Unsure if there's slight breathing issues

[pretty_pip]

Hey,

TL;DR - Budgie panting after flying, and I may have heard some strange breathing sounds but not sure if it's concerning.

I'm a bit worried about my budgie Powder's breathing but not sure if I'm overreacting.

Timeline
• Feb 8th: Noticed Powder breathing heavily after energetic flight that doesn't impact his brother Pippi, but he recovers quickly.

• Pippi's preferred out-of-cage activity is 2-3 sprint laps of the room and then back to the cage.​

• Powder typically prefers to fly short distances to the cage roof, then to a play stand, then my PC monitor etc.​

• Initially concluded it was a stamina issue.​

• Feb 12th: Heard a whiney sound (similar to a dog whining), very faint. Not sure how recently he'd been flying.
• Feb 13th: Noticed faint creaky door/squeaky sound while eating, playing with toys, and interacting with his brother Pippi.

• Heard it maybe 4 times over a couple of hours. 2 of which I caught on camera.​

• Today (Feb 14th): Less breathless after flying this AM, still panting again in PM though. Few weird sounds after 4PM, similar to the creaky-squeak but a bit closer to chattering sounds.

Things to note:
• They eat mainly nutriberries and small amount of seed. Working on getting in pellets and veggies. Iodine block and cuttlefish available at all time. They get probiotics or ACV regularly, and a boost of vitamins during moults.
• Weird sounds (12th-14th) are quiet and infrequent, might be Powder's normal and I've not noticed them before but hearing it now as I'm monitoring closely as the breathlessness made me anxious.
• Tbh if I didn't have the radio off (to monitor) and if I didn't work from home I'd have no idea anything might be different about him.
• I have friends visiting next week so won't be as present to monitor for subtle deterioration, so I think I'm working myself up because of that. I always get anxious over tiny things with my birdies whenever I have something like this coming up.

Here's a video of what I've described:

Weird sounds may be hard to hear without headphones and max volume, but that makes background sounds super loud sorry. Eye emoji indicates when to listen closely.
I think the slight tail bob in between chattering in clip 4 is more because he got nervous of the camera. It only happened then.

Planning to call vet tomorrow if I'm still unsure about things.
I'm hoping for some input, especially considering my friends coming might be making me overreact.

 

[expressmailtome]

Bump.

 

[pretty_pip]

Bump.

Thanks for bumping

I did end up ringing the vet as I could hear it a bit more pronounced this morning, they had 2 slots free today so we've already been seen.

Naturally he didn't make a peep during the visit, but I had a video from this morning when he was making the squeaky sound. Vet also couldn't hear that but did notice his stomach moving quite a lot like the breathing was taking some effort- we've got some iodine drops as he doesn't touch his block that much (I guess I'm just so used to their sounds from spending 8 hours a day with them that I can pick up on small changes)

If this doesn't improve things then I'm to go back and have him tested for chlamydia

 

[GreenThing]

This might be nothing, but I've heard of cases where the maltodextrin in Nutriberries caused an allergic reaction. There's a milk thistle supplement on Amazon that I wanted to try, and I've hesitated for that reason (although I know plenty of people use both without an issue).

I recently had a budgie with a fungal infection that caused some labored breathing, but his crop area was subtly swollen. Both that bird and my budgie Percy (who sadly passed from kidney failure) would squeak involuntarily when they bent over (to get at something in a bowl/forage basket), but not when standing still.

Respiratory issues can be so many different things-- definitely good to have a vet you can trust. Goiter is one possibility if they don't eat pellets.

 

[pretty_pip]

This might be nothing, but I've heard of cases where the maltodextrin in Nutriberries caused an allergic reaction. There's a milk thistle supplement on Amazon that I wanted to try, and I've hesitated for that reason (although I know plenty of people use both without an issue).

I recently had a budgie with a fungal infection that caused some labored breathing, but his crop area was subtly swollen. Both that bird and my budgie Percy (who sadly passed from kidney failure) would squeak involuntarily when they bent over (to get at something in a bowl/forage basket), but not when standing still.

Respiratory issues can be so many different things-- definitely good to have a vet you can trust. Goiter is one possibility if they don't eat pellets.

That's useful to know, especially as he's normally more hunched making the squeak and what threw the vet was me saying it's only a couple squeaks at a time and not every breath- I'll bear that in mind if things don't improve!

I'm very lucky the 2nd closest vet practice to my house (barely 10-15 minutes away normally, sometimes longer if traffic is awful as its a commuter heavy road) is the local animal hospital for specialist cases and emergency cases but the also has an avian and exotics department for routine appointments, with 1 fully qualified avian vet and 1 resident (as well as exotics specialists). It's one of about 3 or 4 places within like a 500-600 mile radius allowed to train avian residents! I trust them massively, they even picked up on me saying I was busier next week and get worried around holidays and we discussed what happens if my parents are pet sitting and there's a note on their files now to say my parents can make decisions if they bring the birds in!