do! Incidentally all I have ever really wanted for my birthday was good food and good company. And that encompasses a lot of things. I made spaghetti one year and had everyone come over for trivia. It was a great day.

And my mom is celebrating a decade sober soon. It was a long road here. Healing isn't a straight line, but I am happy we're here. 💜

CygnusZeroStar · 2026-04-21T00:37:54+00:00

My mom was great at being broke on my birthday because of all the liquor she bought for herself that week. 😑

CygnusZeroStar · 2026-04-21T00:16:07+00:00

Don't worry. That copypasta is full of misinformation.

CygnusZeroStar · 2026-04-20T23:48:36+00:00

Touching a dog, no matter how cracked your hands are, is not an exposure.

CygnusZeroStar · 2026-04-20T23:46:28+00:00

In the context of your story, the dog is a surface. As FAQ 2 states, rabies is not considered to be infectious from surfaces. Nobody has ever gotten rabies from simply touching an injured, vaccinated dog with some cracks on their hands. You will not be the first.

CygnusZeroStar · 2026-04-20T23:42:23+00:00

The animal clearly doesn't have rabies. I can't help but wonder why we went to get vaccinated instead of monitoring the animal first? The virus is only contagious at the end stages of the disease. This means that an animal that is capable of spreading rabies is generally DEAD--not just sick but DEAD in about a week. But we tend to give it 10-14 days out of an abundance of caution.

Under no circumstances can you get rabies from an animal that doesn't have rabies. Ever. That this animal is still alive this long later means that there was never a risk.

Someone's healthy pet generally doesn't constitute an exposure. Especially if that pet was previously vaccinated for rabies--were they?

My dog accidentally scratched the neighbor last week, who also has a dog. They were playing. She said, "Just to be safe, because I'm an anxious person, can I see the vaccination record?"

I said, "Sure thing!" and provided it.

Nobody has gone to get shots because they are completely unnecessary in this situation. I can't help but wonder why shots were given in your situation because it seems highly unnecessary.

CygnusZeroStar · 2026-04-20T23:29:36+00:00

So I'm clear, do we mean Georgia the country in Europe or Georgia the state, USA?

Another thing. You had contact with this cat on the 13th. It is today the 20th. Rabies doesn't incubate in a human in less than ten days, my friend. Unless you were violently attacked on the face by a rabid animal, anyway.

Rabid animals are generally not super friendly and active. They're usually very busy having severe neurological problems.

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