the StopPDD Bookstore
Looking for books about parrots?
Check out our
Amazon Bookstore


Guidestar


2005 "Birds of a Feather" Quilt and Ticket Drawing


2005 Birds of a Feather Charity Quilt Challenge for Stop PDD
(Click on the quilt for a larger image)


Funding research, one step at a time...

One stitch at a time, to make a square...
One square at a time, to make a quilt...
One ticket at a time, to make a donation...
One donation at a time, to make research work.

Thank you for helping to fund the research
to find a cause and prevent PDD.
Your ticket was another block, in the quilt of hope.

Winning ticket A0067 belonged to Kari Banta, Austin, TX, 2005 Quilt winner


Dr. Branson Ritchie Selects 2005 "Birds of a Feather" Quilt Winner on May 22, 2005


Steffanie Budnick, AHN; Becky McKirahan (TBH); Branson Ritchie (UGA); Len Charette (C&L)

Following slide presentations of current work by the Emerging Diseases Research Group at the University of Georgia's College of Veterinary Medicine (see "EDRG RESEARCH" below), Dr. Branson Ritchie reached into the 415 tickets his supporters had purchased and withdrew winning ticket A0067, belonging to Kari Banta, of Austin, Texas.

Kari won a unique quilt that is the first of its kind in avian charity fundraising, a collaborative collage of colorful parrots assembled by charity quilter Ardith Raine in Las Vegas, Nevada, from quilt squares ("blocks") sewn by seasoned and amateur bird lovers and bird clubs across the U.S.

More in AHN's Challenge newsletter...


Donations Top $10,000 in Textile Town


The Bird Heard, Savage Methodist Church, May 22, 2005

Cotton milling started in Maryland in the 18th century. Before 19th century rail transportation served the mill town of Savage, cotton shipped cheaply from Southern ports was hauled overland by mule and oxen teams to the town's textile mills on the falls of the Little and Middle Patuxent Rivers, for manufacture into cotton duck sails for the tall ships at nearby Chesapeake Bay ports.

The Bird Heard, a cluster of Maryland bird lovers who seem to simply enjoy having fun together, selected Savage Methodist Church in this historical textile town to host AHN's First Annual "Birds of a Feather" Quilt Drawing. Postponed from April due to a schedule conflict with Dr. Ritchie's ECAMS presentation, the event fell on the weekend of the Preakness Stakes, one of America's top three horse races, at nearby Pimlico Racetrack.

Hotel rooms were hard to find and airfare costs to Baltimore were higher than local folks could ever remember, but that did not deter the determined!

More in AHN's Challenge newsletter...


Dr. Ritchie Presents Infectious Disease Information


Dr. Branson Ritchie speaks on PDD for AHN Stop PDD Challenge


At a special presentation accompanying AHN's "Birds of a Feather" Quilt drawing in Savage, MD, on May 22, 2005, University of Georgia Distinguished Research Professor Dr. Branson Ritchie, ABVP & ECAMS, presented research information about avian infectious diseases to several dozen people in attendance. Attention was absolute through slide presentations presenting EDRG research and recommendations on West Nile Virus and PDD; questions were pertinent and informed, and Dr. Ritchie's replies responsive...

More in AHN's Challenge newsletter...



A month after presenting "Epizootiology of Proventricular Dilatation Disease in Breeding Cockatiels" to colleagues at the 6th Scientific Meeting of ECAMS during the European Conference of the AAV in France on April 26, Dr. Ritchie explained the study and its implications to a roomful of attentive laymen in Savage, Maryland. A diplomate in ECAMS, the European College of Avian Medicine and Surgery, a Distinguished Research Professor and current Acting Head of the Department of Small Animal Medicine at the UGA College of Veterinary Medicine, Dr. Ritchie also commands respect in this audience as a practical veterinary practitioner. For many there, because they have lost their birds, he represented the single greatest hope that it can be stopped from happening again. For some it was still news to learn how radically lifestyles we have taken for granted are having to be changed by this disease.

StopPDD & AvianHealthNetwork copyright 2001-2008 by Avian Health Network, Inc, all rights reserved. Text, graphics, and HTML code are protected by US and International Copyright Laws, and may not be copied, reprinted, published, translated, hosted, or otherwise distributed by any means without explicit permission.