How can I help this little budgie?

[Featheredfuffs]

Long story short I rescued a budgie from a pet store who was being bullied and has what seems like scaly face mites, and it turns out this little guy had a terrible barbering problem!

I was due away on vacation the next day (Thursday), and I'm coming back next Friday so I can't take her to the vet until then... I'm so worried about the little girl.

She has a habit of barbering her big wing feathers, and as she's still young, she's just finishing her molt, and most of those are blood feathers. If that wasn't bad enough, she only chews partway through her feathers so if she gets startled or rubs against the cage bars, she restarts the bleeding... she's quite skittish from her time in the pet store, so pretty much any time I put her food/water in she starts flapping about.



I'm so worried she's going to cause herself to bleed out while I'm on vacation! The pet sitter is instructed to use some syptic powder which is right by her cage if anything happens, is there anything else you would suggest?


Also, I'm super worried that as she can't get real treatment for the mites for about a week (which I think is the cause of the barbering problem), that she will start barbering out of habit... I've never dealt with any plucking or anything similar, can someone with more experience give advice?


Thanks so much!

 

[Lady Jane]

I really do not understand why you brought this bird home if you will not be there. The bird needs to see an avian vet right away and in order to do this you should be with the bird.

 

[Featheredfuffs]

I really do not understand why you brought this bird home if you will not be there. The bird needs to see an avian vet right away and in order to do this you should be with the bird.

Because the budgie was being bullied and in so much discomfort at the pet store that she could barely hold her head up and was extremely lethargic.

The pet store hadn't done anything for weeks. I decided that she would at least have a better chance if she was at my home away from the other budgies, with a better diet and at least getting supportive care from the pet sitter (she was being fed seed and nothing else, in a large cage with a lot of much more aggressive budgies).




It seems to have worked, since now she's active, playing with her toys a little, and eating some of her rhodybush/seed mix, and millet, when she wasn't moving and was about ready to fall off her perch before

 

[MiniMacaw]

Can someone else take the bird to the vet on your behalf? My dog had an emergency on the morning I had to have surgery once so I had a family member take him in to the vet for me and got him taken care of.

 

[Featheredfuffs]

Can someone else take the bird to the vet on your behalf? My dog had an emergency on the morning I had to have surgery once so I had a family member take him in to the vet for me and got him taken care of.

That's a great idea! I'll check and see if anyone's willing.

 

[Birdbabe]

Also can you board her at the vet? That way she gets treated and someone will be there who knows what to do about the blood feathers.

 

[Featheredfuffs]

Also can you board her at the vet? That way she gets treated and someone will be there who knows what to do about the blood feathers.

I'll try... I'll see if they can do it on such short notice

 

[Sweet Louise]

thank you for trying to help this bird.

 

[Distaff]

I'm glad you got her outta there!

 

[TWR]

Can the pet sitter take her to the vet? If she has scaly mites, she needs treatment. It can get really bad and is contagious amongst birds - particularly budgies. It is easily treated though. I've had to have my own aviary budgies treated for it. With me, it was an initial treatment and then a follow up either 2 or 3 weeks later.

The irritation of the mites may be what's causing her barbering too. Best to get on top of it before it becomes a habit.

 

[Featheredfuffs]

Can the pet sitter take her to the vet? If she has scaly mites, she needs treatment. It can get really bad and is contagious amongst birds - particularly budgies. It is easily treated though. I've had to have my own aviary budgies treated for it. With me, it was an initial treatment and then a follow up either 2 or 3 weeks later.

The irritation of the mites may be what's causing her barbering too. Best to get on top of it before it becomes a habit.

Yeah, I, most worried about the barbering as it's not a habit-yet. I'm trying not to keep her (I run a small rescue and can't be keeping my patients), and if she's to be succefully adopted, I really gotta work out the plucking and medical issues. I'm going to call the vet, hopefully I can get her their ASAP. How contagious is it? I tried my best with quarantine, but my CWP has been sneezing a lot lately. She's due for a vet appointment anyway, I'm more worried about my 11 finches. Is their any way to do a precautionary treatment at home without stressing them with a vet appointment? I'm going to take the budgie anyway, of course

 

[TWR]

Yeah, I, most worried about the barbering as it's not a habit-yet. I'm trying not to keep her (I run a small rescue and can't be keeping my patients), and if she's to be succefully adopted, I really gotta work out the plucking and medical issues. I'm going to call the vet, hopefully I can get her their ASAP. How contagious is it? I tried my best with quarantine, but my CWP has been sneezing a lot lately. She's due for a vet appointment anyway, I'm more worried about my 11 finches. Is their any way to do a precautionary treatment at home without stressing them with a vet appointment? I'm going to take the budgie anyway, of course

I'm far from an expert, but what my AV told me was that even though only one or two budgies showed symptoms of the mites, that I needed to treat the whole aviary at the same time and that 2 weeks later (or maybe it was 3 - I can't remember for sure) I needed to treat the whole aviary again. My AV didn't ask me to bring in my whole aviary into the clinic for treatment, instead he gave me enough of the meds to treat the whole flock x 2.

The budgie aviary is really close to the lorikeet aviary - almost side by side without much gap between them. Because he said lorikeets aren't as prone to scaley mites as budgies are, he said I needn't treat them unless I saw signs. I didn't treat them and they never caught it. I can't say what's the case with finches, but I'm sure if you describe the situation to your AV, that he/she will let you know what you need to do in regard to the finches.