Initial test results back for Einstein and Baby

[ejaehnig]

Finally heard back from the vet this evening with the initial test results back from Einstein and Baby's blood and fecal tests.

Baby's blood tests all came back good, only thing was an elevated calcium level. But since we already knew that she was hormonal right now, it wasn't much of a surprise and the vet said that would be normal for her right now. Fecal test came back clear (yeah). Still waiting on chlamydia tests back for both birds.

Einstein on the other hand did come back with some issues. His WBC is fine, organ function appears normal, however his muscle enzyme is very high. Vet said that is consistent with him being thin; as he is loosing muscle mass the enzyme levels go up. She said normal levels are between 100- 200; his are 1200 (yikes)

Also his fecal gram stain did come back with a spore forming type of bacteria, most likely clostridium.(sp?) Vet does feel this could be the reason why he is losing weight, shivering, generally unthrifty.

She is going to call in a prescription. It is an oral antibiotic that I will need to give to him twice a day for two weeks, then we'll retest. This should be interesting, since neither one of them is handle able yet. She suggested putting it on some birdie bread or inside a grape or something like that. Hopefully I will be able to get the right amount into him with this method. Wish me luck!

Doing some reading on clostridium bacteria, has got me a bit concerned. I did a search on here, but didn't find too many posts about it. Anyone have any experience with it?

Does it seem odd to anyone else that only one bird has it? You would think they would have infected each other with it by now.

 

[JosienBB]

Clostridium is picked up through contaminated sources of water, I think. I don't know very much about it beyond that, I'm afraid. It's best to give the medication (I'm assuming Metronidozale?) via syringe directly into the mouth, otherwise you may not get the correct dose. It is a tricky bacteria to get rid of and you really need the full dose, I think. If you can't handle the birds, I'm afraid you may have to towel them. I did that with Target when I first got her (she was pretty wild then), and she did forgive me after the medication was done.

 

[Hankmacaw]

I did some reading on Clostridium in parrots and it doesn't sound like good stuff. It can be contracted from dirty food, unclean conditions, water, fecal matter, air and dirt. It appears hat the toxins produced by the bacteria is what causes illness.

I did discover that Clostridium is not infectious but can be transferred between birds.

I'll keep looking for more info - I hope it isn't Clostridium.

 

[Lady Jane]

By break is most effective. Will your bird eat yogurt from a spoon? If yes then try that. Good thing you have a large bird, makes giving meds easier. I just spent a few months medicating my budgie with syringe. Not easy.

 

[camelotshadow]

 

[ejaehnig]

The vet actually thought that toweling him twice a day for two weeks might be too stressful on him so she is the one that suggested I try putting it in some sort of food. Yogurt is a great idea - thank you! I have only had them for a few weeks so I honestly don't know if they like yogurt, but it is worth a shot! I know they like applesauce so maybe that is an option as well.

The vet believes this is something he probably had when I got them; which makes sense as they weren't kept in that clean of an environment before. When we picked them up, he man dumped the tray of their cage before taking it apart and it was literally overflowing with poop, old food, etc.; who knows how long it had been since it was cleaned. The entire inside of the cage bars were coated in poop as well.

 

[Macawnutz]

Find something that they enjoy eating. For difficult birds I send my meds out to a compounding pharmacy and have them compounded and flavored. ( Always peanut butter flavor ) I will put the meds on a piece of bread, let it soak in and cover it with either RPO, coconut oil or almond butter. ( High value treat )

It's works for most of my difficult birds but not all. Good luck!

 

[ejaehnig]

I wish I knew peanut butter flavor was an option! It is being sent to a compounding pharmacy but the vet only said the options were grape or strawberry. I think peanut butter would have been a better option.

 

[sunnysmom]

 

[Hankmacaw]

You know another thing about the yogurt - if he will eat it - is that the yogurt will act as a probiotic and help replace the stomach fauna and flora that the anti-biotics kill. You probably know this, but if you do use yogurt buy the plain (unflavored) yogurt and make sure to check that it has live stuff.

 

[pajarita]

Actually, regular yogurt doesn't really work that well for probiotics (they usually have dead bacteria, but, when they have live is only two strains and simply not enough - even with Activia you need to eat two cups a day for a number of weeks before it does anything to the gut). Hand made goat milk yogurt is good but very difficult to find so I would recommend Keybiotics which has 14 different strains and loads of live bacteria (dead bacteria cannot populate the gut, you need live and in large numbers)

I just read about another case of clostridium in another forum and have done a bit reading on it to refresh my memory. You might have to treat all your birds for, at least, 21 days but the thing with it is that a good intestinal flora will kill the bacteria before it takes hold so is it possible that this bird is stressed out? The muscle enzyme your vet is talking about is, most likely (please correct me if I am wrong), CPK and although it is primary from muscle deterioration, it can also become elevated from chronic stress, inflammation and diseases that affect their central nervous system so, taking into consideration that clostridium is one of those difficult diseases that usually only affect individuals whose immune system is compromised, I would re-evaluate potential stressors in his life.

 

[JosienBB]

I also heard that Apple Cider Vinegar in the water would be good. Colloidal silver is sometimes used as a home remedy, but please don't quote me on that.

 

[Hankmacaw]

Of course the commercial sources of pro-biotics are much more effective than yogurt - but P you forget that part of the plan is to get Einstein to take his medications. I personally use the Avitech probiotic for my Jasper.

A high CPK level in Einstein's case is most likely a result of muscle deterioration - remember Erin said that he is very thin. He will, of course, have stress seeing as how Erin also said that the bird is neither gentle nor can he be handled.

 

[Hankmacaw]

This is from a paper by Dr. Susan Clubb on Clostridium P; www.susanclubb.com/pdfs/clostridium.doc

"The only birds that showed severe symptoms of clostridial enteritis and survived the disease were three Moluccan cockatoos (Cacatua moluccensis) with reduced body condition, depression, anorexia, gray-watery diarrhea with malodorous feces. CBC revealed a profound anemia (PCV of 10%, reference range 38-48%10 ) and hypoproteinemia (plasma protein of 1.0 g/dl, reference range 3.0-5.0 g/dl10 ). Treatment was initiated with claforan (Primafen, Hoechst Farma, Spain) (100 mg/kg SC q8h), Vitamin K (Konakion, Spain) ( 1 mg/kg IM q24h), lactated Ringer's solution (10 ml/kg SC q8h) and dextrose 5% (10 ml/kg SC q8h) combined with clindamycin (Dalacin, Upjohn Farmoquimica, Spain) (100 mg/kg PO q24h) and nystatine (Mycostatin, Squibb Pharma, Spain) (300,000 IU PO q12h). For nutritional support birds were gavaged with a commercial hand rearing formula (Pretty Bird 19/12, Pretty Bird, USA) (50 ml/kg PO q8h). .."

 

[ejaehnig]

Thanks everyone for your input. Regarding the probiotics; I have read conflicting information. Does everyone agree that it is best to start probiotics while treating with the antibiotics? I thought I recently read that you shouldn't start probiotics until you were done with the antibiotics as it may interfere with subsequent testing by the vet. I do have some Morning Bird probiotics - anyone familiar with this brand and if it is effective or not? The package states the active ingredients are: Proprietary Probiotic Blend (180 million total CFU/g) - 25 grams; L. acidophilus, L. delbruckii, L. bulgaris, L. plantarum, L. rhamnosus, E. faecium, S. salivarius, Bifidum

Regarding Einstein's stress level; I would imagine coming to a new home might have sent him over the edge and could have possibly been the trigger that depressed his immune system enough to let the bacteria grab ahold of him.

I read that paper on Dr. Susan Clubb and that certainly has me worried regarding the high mortality rates mentioned. When my vet called, she stressed repeatedly that the bacteria normally was not fatal which has me perplexed after reading some of the things found online.

The pharmacy called this morning and I asked if I could get it compounded with a different flavor and suggested peanut butter. According to the pharmacist, the particular drug is a hard one to flavor and the only two choices were grape and orange. They did say it was more of a natural flavor grape rather than the fake grape flavor us humans are used to. Will be picking it up in the morning (the pharmacy is down by the vet - 1.5 hours away).

 

[Hankmacaw]

The problem with the Dr. Clubb article is that we don't know if Einstein has the same variety of Clostridium and the paper was completely about Clostridium P. Additionally, it sounded as if the entire study was done on ONE large aviary (I got the impression that it was a breeder set up) and we have no idea how filthy or clean it was, nor do we have any idea if the overall husbandry was adequate or sub-standard. Gotta be honest though - I'm more worried than before I read all of the stuff that I read.

I think that, if you like your vet - you need to trust her.

Those probiotics sound fine - if they aren't too old and haven't been stored in someplace too warm. I always give probiotics during the same time I'm giving the antibiotic, but an hour or so after giving the antibiotic (scattered on the food) so the antibiotic doesn't kill the probiotics. It always seemed to me that they need to digest their food even when they are getting antibiotics - and my vet says it's fine.

You are probably right that the stress of the move to a new home pushed him over the edge with something that he's had for quite some time.

Keep on, keeping on.

 

[Macawnutz]

I also use probiotics during and after antibiotics, as ML said give them at a earlier or later time. I use aviculture and sprinkle it on veggies/fruits at dinner time, none of my guys seem to mind it. The trick with giving your new guys medications will be to not make it a big deal or let them see you putting anything strange on the food. Do it in another room and bring it to them as you would any other food or treat. They are so smart and catch on very quickly.

 

[Yoyo'sMom]

I also want to add that muscle enzymes being elevated such as CPK (creatine phosphokinase) can be do to the blood draw itself. Especially in parrots because they stress out so much. So I wouldn't worry about that as much. Sending good thoughts your way.

 

[Mrcrowley]

It might be good idea to add this powder t there food it is a general antibacterial and antifungal suppliment I used this when my teil got a nasty bacteial infection it took many tests to figure out what it was but found correct antibiotic and I added this to her and other birds diet and she got better. I to home my teil with the infection (sigh).

Avitech Products: AviPow

 

[pajarita]

I would not use avian probiotics. None of them are independently tested or verified in any way and, as this is a completely unregulated industry, they could all have dead bacteria for all we know (even most of the human ones have more dead than alive). They did an independent study (see here: http://consumersguides.com/probiotics_reviews/)_ and found the Keybiotics to be the best (number of strains, number of CFUs, etc) and that's why I use it and recommend it (it's not cheap but I rather pay more for something I know will work than flush my money down the toilet buying something that might not be any good).

You can give probiotics while you medicate with antibiotics and, in a case like this, I would for sure because the good bacteria you are putting into the intestines will kill the clostridium so it's not as if you are trying to repopulate the flora after it was killed, it's more like an enhancement of the antibiotic effect. You just have to do it two hours after you give them the medicine.