Suprelorin Implants and Birds?

[~birdybea~]

For those of you that have had this implant done, is it still being successful? The one question that was never answered was, do they come in different sizes? Thanks.........................

My experience with Zoe, and the numerous tiels we implanted at my old job, was that the 12 month implant lasted approximately 9-12+ months. It is anecdotal evidence only in birds at this stage as I understand it. There is also a 6 month implant, which might be enough to simply break the current egg laying cycle but if that's the case a hormone injection would probably do the job less invasively. Both the 6 and 12 month implants are similar in size, both of the implant itself and the needle required for implantation.

 

[CeciliaZ]

The flooding worked, so hard to say that the implants would be a better option. I did have to learn how, and that was the only hiccup.
At $450 a year to have all three, and having any of them put under every year is "Not for me"
At least with the flooding there is no danger to my girls. And now I know how to pull it off, I will go that way again.
Not that it looks like I am going to have any trouble this year as no signs yet.
They cannot be far from molting and that should mean an end to breeding season. Fingers crossed.

Just wondering - how many dummy eggs do you need for "flooding" I keep a set of 5 plastic eggs in a cage with my tiel - and she will still lay. Should I get more?

 

[maddie]

Hello!
I do apologize for not having gone thru every single comment given on this thread. I only signed up a minute ago, and mainly to give my views on the Suprelorin implant, as was requested in the original post. Some may have offered similar comments as mine.

I have two 2 year old peachfaced lovebirds, completely tame. Female (Sally) and lutino male (Tequila - because we named 'her' before we got around to have 'her' dna tested, only to find out she was a he). They mate but they are not a pair, like we usually see lovebirds, all huggy-kissy with each other. They keep their distance, except when mating.

Since Sally starting egglaying, she kept at it, laying 4-5 eggs at a time, a few weeks rest (perhaps to see if they were fertile?) and then another batch and then another and then another. We couldn't bear to remove her nest, because she would just lay her eggs wherever else she could find a quiet spot. Eventually we got fed up with her always being couped up in her nestbox and never out to play.

So, after a round of hormone injections which had no effect, our Vet suggested the Suprelorin implant. And we had a little miracle. Must point out that our Vet told us that the Suprelorin implant was not something she had a lot of experience with and were we willing to give it a try with Sally, and help her gather information that might help other of her avian patients? Yes of course.

Sally's been off the eggs and out of the nest for almost 5 months running now, she is cuddly and nice and she's communicating, singing, chirping, playing. And last but not least, she was somewhat nasty with her beak before the implant, wanting only to be handled by my husband and never by me - and now she's just as happy to cuddle up to my neck underneath my ponytail and go to sleep or to sneak inside my sweater for a nap in my armpit.

Lately she's taken up shredding papers again, so we reckon that the implant may lose it's effect soon. Vet's recommendation is that we let her have a round of eggs or two to 'reset' her hormone level and then she'll have another implant.

When Sally had the hormone injections (with no effect) our Vet warned us that they may shorten her lifespan a bit, but we would rather have her outside the nest for 8 years than inside the nest for 10. I cannot say - neither could our Vet be sure - that the Suprelorin implant has a similar effect on her lifespan, but seing how happy and playful Sally is, there is no doubt that we're willing to take that chance.

I hope my comments are helpful. Feel free to ask more specific info.
Again: I haven't had the time to read thru the entire thread, I do apologize, if you already got the response you were looking for.

 

[chere]

Hi Maddie,

Thanks for your post!! I would like to ask more questions please.............Did Sally's implant take awhile to "kick in"? Does she get more than twelve hours sleep a night? Did your vet recommend a bland diet for her, such as no seeds and no nesting type of foods? When your vet recommended the implant again for Sally, did he say if this time the implant would last longer? I did decide to get the implant with Pebbles, but unfortunately it did not ever "kick in" fully nor last the length of time. It is now going on four months and she is back to screaming at the top of her lungs and shredding paper. This behavior leads to prolapses which may lead to complications later that are beyond my control.

Any help would be appreciated.................

Cher

 

[maddie]

Thanks for your response, Cher, and for asking further questions, which I'm happy to give as best I can. Sorry if my response is a bit haphazardly written.

Don't know if you saw my 'I'm new here' message, I signed up to this forum mainly to give my take on the Suprelorin implant, thinking it might help others as it has helped us (at least so far).

Sally and Tequila are our very first lovebirds, and we have no experience beyond what we've learned through them. So I may not be a lot of help.

First let me specify that Sally wasn't injected, it was put under her skin while she was anesthetitized (right word? sorry, English isn't my mother tongue), because she's such a tiny bird (compared to the bigger parrot species) our Vet wanted to keep her still to have the implant put in the best possible position on her upper back between her wings, where the Vet said she wouldn't be able to get to the stitches and where it wouldn't bother her movements.

We wanted to give our birds the 12 hours sleep they should have, but we've had a hard time with it, because our apartment is rather small and because it's two homo sapiens inhabitants don't exactly want 12 hours of sleep ;-) Actually it was Vet's very first advice that we tried to give her as much as 16 hours sleep a night for a full week to reset her hormonal levels, and we even got a cover for Sally's cage that would keep most light out. But starting using it we noticed that Sally got very upset/nervous when we put the cover on, as if she was afraid. So we stopped using it, not wanting to stress her. Our birds flies freely in our home most of the time and crawl behind our livingroom curtains to go to sleep at about 7pm in winter and no later than 9pm in summer. They pretty much decide when themselves. We usually turn the lights down a bit, that tells them when it's time.

Before suggesting the implant our Vet also proposed that we gave Sally a less rich diet, on the notion that in nature the birds don't lay eggs when food is scarce. We just couldn't intentionally let Sally have less food.

It's been 6 months now since Sally had her implant. There are signs that the implant is losing it's strength, she's now constantly looking for places to build a nest, she's shredding paper like ever before, she and Tequila is mating more often now, and we welcome it. Our Vet - who is also learning as she goes along - has suggested that we let things run its course and let her lay AT LEAST one round of eggs (if any hatching) or twice (if not).

So we're still on the first implant. So I can't really say what happens next.

I'm sorry that I cannot help you more, but I will add to this thread as things unfold, I promise
And as I have a limited experience with parrots - none outside my own lovebirds - I am completely unable to offer you any advice on the behaviour of your own bird, but I hope that other helpful forum members can do that loads better than I.

And if any of what I've written here opens even more questions, don't hold back. I might not be super active in checking this site every day, probably more like every 1-2 weeks, pls be patient with me. I will answer your questions as soon as I can.


Best!
Maddie

 

[Welshanne]

All I know is the Grey that had the implant has done so well but the injections with hormones did not have much of an effect either. She is now not laying for the first time since her breeding cycle came into play and is able to have more going on in her life than sitting on eggs all of the time.

 

[chere]

Thanks, Maddie

Your post really helped! Pebbles' implant is fading faster and faster, so I am trying the longer hours of darkness. The other items your vet suggested like a less rich diet is already in place much to the dismay of Pebbles . Yes please do keep me updated with the implants success with Sally, I would love to compare notes with you!!! And don't worry about English not being your mother tongue, you are doing great........................


Cher

 

[maddie]

Update on Sally's Suprelorin implant.

She was implanted 8 months ago, on August 9 2012.

Started to show nesting behavior around Christmas and has steadily shown more and more nesting behavior since, such as collecting shredded papers and twigs and other stuff in little piles here and there, like in (what used to be) my favorite handbag (not happy about that!), behind our livingroom curtains, and in a kitchen cupboard round the stems of our wineglasses. And, what is worse, getting ever more territorial around her 'piles'. We are NOT to touch them, unless we want to taste her razor sharp beak.

So eventually we relented and put up her nestbox in the kitchen cupboard and moved the wineglasses, lest they got shoved out too ;-)

Last few weeks, she's clearly been inviting Tequila to mate, only to throw him off once he managed to get on top of her.
(oh, we have a word in Danish for behaviour like that. Not a nice word. Don't know if there's an English word...)

But this past week, she's been willing to let him do his business. So I expect we'll have some eggs soon.

So, to sum up our experiences with the Suprelorin implant so far:

- 4 months of gender-neutral bliss (no mating, no eggs, no territorial behaviour, no aggression, sweetest snuggliest bird on the planet, as she was in pre-breeding times)
- 4 months of slowly going back to her normal and somewhat mood-swinging breeding behaviour, not too interested in being petted, just going about her own business

I'll add to this, when we have eggs, noting the date.

Remember that our Vet told us that she had limited experience with the Suprelorin implants, and only from a few bigger parrots, so tiny lovebird Sally has been a testcase for her.
At the time of the implant, she said that we should probably expect as much as up to 18 months of no eggs. Anyway, none of us could know the exact duration period.

At our last visit, Vet said that there is a double strength Suprelorin implant which we could consider for next implant round. I think we'll stick to regular strenght....

But first, Sally should be allowed a few rounds of eggs (and chicks, if any hatch) before another round of hormonal treatment.

So, there it is. So far.


OH, fellow bird friends, I have a question about the nest box:
Do we clean it out before she lays a new clutch of eggs? She's built this beautiful bowl structure inside the box, using a lot of shredded paper, shredded twigs from my non-toxic house plants and other material. It was probably a lot of work for her. Do we empty it or let her re-use it ? Looks clean and neat, no droppings, no yuckiness, just dry and soft and padded with a lot of her own down feathers, I gather. The box has been kept at the bottom of a closet, warm and dry.

But is it healthy for her to re-use it as it is? What is her natural behaviour?


As ever, I'm grateful for any help you can provide. You guys in here are the only birdlovers (and bird knowers) I know.

 

[chere]

Hi Maddie,

Nice to hear from you!!! Sorry, I cannot help very much on the nest box as that is one thing I never provided Pebbles, however, in comparing notes , I would say that Sally's implant lasted much longer than Pebbles did. Pebbles' never fully kicked in. so-to-say, but I think she only had like three months of no screaming, no nesty behavior and no mood swings. The twelve hours of total darkness and sleep is really helping to curb her hormonal behavior . My vet recommended she come back in April for a second implant if necessary, but only hinted at six months, tops, for the implant to be fully functional. It, of course, might have been because Pebbles has always been overly hormonal. Would you have any idea what happens to the implant itself when it is no longer working? And do the vets choose another spot to put another in?

Wishing you and Sally the best of luck when she has chicks.........please post pics of the little ones

Talk to you soon................


Cher

 

[maddie]

Hi Cher
Thanks for your response - great to hear that the 12 hours of total darkness helped.

We have trouble with it up here in Scandinavia, since our summers give us some really short nights with somewhat darkness between 11pm and 4am, and not even completely dark. So we'll have to get some hefty curtains to keep out light, and well, it's just too big an investment and we don't want darkness either. And as I wrote in my first posting, Sally fiercely dislikes being covered up in her cage. That's why we turned to the implant thing in the first place.

That is something rather odd, come to think of it - both Sally and Teq has figured out their own sleeping arrangements: Tequila has taken to sleep in a ferret-nest or den thing I've hung up under the ceiling (I'll post a picture of it), which they've used for daytime play. Suddenly one evening we couldn't find Tequila, and heard him make a tiny sound from up there in the ferret's nest. We had a good laugh over that one. He seems very comfy up there. Sally has made a nice little bed for herself at the bottom of a black canvas shopping bag, so she snuggles in there at night. But she'll be sleeping in the nest when she'll have eggs, of course.

And you asked about if the suprelorin implant is still there. My husband says that he felt the implant under Sallys skin not too long ago. Vet placed it on Sally's upper back between her wings, and she seems to like being petted right there. But Vet says that the implant once emply will slowly disintegrate itself and Sally's body will absorb and discard it (whatever the right medical term is). But, I must say that we've had different answers when asking, both that it will disintetrate and that it's still there and should be removed at her next implant surgery. Either way, Sally seems to have NO irritation from it whatsoever, if it's still there. So I've decided to ask outright after her next implant, if they found any remains of the previous implant. Just out of curiosity.

 

[chere]

Hi Maddie,

I sure do like Sally and Teq's sleeping arrangements!!! All three of mine like covers at night, nice and cozy and no drafts...

Thanks for the answer on the implant when its effectiveness has run out. I had read in the trials (before I had consented to putting it in Pebbles) that it slowly dissipates in the body, but I could not imagine how. Please let me know what your vet says the next time you and Sally see him if there is anything left of the first implant. It would be very interesting to really know .

I didn't realize that Scandinavia has such short nights! Wow! Certainly not good for hormonal birdies . I decided to put solar shades on the ten (yes, ten ) windows on the second floor of our home in Florida. As you have probably heard the Florida sun is brutal!!! I used the 6% darkness which not only keeps it darker, but reflects the sun back outside rather than the inside absorbing the heat and fading everything in site . It has worked pretty well, but as you say, expensive!!!

I love our note comparing!!! Are you on Facebook? It would be so very nice to friend you and keep up there with our comparisons...

Talk to you soon!!!!!!!!!!!


Cher

 

[Laurul Feather Cat]

The absolute best things I tried that worked with my cockatiel hens was adding two natural light fixtures and flooding their nests with fake eggs. As soon as I added the lights all but one hen stopped laying within two weeks. Tasha, the hen who did not stop laying, was a chronic layer and laid eggs all year round, usually twelve to fifteen a year. I just made sure Tasha got her calcium supplement and got good food to help stave off eggbinding. Tasha laid her last egg fifteen days before I found her dead sitting on her eggs in her cage, age fourteen years.

I do not like the hormonal manipulation of implants or injections; they mess with the brain chemistry too much and throw all the other hormonal signals out of harmony as well. I would only consider hormonal manipulation as a last resort before surgical spaying.

 

[maddie]

Lois, it was NOT by far an easy decision for us to make, but it was a necessary decision.

We went through a lot of contemplating, discussion, googling for info, testing other options, as explained in earlier posts, like giving our hen access to a less rich food selection (Vet's advice) to hopefully turn her away from her non-stop laying, by having her thinking that with food scarcity it would be useless, but I must admit that my heart just couldn't bear not giving both Sally and Tequila the seeds and veggies they are used to, I felt as though I was intentionally starving them. We also tried the 16-hour darkness for Sally, but if you read my previous post, you'll see that 16 hours of darkness is somewhat difficult to pull off in Scandinavia between March and October. And Sally acted scared ••••less everytime we tried to cover her cage.

So the hormonal manipulation really WAS a last resort for us. She spent some 10 months straight in her next box, sitting on clutch upon clutch of unfertilized eggs, coming out rarely, looking more and more unhappy, no lustre to her feathers, she looked thinner, disinterested, non-communicative, ate a bit, and when back into her box. So we felt we had to do something quickly or she would simply waste away for lack of love and social interaction.

Remember that she and Tequila isn't a love pair, they do mate, but otherwise, she don't want him near her or the nestbox. So she was, literally, alone.

She may live 15 years untreated, and we do understand that hormonal manipulation messes with her behaviour, as well as with her lifespan. But we'd just rather have a happy, cuddly, communicating, playful, fun lovebird out of the nest box for most of her 8 or 10 years, than a sad, unhappy and lonesome bird sitting IN the nestbox for most of her 12 or 14 years. It's really that simple. It's a calculated risk, and we've accepted it with our eyes open.

We are blessed with a wonderful pair of lovebirds, even though they have not as we hoped formed a bond between them. But they bond with us and also accept each other as members of the same flock, because they don't like to be separated either. They're healthy, in good shape, beautiful full feathers (full plumage, is that the word?) Vet says she's never seen lovebirds in such super condition, so I just rest happy knowing that even if we manipulate Sally's hormonal balance, her quality of life is just a lot better this way. It's really the main thing here!

I won't regret for a sec that we chose this option. She will not, of course, go from one implant and straight onto the next one, she will have a break of a year or so, depending on how she reacts, and she will lay a few clutches of eggs, hopefull get a few chicks too and then - another implant.

 

[maddie]

Cher - sure I'm on Facebook Would be great to be FB friends. Can you find me under my given name Malene Brandt?
Here's my profile pic+cover pic, that should give you something to steer by

 

[Brae]

I am new to this forum! Glad I found it. I have a parakeet named Lucky who is a chronic egg layer. We found her in a tree a few years ago. It was winter in Colorado at the time (snowing). She was a baby according to the vet as she had a bright pink head. My Lucky is the most precious little girl. However, she is a chronic egg layer. Her clutches are about 7-8 each. Once she is done with one clutch she is starting on another about 1 week later. Yes, one week later. She lays all seasons of the year. We have tried everything with her. We finally started her on lupron injections which work for about 4 weeks at a time. We have an appointment this weekend to try the hormone implant. I am very worried for her as the last thing I want is to have to put her under and have something placed in her tiny little body. I am hoping and praying this will work for her. One question I have is....how invasive is the removal of these implants?

Thanks so much for your time.

 

[chere]

Hi Brae, Welcome.............................

I see your little budgie is very strong willed . She's cute!! Once the implant is placed in Lucy's body close to a muscle mass, it will take a few weeks to "kick in", but according to my vet, the implant is never taken back out as it is eventually absorbed by the bird's body. As strong willed as your Lucy is, please don't be a bit surprised if the implant does not work fully the first time around. In Pebbles, my tiel, even when it was at its fullest strength, she was still hormonal. It slowed her down, but never stopped her (sigh). Good Luck to you and Lucy!!! Please keep in touch with her progress!!


Cher

 

[chere]

Hi Maddie,

Friend request sent , although it be a bit slow


Cher

 

[Brae]

Thanks for the reply Cher! I will certainly keep you all posted on her progress!

 

[Brae]

Lucky made it through the implant. They had to put her under anesthesia due to her little size. Will continue to keep you posted on how the implant is working for her.

 

[chere]

Yippe!!!!!! Glad to hear she is doing well!!! WTG Lucky!!!!! (& Mom, too )



Cher