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Hello! My parakeet Ned has begun looking puffy over the ...
Sent to Pet Experts August 31 12:03 AM

Hello! My parakeet Ned has begun looking puffy over the last week and appears to be breathing a little hard. He eats, drinks and moves about normally it seems, but I am very worried about him. Prior to this he had what looked like a single short black feather quill on his body that eventually went away. I've been covering the cage partly and putting a light near it and he does want to stay near the light. What might the problem be, and do you have any suggestions? Thank you so much!

 

Optional Information:
Age: 5; Male; Breed: parakeet

Already Tried:
warming him

Customer (name blocked for privacy)
Answer
August 31 12:16 AM (13 minutes and 10 seconds later)
         
ACCEPTEDCheck Mark

Hello. Trying to keep him warmer is good. You have a sick bird for sure. One of the problems we have with our parrots is their very strong instinct to mask all symptoms of illness or injury, from us. In the wild, they are prey and to show weakness is to get kicked out of the safety of the flock. By the time we see any symptoms, it's because they are too sick and too weak to keep up the pretense. A couple of the first things we will be able to notice is a change in behavior, (less playing, less or no talking, etc.), any change in the appearance of the droppings that lasts more than 24 hours and cannot be accounted for by diet. For example, a lot of fruits or veggies one day can make more runny droppings but it should not last more than a day, then go back to normal. Other symptoms are sitting with feathers fluffed, giving up the perches and staying on the cage floor, and sleeping an inordinate amount of time. For now, I'd make sure he does stay a little warmer than usual, make sure he is not in any kind of draft and keep alert for any of these other symptoms. He also needs to stay as quiet and stress free as possible. I'm going to assume, with his age, that he already has a good avian vet that you trust. If it's been more than a year since he has been in, it could be a good idea to take him for a "well bird check up". Another thing you may be aware of, but for just in case, I'm going to give you some links to information about the many dangerous and toxic things we may have in our houses that can be deadly to parrots. Most things we don't give a thought to because they are harmless to us and to our other pets. But with parrots, some things can kill them, almost within minutes; other things are cumulative and take longer but are just as fatal. Just to mention a few, any aerosol product, burning candles, strong cleaning products, an over heated piece of non stick cookware, using the cleaning cycle of a self cleaning oven, cigarette smoke, any kind of air freshener; the list goes on and on. Also many houseplants are toxic. If you aren't sure whether you have any dangerous items in your home, it would be good to print out these lists and keep them handy. There is also the possibility of something infections, fungal, or bacterial. If he has been on a seed only diet all his life, that is not good either and could be a possible culprit. In case you don't know all the things that should be in his diet and in case you don't already have a good avian vet, I'm going to give you links for both. Even an avian vet could not and would not try to diagnose in this kind of format and I certainly would not attempt it either. All I can do is to give you these possibilities of the many things that could be wrong and urge you to get him in right away for a check up. Be sure they test a dropping and do a throat swab and if he is up to it, a blood check should be made. If whatever it is, is caught quickly enough, it may be as simple as a 10-14 day course of antibiotics and he'll be back to his old self in no time. He has been sick for awhile though so you don't want to delay any longer. I hope this is helpful but if you have more questions, just let me know. Patricia




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