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Advise needed on gastic infections

Misha p

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Mariska Props
Hi fellow bird lovers, I need you’re advise
I recently (end of januari) bought two parrotlets and after a few weeks one of them died from an infection while in the care of an avian vet. He was diagnosed with agy and a bacterial infection. I bought another parrotlet to keep the remaining one company but a few weeks later they were both diagnosed with agy and a bacterial infection. This time I treated them at home, which was a nightmare because it was increasingly difficult to catch them and forcefeed them their meds (Fungizone and antibiotics). Their stool was clean after that treatment. Last week their droppings were increasingly watery so today I brought them to the vet again for examination and maybe treatment again (I have not heard the verdict yet). This morning I was reading about agy some more and learned that it is very hard to treat agy and you give the meds for a long time. The meds are also hard to deal with by their tiny body’s. My vet advised me the first time to give them apple cider vinegar in their drinking water (drinking water and bath water is the same for my birds,I clean it twice a day), 1 ml in 100ml water. I did that a few day’s but then stopped due to conflicting advise on the internet, it made me insecure.
give it, don’t give it, it’s good, it’s toxic, give it every day, give it once a week, give it when the bird is sick, give it to healthy birds to keep them from getting sick, different doses, they can bath in it, they should never bath in it, parrot’s don’t need it, all birds benefit from acv.....
I have a good avian vet, this (other) person is the only good avian vet in the country (the Netherlands).....
treat the infection with meds, just monitor their health and weight and only treat with meds when their health deteriorates.....
feed them pellets, pellets are bad for kidney’s and liver, all seed diet is fine, they need lots of veggies and not much seeds (I gave them chop and they loved it).....
I know that I need to make up my mind, what do I want to believe, and stick with that.
I rather not give the meds again as it is very stressful for them. They were not very comfortable with hands when I treated them last time and I haven’t regained their trust yet since then.
ps, I’m an ICU nurce so scientific articles on the subject will be apreciated.
also, it does not help me to get lots of different opinions on this subject with no scientific basis as it wil probably make me even more confused (Sorry to be so blunt)
 

sunnysmom

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@Lady Jane ? @Hankmacaw ?

Welcome to the forum. I tagged some people. Sorry your birds have been sick.
 

Lady Jane

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Since this is two parrotlets I will refer to @finchly My experience with AGY is with budgies.
feed them pellets, pellets are bad for kidney’s and liver, all seed diet is fine, they need lots of veggies and not much seeds (I gave them chop and they loved it)...
I am not familiar with the above statement. Never heard that pellets are bad for kidney and liver. If this were true we would have many birds with liver failure and kidney complications.
I gave 2 budgies medication specifically for yeast in the digestive system. One died and one did not. It not something you can let slide and hope to treat with nutrition.
 

Hankmacaw

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Here are a couple of semi-scientific articles on AGY.

AGY being a fungal infection is very difficult to treat and the one acceptable medication for it - Amphotericin B - is highly hepatoxic to birds. You must treat it consistently for a minimum of one month and your birds will react badly to to the Amph B - but that is all there is for AGY today.
Often a bird must have a second round of medications - it is a fungus and produces spores - like all fungi.

It's a bad disease and curing it will take following the Dr.s advice and your complete dedication.
 

finchly

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^^ What @Hankmacaw said is correct. The disease is awful, the treatment is awful. Catching them is hard and makes them hate you.

I'm sorry, and I want to give you a hug. :sadhug2:

All the conflicting things you read online....yeah. It's like the Internet will implode one day.

Look I'm too tired to pull out scientific articles at them moment, as I'm treating a very sick bird myself. Actually more than one. And there are 13 guys on my roof who've been hammering for 3 days, and.... anyway.

So if you can just trust me a tiny bit, I write books about pet birds .... so I will tell you what I *know* for sure and leave out anything that's hearsay, ok?

The 'all seed' diet is what we did back in the 80s. There have been studies since then showing that all seed diets are unhealthy for most birds. It's just too fatty for parrotlets. @Hankmacaw who is it that did the cockatiel studies????

The pellet story WITH PARROTLETS is true. The sample size of the study was small, and it was mostly the mutations (blue, yellow....) but yes there's a correlation between kidney failure and pellets. Some people wet the pellets. Some choose not to feed them. This is difficult.

Frankly I would not change their diet at this time. Please. Also, avoid foods that could bring on the yeasties, like don't feed them corn, or any pellet with sugar in it. No human food unless it is vegetables. No fruit for now.

1 ml to a liter, I'm sorry that is not enough vinegar. You need 15 ml to a liter to be effective. It will not hurt them. You can do it daily. I promised to give you references, so here's one Systemic Clinical and Metabolic Diseases

Another item that might be beneficial if you aren't using it is probiotics.

Now, I'm going to suggest something that's "natural medicine". We've just had a conversation here on the board in which that came into play. Many people don't believe in it and being a nurse I understand if you don't. But gentian violet is said to help with AGY (I think I have it right). I would have to track down the article as well as the correct dosage. So if you're interested let me know. Here's an article about using it for humans. But again - we'd have to find the dose. ;)
 

Lady Jane

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Best advice i have read on AA on this subject. @finchly and @Hankmacaw you are both amazing!
 
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