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Lovebird is hot to touch and loses fearhers

Trinity

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Hi everyone, I hope I've gone about all this correctly and did a skim read of the guidelines before posting.
Context
I own a range of indoor and outdoor parrots, many of which are rescues or give aways my mum brings home from volunteering. These birds are separated but have joint 'out time' where they mingle and get to have a big bath in a dish. One of the adopted birds we have is a female (we think) lovebird who we've had for roughly a year, Raphael. When we first got her she was young, not sure how old though, had barely any feathers and a bubble on her eye. It looked like their might have been some seed or something stuck in there. She has never shown any sign of being unhappy or in pain that we've noticed and plays and sings regularly. She also is buddies with my other lovebird (bought not rescued), but they are separated. With time the bubble got bigger with a cork in the middle. We applied small amounts of aloe vera to the spot and one day my mum brushed her finger over it and it came out like a very ripe pimple. Since, the spot deflated and her eye looked very happy.

The problem
Raph is still bald on her body and has few flight feathers. She cannot fly. When held she is very warm and I've wondered if she had a thyroid problem. We've noticed lots of down feather in her cage and material hut that's led us to think she rubs/chews the feathers off, possibly because she is too hot. We've never caught her in the act of plucking and she's covered in shoots of new feathers but they never get the chance to grow out. We keep the indoor temperature managed without much air conditioning, so I doubt the house is too hot for her.
Here is a picture I took after the group bath. I hope this doesn't break guidelines as she is not hurt, but is lacking feathers.
IMG_20220111_121558.jpg
The discolouration on her eye is where the spot has been, and it looks flared again which has me worried. The faint orange discolouration on her beak was there since we got her- as have all her conditions.

We do not have any avian vets/specialists where we live. The vets we can access are very expensive and do not have much bird knowledge, and the one time we took a rescue to the vet, the veterinarian killed the bird by incorrectly feeding it before even treating it's real issue, so our trust for our nearby vet is very low.

She seems like a very happy girl and is very fond with my other lovebird and I'd hate myself if she was in pain without me taking action, so if anyone has any advice I'd appreciate it :)

Sorry for such a long post! I wanted to make sure I include all the details. I'm looking for suggests to care for her, possible diagnosis and treatments that could help her achieve full feather growth so she can zoom around like her buddies.
 

April

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@Zara ? Have you see this type of issue before?
Maybe you could try to consult with an online vet. @saroj12 has done so hopefully she can pop on here and tell you where to go,there is a cost associated with talking to the vet.
 

Shezbug

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Has she been tested by your vet for contagious diseases? I’d be suspicious of disease.

Birds hide pain- their life depends on it, you’d not know they were sick or hurting till it’s too late to help them which is why vet care is important.

If you share your general location some members here may help you find a suitable vet.

Edit: birds do run at a higher temp than we do, don’t let human touch be the way to judge your birds temp- the only way to know your bird is actually hot is to have its temperature taken at the vets.
 
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Shezbug

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@Zara ? Have you see this type of issue before?
Maybe you could try to consult with an online vet. @saroj12 has done so hopefully she can pop on here and tell you where to go,there is a cost associated with talking to the vet.
The problem with these online vets is they can’t really help… can’t test so can’t appropriately diagnose or medicate. I’m of the thought that they may help to ease owners minds but that is it.
 

April

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The problem with these online vets is they can’t really help… can’t test so can’t appropriately diagnose or medicate. I’m of the thought that they may help to ease owners minds but that is it.
I absolutely agree with you it's not something I'd personally want to do but unlike the OP I'm very blessed to have a CAV a 30 min drive away and my main vet clinic has 4 vets that see birds and have a lot of experience.
 

Trinity

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Has she been tested by your vet for contagious diseases? I’d be suspicious of disease.

Birds hide pain- their life depends on it, you’d not know they were sick or hurting till it’s too late to help them which is why vet care is important.

If you share your general location some members here may help you find a suitable vet.

Edit: birds do run at a higher temp than we do, don’t let human touch be the way to judge your birds temp- the only way to know your bird is actually hot is to have its temperature taken at the vets.
Thank you for the fast reply. You've got some good points and I'm far from an expert so I really appreciate this. Disease is a possibility as we don't know her history before we took her in. We received her from a bird store that had gotten her in and didn't want her as she wasn't going to sell. We were told she was healthy and had been 'assumably' bullied by the other birds in her cage, but maybe the owner was just as clueless about her condition as me.

I can't edit the post so I'll write here, we live in the Adelaide region of South Australia. If anyone has experience with a good vet here and insight as to the price for just a consult I'd be super thankful :)
 

Shezbug

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Quite a few Avian vets popped up for Adelaide- I am not sure but I would guess you may even be able to find one quite close to you if you search with a refined location.
Birds are much more expensive to responsibly keep than many other pets are (I found a similar thing with my ferrets 30 years ago as not many vets were comfortable or familiar with them) so I would expect a possible $75-$90 consult fee plus any tests and anything else done.
My last vet visit (for a bird I did not really want) was over $500- I expect approx that for the blood tests and wellness checks I want done each year. I travel 1hr to the vet if I am lucky and can book in with one that visits a closer town once a month or thereabouts but I have mostly had to travel 2 hrs one way to the full time bird vet.
Best way to know the approx amount you may be up for would be to call and ask.
My guess is you'd really want a complete health check up done and disease testing too- you may just opt for one or the other.
The big problem with taking in unwell or sickly looking birds and keeping them around healthier birds without knowing what the issue is basically boils down to the fact that there are so many diseases that are highly contagious. Best to know your current flock is free from disease then keep any other birds you may end up with separate from the healthy flock till vet cleared and properly quarantined.
 
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Trinity

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Quite a few Avian vets popped up for Adelaide- I am not sure but I would guess you may even be able to find one quite close to you if you search with a refined location.
Birds are much more expensive to responsibly keep than many other pets are (I found a similar thing with my ferrets 30 years ago as not many vets were comfortable or familiar with them) so I would expect a possible $75-$90 consult fee plus any tests and anything else done.
My last vet visit (for a bird I did not really want) was over $500- I expect approx that for the blood tests and wellness checks I want done each year. I travel 1hr to the vet if I am lucky and can book in with one that visits a closer town once a month or thereabouts but I have mostly had to travel 2 hrs one way to the full time bird vet.
Best way to know the approx amount you may be up for would be to call and ask.
My guess is you'd really want a complete health check up done and disease testing too- you may just opt for one or the other.
The big problem with taking in unwell or sickly looking birds and keeping them around healthier birds without knowing what the issue is basically boils down to the fact that there are so many diseases that are highly contagious. Best to know your current flock is free from disease then keep any other birds you may end up with separate from the healthy flock till vet cleared and properly quarantined.
Thank you for the advice. I'm hoping someone will be able to look at her picture and maybe recognise whatever is wrong, in the meanwhile I'll talk with family to see what we can do about taking her to the vet. We're cautious when taking in new birds (doing mite treatments and all that) but didn't think to quarantine Raph beyond that because we initially thought she was being bullied by other birds (I should have put that in original post- oops). I'll be looking tonight at possible vets :)
 

Zara

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Sorry, I don´t think I can help. This is definitely something the vet needs to explore.
Have them test for PBFD, Psittacosis, Polyoma and Giardia.

She does look like she has been plucking as there are multiple bruises on her skin.

I hope you find a good vet and everything goes smoothly. It´s great you have been able to take her in and care for her, I will keep my fingers crossed that you get answers.
 

Trinity

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Sorry, I don´t think I can help. This is definitely something the vet needs to explore.
Have them test for PBFD, Psittacosis, Polyoma and Giardia.

She does look like she has been plucking as there are multiple bruises on her skin.

I hope you find a good vet and everything goes smoothly. It´s great you have been able to take her in and care for her, I will keep my fingers crossed that you get answers.
Thank you for the advice. I'll have a look into what you suggested while we're waiting to arrange a vet visit :)
 

Momo & Mido

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I'm so sorry this happend.

If I were you I would separate/quarantine her immediately. And go to a vet as soon as possible. Put some nice easily shredding toys in her cage so she can play and destroy when she feels like it

You say you have more birds. In the future it might be wise to always quarantine for 4 weeks and in the meantime go to a vet and have them get tested. You can find a lot of information about this on this forum and you can always ask questions if you need help. A lot of people have done this a lot of times. I'm going through a quarantine right now, while going to the vet and waiting for the test result. It's the best we can do for our rescues and our current flock

I hope you find a vet you can trust. Especially with multiple birds you need to have a trusted vet. Good luck, we are here to listen and help
 

Trinity

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I'm so sorry this happend.

If I were you I would separate/quarantine her immediately. And go to a vet as soon as possible. Put some nice easily shredding toys in her cage so she can play and destroy when she feels like it

You say you have more birds. In the future it might be wise to always quarantine for 4 weeks and in the meantime go to a vet and have them get tested. You can find a lot of information about this on this forum and you can always ask questions if you need help. A lot of people have done this a lot of times. I'm going through a quarantine right now, while going to the vet and waiting for the test result. It's the best we can do for our rescues and our current flock

I hope you find a vet you can trust. Especially with multiple birds you need to have a trusted vet. Good luck, we are here to listen and help
Thank you for the kind words :) I am not the only carer for our birds and we're currently discussing vets and such. Another person in my family has worked with birds a long time and believes she is non-contagious. We've had her for almost a year (give or take). She has plenty of toys she tears to bits to get the shredded paper inside and likes to make a paper mache mess in her water bowl.
 
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