Please Support Sunny Girl's Urgent Medical Care - Please share — visibility can save her life, again, as we figure out how to stop this from happening!

May 19th: Back to Medical Center for Birds, fecal impaction from egg-binding and prolapse again.

May 7th: It's a month later, and Sunny is heading back to the Medical Center for Birds again.

After weeks away from her mate, Cricket, she finally came home. The vet believed we successfully managed the prolapse, and when she laid another egg two days ago, I truly thought we were turning a corner. She was back to her sassy, protective self — reunited with Cricket, guarding her space, and acting like Sunny again.

One of the hardest parts of all of this is that, unfortunately, you cannot simply “spay” or neuter a pigeon. Keeping Sunny separated from Cricket to prevent egg laying meant isolating her from the aviary, her freedom, her flock, and the companion she adores. She paced endlessly in her cage like a zoo animal instead of relaxing among the little family she knows and loves. Reuniting them felt like giving her happiness back — and for a moment, I truly believed she was healed.

But her second egg is now causing another prolapse.

I honestly do not know how I’m going to absorb another financial hit right now, but her care comes first. Sunny was a rescue, and when I took her in, I made a commitment to protect her for life — especially when life gets hard. I just didn't expect life to be as tough as it's been lately.

March/April:

There’s something deeply human about how we choose to care for each other, for our communities, and for the lives that depend on us. For me, that includes a quiet but powerful love for birds, especially domesticated pigeons/doves who rely entirely on human stewardship for survival.

Sunny is a sweet, intelligent, feisty, vibrant rescued homing pigeon. I adopted her over a year ago, and she and her mate, Cricket, have always been punctual and consistent in laying their eggs (which are always swapped for feggs). As an adopter of a rescue, I committed to reducing the number of doves and pigeons in shelters by rescuing them and preventing them from breeding in my care.

After 5 days, Sunny's second egg had not arrived (typically, it drops on the 3rd day), and she wasn't sitting on her fake egg either. Something was wrong with Sunny. She was walking funny, so I investigated. She was prolapsed (her innards were being pushed out) from her straining to drop her 2nd egg. Being egg-bound can be fatal, especially if the egg breaks.

Long story short, when it rains, it pours. Like many of us, times are tough right now, and it can take a community of kindness to pull each other through. This journey to give Sunny the immediate care she needed has been sleepless and financially overwhelming.

It was 7 pm Saturday when I noticed the prolapse. I knew that I needed to reduce it to save the tissue and push it back inside her. By 8 pm, we were at VEG - San Ramon, CA, where they had to eventually stitch her. We drove home at 3 am, wiped. Now, on Sunday, we needed to get through the day so we could bring her to the avian specialist (Medical Center for the Birds), an hour+ away, on Monday.

There, they had to remove the stitches and were able to get the 2nd egg out, not without some battle wounds. Thankfully, the egg was intact.

Both of us exhausted, we made our way back home, where, after getting her settled back indoors, I also needed to check on and clean my outdoor aviary.

The next morning, Sunny was prolapsed again and straining and pushing more of her innards outward. Off to the vet again. She was cleaned, the tissue numbed, and reduced back into her little body. The plan was for me to keep an eye on her, continue to medicate her when we returned home, manage the costs, and avoid stitching her, which can be tricky on such fragile tissue.

She kept prolapsing, and every hour on the hour, I was gently pushing her tissue back inside. This was insane! We were both exhausted, sleepless, and I worried deeply for her health and pain management.

Back to the vet again the next day. The gas cost alone was kicking my butt!

She had to be stitched with the plan that, as the inflammation subsided, she wouldn't feel the need to push. I imagine it felt like something she needed to push out of her, hence the prolapsing.

She is still at the vet, and they have needed to keep a watchful eye on her, surrounded by a team of doctors and attendants, to ensure she was eating (she had lost weight), evacuating, and not prolapsing through the stitches.

It is hard to ask for help, but I will always pay kindness forward. If you’ve ever believed that small actions matter—this is one of them, because impact isn’t always loud.

Sometimes, it looks like showing up quietly and consistently for those who cannot advocate for themselves, or helping a neighbor who needs a little kindness. I would be grateful for any help you could spare, and I know I will do the same as I get back on my feet.