Help administering antibiotics to a parakeet who hates toweling?

[anjabeth]

One of our two parakeets (Split Pea) started vomiting today. We took him to the vet right away and they did a crop and fecal cytology and it turns out he has a bacterial infection. So it's good that it's treatable, and we have antibiotics now, but he's very resistant to toweling and we want to traumatize him as little as possible. (It's a fight every time we have to trim his nails, and luckily he's healthy enough that he's still definitely putting up a fight.) We have to administer the antibiotics twice a day. Any advice for how to make this as easy as possible for him? He's so tame and I'd hate to lose that trust, but you can't explain to a bird that the medication is what will make them feel better

 

[Karen]

Is it possible to put it in or on food?

 

[Sarahmoluccan]

Is it possible to put it in or on food?

Yes that's what I going to recommend too if it's ok for med to be mixed with food. If you're unsure just phone your vet and ask In my experience most meds are already flavored so it possible your parakeet will take with little or no problem too.

If you have to towel him, I'd try and do it quickly and give him some space right after. Then when he seems over it I'd offer a favorite treat and fuss over him in a way he usually enjoys, like scritches or praise. Hopefully that will help mediate any ill will he felt while being toweled.

Good luck with it. Birds can be difficult to predict how they will respond when we have to negative things to them like giving meds or clipping toenails. Most are fairly forgiving, especially if your calm and reassuring during whatever has to done. and of course treats can be very helpful too

 

[Vittror]

I don't really have any advice; just wanting to wish Split Pea a speedy recovery!

 

[Mybluebird]

The problem with mixing the medicine in the food is that you can't be sure if they've eaten the complete dose. If it is OK to mix it with food, my vet told me to put the dose on a babble of millet and hold it up to him until he ate the whole babble to make sure he gets the complete dose.

 

[anjabeth]

Thanks all! We might try food - unfortunately his favorite treat is spinach, which isn't very easy to mix with meds, but we could try applesauce or something. The vet said that the syringe is best to make sure they get the full dose, but food is okay as a last resort.

Does anyone have advice for toweling / restraining small, flighted birds? It mostly goes okay once we actually have him restrained, but getting him toweled / restrained is nearly impossible - he's so small and fast! And we don't want to chase him around with a towel for half an hour - poor baby We should have towel-trained him earlier, I'm realizing now, but unfortunately we didn't do that and he hates being held, and now it's even worse since we're trying to give him yucky meds.

 

[keirieski17]

This might sound a little mean but once Ella lands I try to throw the towel on top of her. If you can cover your bird with the towel they can’t take off and you can gently get your hand around them.

 

[anjabeth]

We've been trying to do that - unfortunately he now knows what the towel is for and flies away before we can get it over him. We tried once doing it with him inside the cage, which may be what we resort to, but I hate putting the scary thing inside his safe place.

 

[Tiel Feathers]

Try making the room he is in dark. They do get wise to what you are up to really quickly. I hide the towel behind my back, and then try to come up low from behind. It seems to work better than bringing the towel down from above. During the rest of the day, leave the towel where your bird can see it. Give him treats if he goes near it, and always use the same color towel.

 

[Shezbug]

Can you gently grab him first then transfer him to the towel if he really needs to be toweled for the medication? If he is syringe trained maybe you can make the spinach into a juice or paste for him to have mixed with the meds? Or is the syringe the problem?

 

[anjabeth]

Thanks! He's definitely wised up to darkness (he just flies around wildly, and we're afraid of him hurting himself). We've continued with toweling him while he's in his cage and that's going okay - he still puts up a fight, but he seems to forgive us pretty immediately afterwards. Only one more week of meds!

And good idea about leaving the towel out / desensitizing him to it, we hadn't thought of that!

 

[clarousel]

Hi! How is your bird now? Hope she's feeling better!

Jumping on this thread as I'm currently reaching the end of medicating my budgie for crop infection but she's still showing signs of crop irritation with 'coughing'. How was Split Pea's progress during the medicating period?

Also I feel you about towelling and administering the medicine. I'm starting to lose hope that Preeno is actually taking in the medicine it's really tough with the syringe!

 

[keirieski17]

I ended up giving Ella the last few doses of her antibiotics by squirting it on a piece of millet and giving it to her. I don’t know if you’re still medicating but advice for the future I guess

 

[clarousel]

I ended up giving Ella the last few doses of her antibiotics by squirting it on a piece of millet and giving it to her. I don’t know if you’re still medicating but advice for the future I guess

I'll try that out tomorrow and see if the millet blinds her of the medicine. I tried it with pellet and she looked at it then ate around it!