Bird Emergency Highway 911

[Prince Toasty Buns]

Originally Posted by ceawind

Thank you for your kind words, and your prayers.

Mrs. Ceawind came home to check on Snowy, and we're happy to report she's doing a bit better. Still breathing harder than I'd like, but the tail twitchiness has subsided a bit, and she isn't puffing as much when she breathes.

We just changed her papers to monitor her output. Right now her droppings are partially-normal looking, with one exception: there is a lime-green "aura" surrounding each one on the paper, which Mrs. Ceawind tells me is a sure-sign of liver/bile trouble.

Still, she is eating a bit to be able to have anything in her droppings, so that's a good sign.

Thanks.

Glad to hear that you feel she is doing a bit better.

Any chance of pictures of the lil one, her friends, her droppings, cage, etc.?

If the avian vet feels she has nothing contagious and the other 2 keets do not bother her, sometimes it can be beneficial to keep her with her pals to relieve some stress? Does your heat source (the ceramic heat emitter) have a shroud around it to aide in heating and to somewhat direct the heat more towards your bird? Is she now perching well and sitting next to the heat source? Is she climbing at all or just currently sitting on the bottom of the cage? Is your seed super fresh and what other fresh food items are you putting into her cage?

[Micki]

Originally Posted by ceawind

Hello everyone,
. . . The vets we have worked with have advised us to transition her to Harrisions (which we have tried, but not really been successful with), . . . Any suggestions on transitioning her to a better diet,
Thanks in advance!

I am glad she seems to be doing better. I hope she continues to do so.

As far as transitioning her to Harrisons, I was advised to change my birds' diet also. At first they would not touch it, but then I got some natural, unsweetened applesauce and warmed it up. I put some Harrison's in it and made a type of mash with it. I gradually tapered off on the applesauce and went to all Harrisons. It took about a week. Give the mash to her when she is the most hungry, usually in the morning. You can still give her seed, but a you increase the Harrisons, decrease the seed.

Good luck on the diet and keep us posted on her health.

[ronsig]

I would give some Bird-Bene-Bac to restore the good bacteria in the gut.

I tried for years to convert my birds to the Harrison pellet and was about to give up. Now, I noticed they eat the high potency fine pellets. But they were only supposed to get that for a while and then switch to adult life time. They will not eat the adult pellets. It's difficult....

Sigrid

[WingedVictory]

Hi, nice to see you feel your bird is doing better.

I have been following this thread and see you have gotten some good advice. Now if this were one of my birds and it had liver issues I would be giving it the herbs milk thistle, dandelion and lactulose as mentioned.

gary

[ceawind]

Hello all -

Thank you for all of the comments so far. Snowy has always and continues to remain perched. She looks fairly normal today all things considered. She is crawling around her cage, preening, and when we took her aside to give her the medicine, she and her playmates commented back and forth to each other. She sounded stronger than before, and not as hoarse as she has the previous days.

We are continuing the supportive care with a warmer temperature and rest times, but we are trying to bring her back to as normal of a situation as possible to reduce her stress. We plan to weigh her tonight to make sure that what we've seen in terms of eating and output is accurrate. We notice that immediately after she takes the medicine, she can sometimes be hunched over, or otherwise looks not so well. After a bit of time, she seems to go back to a normal stance and activity (preening, etc).

The Vet did not think that anything she went through was contageous... so we are going to try to reintegrate her with the other two later this week. We just want to make sure that she continues to improve before any major changes are made, so we don't add additional stress if she takes a down turn.

Thanks all again for your feedback. This weekend we will start to review some of the other details a bit more closely (milkthistle, etc) to see if there is a good way we can integrate that into her and her playmates regimine.

Thanks once again for your help!

[ronsig]

Originally Posted by WingedVictory

I would be giving it the herbs milk thistle, dandelion and lactulose as mentioned.

gary

I have a question about milk thistle. How do you give it to budgies? I bought the seeds at the health food store. My budgies don't touch them. I ground some up and added them to the food. I don't think they are eating it that way either. How do you do it?

Thanks,
Sigrid

[ceawind]

Just a brief update on Snowy.

She is looking great, and is half way through her antibiotics. We have reintegrated her with the rest of the flock, and she and they are taking to that very well. The wheasing she had has passed, and tail twitching is infrequent.

The last part of our journey is to get all of them on the path to a better diet. We had a glimmer of hope - she actually pecked at some harrisons in a different container yesterday. Not too many pellets were taken, but it was a start.

Thanks all for your help last week.

[pynkzephyr]

great update, please keep us posted on her progress

[tammie]

I hope things are still improving with the little parakeet. Let us know.