Statistic collection attempt- causes of death in pet parrots and birds

[Clueless]

Just one loss, my buddy MC, to cancer.

No idea how old he was other than he was a wild caught blue front amazon.

Like others said, there is a thread on here about the discovery of the tumor and the results. We fought hard together.

 

[Zara]

We´ve only had one bird death in our home.
There is nothing on your list that it falls under.

An example that isn't in the list is neglect, and it's unlikely you'll find somebody who spends time on an avian enthusiast forum (the audience who will see this survey) responding they lost their bird through neglect.

I think neglect would be the category I would choose.
A chick hatched in our home on christmas eve. He died the day after christmas aged 2 days old after being neglected by his parents, and I didn´t check in on him soon enough. We all let him down.

 

[Gigi’s Mom]

Just lactulose and milk thistle (liver support meds). We contemplated trying a chemotherapy, as his vet had read about a case of a cockatiel with cancer benefitting through an additional year of happy living, but I felt that my GCC was happy and I was worried about how he might tolerate chemotherapy. The cockatiel was the only case that she had read about and the cockatiel reportedly had no adverse affects, but it felt like a gamble to me. I am content with the choices I made.

That’s interesting about lactulose. I had read about it and asked two different vets if they could prescribe it. For some reason they didn't think it would help even though one vet thinks her liver is involved. Gigi is on the milk thistle too. I had also looked into other treatments like chemo or radiation. CSU in Colorado has had some success with it on smaller pets. But like you too, I feel it may be a gamble.

 

[sunnysmom]

Wow a 33 year old Tiel? Would love to see him or her. I had a smilar experience with my tiel. SHe lived to 17 and shortly before she passed she had a few strokes or seizures. My vet did a necropsy and found some blockages in her heart. I think i could have had her much longer if on a better diet. Back in the 80s when I got her there werent as many resources on proper diet. Ugh the food choices. Plus she was super finicky.

Yes. I got Sunny at 15. He had an all seed diet until me. I often wondered if he would have lived longer if his diet had been better sooner.

 

[sunnysmom]

Wow a 33 year old Tiel? Would love to see him or her. I had a smilar experience with my tiel. SHe lived to 17 and shortly before she passed she had a few strokes or seizures. My vet did a necropsy and found some blockages in her heart. I think i could have had her much longer if on a better diet. Back in the 80s when I got her there werent as many resources on proper diet. Ugh the food choices. Plus she was super finicky.

Here's Rosie. He will be 33 in December.

 

[macawpower58]

I've only had one pass on me.
I suspect it was illness caused or exacerbated by improper care, feeding and age.
He was over 30 when I got him, he passed a year and half later.

 

[~Drini~]

That’s interesting about lactulose. I had read about it and asked two different vets if they could prescribe it. For some reason they didn't think it would help even though one vet thinks her liver is involved. Gigi is on the milk thistle too. I had also looked into other treatments like chemo or radiation. CSU in Colorado has had some success with it on smaller pets. But like you too, I feel it may be a gamble.

My GCC started the lactulose and milk thistle simultaneously, so I'm not sure if it was one or both of them that had a positive impact. Lactulose does seemingly have side effects in humans at least (abdominal cramps, diarrhea) but you could always do a trial and see how Gigi reacts while monitoring bloodwork.

 

[Lady Jane]

One budgie unknown illness but I think close breeding may have caused cardiac event

one young budgie to AGY. Both budgies English.

 

[Gigi’s Mom]

My GCC started the lactulose and milk thistle simultaneously, so I'm not sure if it was one or both of them that had a positive impact. Lactulose does seemingly have side effects in humans at least (abdominal cramps, diarrhea) but you could always do a trial and see how Gigi reacts while monitoring bloodwork.

Yeah I may ask them about it again. I recall one vet saying something about side effects. Gigi is pretty far along in her cancer journey and I am open to anything.

 

[Gigi’s Mom]

Here's Rosie. He will be 33 in December.

View attachment 414662

Wow he looks great. That is incredible. You must take great care of him. What type of diet?

 

[sunnysmom]

Wow he looks great. That is incredible. You must take great care of him. What type of diet?

I can't take credit. He came to me when he was 30. His diet I think was seeds. But he was also given petamine. Which is a breeding supplement and he's a boy....but I think it gave him the extra nutrients he needed beyond seeds. I still give it to him. The rescue coordinator and I decided that if he was on it for 30 years that we weren't taking him off of it. I also give him senior nutriberries, freeze dried vegetables, fresh vegetables, seeds and a supplement called Healthy Bird. He's a really good little eater. He's also a normal grey which I think are just heartier in general over the other mutations (except maybe for pied).

 

[Pixiebeak]

it makes me wonder if there is a pellets diet influence with cancer.

In my career long long ago ...I participated in thousands of necropsy of birds, and thousands of x-rays....cancer was beyond rare i think only seen a couple of times .

In a conversation with my veterinarian she mentioned how she is seeing so much more cancer.

And seeing this thread and the number of members whose had cancer in their birds....

It just makes me wonder....and I know when I was active in the field pellets were rare, just really starting to be marketed... there bound to be other candidates leading to increase cancer diagnosis ( outside of budgies who've had a history as species of higher incidences)

This is just me wondering....I'm not trashing pellets. They have a lot to offer. And avian pellets are continuing to be refined and improved ( I hope) as avian medicine, health, and popularity increases. I feed pellets, tho probably as a smaller portion of my diets, as I try to focus on fresh.

 

[~Drini~]

it makes me wonder if there is a pellets diet influence with cancer.

In my career long long ago ...I participated in thousands of necropsy of birds, and thousands of x-rays....cancer was beyond rare i think only seen a couple of times .

In a conversation with my veterinarian she mentioned how she is seeing so much more cancer.

And seeing this thread and the number of members whose had cancer in their birds....

It just makes me wonder....and I know when I was active in the field pellets were rare, just really starting to be marketed... there bound to be other candidates leading to increase cancer diagnosis ( outside of budgies who've had a history as species of higher incidences)

This is just me wondering....I'm not trashing pellets. They have a lot to offer. And avian pellets are continuing to be refined and improved ( I hope) as avian medicine, health, and popularity increases. I feed pellets, tho probably as a smaller portion of my diets, as I try to focus on fresh.

I was also surprised by how cancer is a top leading cause of death in our poll here, but I have no experience with avian veterinary care and have no exposure to aviculture beyond the internet and my own companions.

I would be interested in knowing if the average lifespan of captive birds is also increasing. Perhaps it could just be that birds are now living long enough to die from cancer instead of neglect, exposure to harmful substances, etc. Another factor might be the greater degree of inbreeding (banned importation of wild-caught birds has limited our gene pools) and selective breeding for color mutations. I especially wish there were data on the lifespans of different color mutations. We say that budgies are more prone to cancer but is that true for wild budgie populations? Or is it just that they've been inbred/selectively-bred for a longer period of time?

 

[Clueless]

You know, my mom told me many years ago that cancer wasn't around when she was growing up. I told her it was...... they just didn't KNOW it was out there and what people died from.

My mom grew up in rural Missouri where we didn't go to drs unless on deaths door. Perhaps we just go to avian vets more?

 

[Pixiebeak]

You know, my mom told me many years ago that cancer wasn't around when she was growing up. I told her it was...... they just didn't KNOW it was out there and what people died from.

My mom grew up in rural Missouri where we didn't go to drs unless on deaths door. Perhaps we just go to avian vets more?
For general pets this could hold true. But I was in zoo med , conservation, research, university and so all had a post mortum and high level care and diagnostics. We just didn't have cancer...so rare yo see, even in advanced aged

 

[Pixiebeak]

How Is Being Brainy Correlated To Longevity In Parrots?

Parrots apparently evolved larger brain sizes so they could solve problems that might otherwise have killed them, and this promoted their survival

www.forbes.com

 

[Pixiebeak]

I was also surprised by how cancer is a top leading cause of death in our poll here, but I have no experience with avian veterinary care and have no exposure to aviculture beyond the internet and my own companions.

I would be interested in knowing if the average lifespan of captive birds is also increasing. Perhaps it could just be that birds are now living long enough to die from cancer instead of neglect, exposure to harmful substances, etc. Another factor might be the greater degree of inbreeding (banned importation of wild-caught birds has limited our gene pools) and selective breeding for color mutations. I especially wish there were data on the lifespans of different color mutations. We say that budgies are more prone to cancer but is that true for wild budgie populations? Or is it just that they've been inbred/selectively-bred for a longer period of time?

All good theories!
I don't know what the rest of the community saw. But for my experience we had plenty of advanced age .
As for my avian vet she has been in the field a very long time and is seeing an uptick in the last five years....she shared no theory ...just that especially in the last 2 years it was exceptionally notable...could just be chance I guess...

 

[sunnysmom]

it makes me wonder if there is a pellets diet influence with cancer.

In my career long long ago ...I participated in thousands of necropsy of birds, and thousands of x-rays....cancer was beyond rare i think only seen a couple of times .

In a conversation with my veterinarian she mentioned how she is seeing so much more cancer.

And seeing this thread and the number of members whose had cancer in their birds....

It just makes me wonder....and I know when I was active in the field pellets were rare, just really starting to be marketed... there bound to be other candidates leading to increase cancer diagnosis ( outside of budgies who've had a history as species of higher incidences)

This is just me wondering....I'm not trashing pellets. They have a lot to offer. And avian pellets are continuing to be refined and improved ( I hope) as avian medicine, health, and popularity increases. I feed pellets, tho probably as a smaller portion of my diets, as I try to focus on fresh.

I sometimes wonder if pellets are now relied upon too heavily. I don't consider myself an expert on avian nutrition- I don't know if anyone is honestly. More studies really need to be done. But, I know a lot about cockatiels. When I got my first cockatiel suddenly and unexpectedly, I joined a cockatiel forum that had a group of very knowledgeable women who had had cockatiels for decades and were as up on nutrition as possible since again, not a lot of good info then. They all preached that pellets should be no more that 50% of a tiels diet. Some even said 25%. Granted cockatiels are granivores- different from a lot of other parrots. So, I have always followed a lighter on pellets diet for my cockatiels. I am currently dealing with a cockatiel with kidney issues (not one of mine). The vet and I are still working on the cause but after discussing the pellet issue, she has advised decreasing the amount of pellets he is getting, at least until we get this figured out. Granted, an all seed diet isn't good either- fatty liver. But I do think too often parrots are lumped into one big category. And I think different species do have different nutritional needs.

 

[Lady Jane]

Back when I was a teen in the 50's I had a dime store parakeet. We did not know much about their needs then. He was in a small cage but flew around the house like a champ. I fed him lettuce and seeds. No pellets back then. He lived for 10 years, never sick or vet trips.
He did get out one time and I took the little cage ougside and he flew right inside of the cage.

 

[Beebleburb]

I really think the results on here have been super fascinating, because all the 'common causes of death', besides exposure to toxicities, really don't correlate to the results we have here. All the articles I see hone in on the same few things- egg binding, blood feather breaks, fatty liver disease, and Psittacosis. We have almost no results for this, which really confirms one of the main things that I was worried about which is that hot google search pages really don't warn parrot owners correctly what to look out for and how to stop it.
Weather this correlates with the level of care birds are getting by users of an enthusiast forum leading to different causes of death because we are informed of these issues or these are not actually as common of causes of death as they are marked to be I cannot say. However- I also posted a very similar post to this on a reddit forum- R/Parrots to see how the information I collected differed. I didn't get as may responses on that one but their results were much equal to the google results. Egg binding deaths, blood feather deaths, and accidental deaths. No old age ones reported .
Even though i'm working with a small data pool what I can really draw from this is that the problems on google are very apparent for birds who are receiving subpar standards of care, (even though im sure there are some very dedicated bird parents out there on reddit I generally consider it to be a less informed community) and that in reading so much, remaining vigilant, and working so hard for our birds we really are making a difference for them in the eventual outcome of their life.
I've really been reassured somewhat by the data I've gotten here in what and where I need to place my worries, and I'm so thankful to everyone who participated. I hope this can become a useful resource out there to help learning bird enthusiasts out there to know what to look out for beyond just the basics that google provides.