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

[Mizzely]

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.

There are so many things that could equal more cancer diagnosis

Better screening
More people getting birds vet care than they used to
Longer lives which would equal more chances for cancer

Or perhaps something in our homes. Or genetics. Or more birds in homes in general.

I am not saying pellets are perfect, or that they could be blameless, but pellets would not be the first thing I would personally blame.

 

[Pixiebeak]

There are so many things that could equal more cancer diagnosis

Better screening
More people getting birds vet care than they used to
Longer lives which would equal more chances for cancer

Or perhaps something in our homes. Or genetics. Or more birds in homes in general.

I am not saying pellets are perfect, or that they could be blameless, but pellets would not be the first thing I would personally blame.

Its just something I think about, with processed foods and captivity ( all species including humans)
All I know that's one variable I think of, because it didn't exist then ( a few formula diets no dye were just starting)

Agree lots of other candidates for cause.

Some cancers have been linked with virus. Some vaccines (very long ago)linked with cancer in felines sarcoma at injection site. Chronic inflammation is linked with cancer..plenty of stuff..

For my experiences, we provided extensive no cost barred diagnostics, and every bird thst died was dissected, with histopathology . Many were advanced age full lifetimes ( ive had a wonderful career in zoo, conservation, research and surveillance projects with state and CDC) so myself am satisfied not related to more veterinarian care being provided( so more being detected) or longer life spans ( being age related) cancer in birds was just something we didn't see.....soo rare I can only remember 3 cases, 2 reproductive, 1 ocular. This is just my experiences but did cover over 2 decades .

But there are more captive parrots . With plenty of inbreeding. Breeding for color mutations and not robustness ..lots more large scale commercial breeding...while poaching is still a global problem

 

[taxidermynerd]

In Chirp’s case, the vet thought the (potential) cancer was likely due to poor breeding or something similar, as Chirp was a pet store budgie.

However, before the tumor presented itself, Chirp ate some dangerous foods (complicated story for anyone who wasn't around during that time), which affected his liver severely. We figure that the tumor may well have happened even if he didn't gotten sick, just that it made him weaker and thus more likely to become severely ill.

Chirp was on pellets his whole life and was completely healthy aside from a few bumps and scrapes until the incident, and he likely wouldn't have lived very long after diagnosis without them (as it was, we had 7 months together from diagnosis as terminal to goodbye). He refused to touch veggies no matter how I served them, so he would've missed out on a lot of important nutrition had I never got him on pellets.

 

[Pixiebeak]

In Chirp’s case, the vet thought the (potential) cancer was likely due to poor breeding or something similar, as Chirp was a pet store budgie.

However, before the tumor presented itself, Chirp ate some dangerous foods (complicated story for anyone who wasn't around during that time), which affected his liver severely. We figure that the tumor may well have happened even if he didn't gotten sick, just that it made him weaker and thus more likely to become severely ill.

Chirp was on pellets his whole life and was completely healthy aside from a few bumps and scrapes until the incident, and he likely wouldn't have lived very long after diagnosis without them (as it was, we had 7 months together from diagnosis as terminal to goodbye). He refused to touch veggies no matter how I served them, so he would've missed out on a lot of important nutrition had I never got him on pellets.

Im Sorry for your loss of Chirp. Thank you for sharing his story with us .

Pellets do have a lot to offer and provide complete nutrition

 

[TikiMyn]

Tiki(cockatiel) passed away due to respiratory illness. Age unknown, probably older.
Xena, Fischers lovebirds, passed away from combination of epilepsy, passing an egg(took a lot energy), overall she was not a normal bird with several minor issues like bad liver etc and possibly something unknown. One morning she woke up feeling very bad, rushed to the vet, but possibly due to the stress she got an epileptic attack even through the meds she got for that and passed away She was 10.
Myn, Indian runner duck, was killed by a goose in a fight/accident.
So incredibly sad to read about all the bird who passed a was ‘before their time’ instead of old age

 

[Snowghost]

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.

I was there through your journey, so heart breaking and I think of you and MC often. Hugs!

 

[Snowghost]

I had a White Front Amazon for 25 years, wild caught. Life history and age unknown, would only eat seed, peanuts as treats, no greens, a grape once in a while, yellow squash, I could never get her to eat veggies. I noticed she was slowing down, thought it was due to age. Then she was no longer flying to the top of the door to scream, unsteady on her feet, wouldn't fly to her T stand and not stand on edge of cups for goodies.

Vet check crystals on kidneys and severe gout. I helped her cross the Rainbow Bridge, March 13, 2019. Her illness led me to this group and the many freinds I made here.

The Wild Bird Conservation Act (WBCA) was signed into law on October 23, 1992. If my math is correct and she was caught and sold prior to this law she would have been over 50.

The reason I am posting this, is there anyway gout and kidney issues can be prevented?

Thank you.

 

[~Drini~]

I want to share a study I recently came across. They looked at ~4000 diagnostic cases in ~2000 captive parrots from 1998 to 2017 and explored which were the most common disease processes.

Captive Psittacine Birds in Ontario, Canada: a 19-Year Retrospective Study of the Causes of Morbidity and Mortality

Fig. 1. The number of birds affected by the most common primary disease processes and subprocesses diagnosed in a database of psittacines submitted for post-mortem examination to the Ontario Veterinary College and Animal Health Laboratory from 1998 to 2017 (n = 1,850).


I tried to attach a PDF of the paper for anyone who doesn’t have access but would like to read it, but apparently the file is too large. Let me know if anyone is interested and I can find a work-around.

 

[~Drini~]

They also include species-specific associations, which I find interesting. African Greys, budgies, and cockatiels were the most numerous in their sample.

• The highest correlations were between Psittacus correlated with viral disease processes (ρ = 0.12) and Melopsittacus correlated with neoplastic disease processes (ρ = 0.10). Metabolic disease processes correlated with Psittacus, Agapornis and Amazona and of the 65 cases in these genera, atherosclerosis (n = 41; 63.1%), haemosiderosis (n = 9; 13.8%) and poor body condition (n = 5; 7.8%) were the most common subprocesses.
• The most frequently affected genera were Melopsittacus (n = 37; 25.7% of birds affected by neoplastic disease processes), Nymphicus (n = 23; 16%) and Amazona (n = 18; 12.5%).
• The most common genera affected by viral subprocesses were: Psittacus (n = 72; 25.0%) for bornavirus, Psittacus (n = 23; 62.2%) for circovirus, Ara (n = 11; 14.1%) for polyomavirus and Amazona(n = 11; 36.7%) for herpesvirus.
• Avian gastric yeast infection was diagnosed in eight species, most commonly budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus; n = 19), cockatiels (Nymphicus hollandicus; n = 10) and Pacific parrotlets (n = 8).
• Atherosclerosis was reported in 16 genera, in a total of 172 birds, and was considered primary in 44.8% of these. Psittacus was the most commonly affected genus (n = 53; 30.8%), but Agapornis was the most severely affected with 80.0% (n = 12/15) of cases considered as primary.

 

[flyzipper]

I want to share a study I recently came across...

Great find.
Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph is in my backyard and Oscar visited there for his scope procedure.

The selection bias that's present is, "This study was conducted to assess trends in disease prevalence and to describe causes of morbidity and mortality in psittacines submitted for post-mortem examination to the veterinary hospital and diagnostic laboratory at the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada". People who would submit for post-mortem are the subset of bird people who have a relationship with an avian vet. Further, I'd suspect that certain outcomes such as trauma (only 16 out of 1850) would be underrepresented (there's no mystery that would need to be revealed by a post-mortem when a cat/dog/door/window-strike kills a bird, for example).