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Urgent What’s wrong with my canary?

BirdBonkers5

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My canary Spice has been making a weird clicking sound lately. He started doing it last night, and it’s not consistent, but he does it every now and then. He also has been talking queitly, as though he’s struggling to make a sound. He’s never really been a vocal bird at all, but it’s noticeably worse right now.
I feel like he has a respiratory issue, but I don’t know what to do. I’m not allowed to go to the vet right now, with the virus and all. Is there anything I can do at home to help him? Any medicine I can order online?
Spice lives with Chili, my other canary. Should I separate them?
 

Shezbug

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BirdBonkers5

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It’s gotten worse right now... He’s making a sound that sounds like he’s breathing really hard :sad8:
 

melissasparrots

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It sounds like you need to contact a vet. They might be able to do a consult and give you a possible treatment based on symptoms. I can't really advise anything other than to go to the vet. Our local vets are just having people drop off their pet in the parking lot so the human doesn't go in the office, but our vet is still open. I'm under the impression canaries can get respiratory mites that would need one treatment. But a bacterial or fungal infection would likely need another treatment.
 

Mockinbirdiva

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The first thing that comes to mind is 'Air Sac Mites'. Here's a good article to read about it. @finchly would know more about this than I do. And yes, it will take a vet to diagnose this and if so, then the treatment would likely be ivermectin. I think you would be able to contact your vet and do a drop off.. the other bird would need to be treated at the same time.

 

finchly

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Easiest thing to do since you can’t go to a vet is treat for air sac mites. Do you have SCATT or s76 on hand? Use one or the other. Do not use a different medication, nothing else is effective. You’ll know within a day if he’s doing better.
If you don’t have them do consider calling a vet. The ones that are open are coming to the car to get the animals for treatment, but maybe they’d sell you mite meds.
 

Tweet

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I second @Mockinbirdiva , I hope your little one is able to feel better soon :( Hope it's not an upper respiratory issue. See if any emergency vets are open. I know in the US they are but it's a fee and only would be seen for emergency issues. I'm not sure in Canada is the same but it truly sounds like they need to be seen by a vet as soon as possible.
 

finchly

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No need to separate them at this point.
 

Mockinbirdiva

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Easiest thing to do since you can’t go to a vet is treat for air sac mites. Do you have SCATT or s76 on hand? Use one or the other. Do not use a different medication, nothing else is effective. You’ll know within a day if he’s doing better.
If you don’t have them do consider calling a vet. The ones that are open are coming to the car to get the animals for treatment, but maybe they’d sell you mite meds.
How is the SCATT used? Do you think it could be the mites too? The 'clicking' was what made me think about it.
 

finchly

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Clicking is the classic sign of air sac mites. Well I didn’t ask if they’ve ever been treated. If treated in the last 6 months it still could be asm but in that case I’d lean a tiny bit more toward respiratory. Impossible to know without a vet but we must try to determine something.
Often they’re brought on by stress, have they been moved or anything?
 

BirdBonkers5

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SCATT is a single drop on the neck or under the wing. It stays in the system 3 weeks. Last I looked Amazon had it
Thank you so very much! I thought he was getting better yesterday, since I didn’t hear any clicking, and he was acting pretty normal, but it started up again a few minutes ago :(
I’ll definitely be looking for SCATT on Amazon, I do think he has air sad mites.
Thank you to everyone who replied, it really helps. I can not contact my vet currently, but I’ll try to do all I can.
:heart2:
 
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