Sick Budgies?

[Gaby 0]

Hi all,

 

the following happened: I bought a breeding pair about 6 weeks ago and left them in a cage for about 3 or 4 weeks and they seemed to be normal healthy budgies. I then added them to my aviary. After a week I noticed one was always fluffed up and just sitting on a shelf looking miserable. I caught it and noticed it was very skinny. I placed it in a cage, tried different seeds as I noticed it was picking up the seeds but not eating them and dropping them back in the dish. I then added some honey and vitamin supplement to the water. It seemed hungry and pecked at the seeds as if there was no tomorrow. It shortly picked up and I though I had found the right seeds for it, but the next morning it was miserable again. I just died after another week. I went to check on the other budgie I bought at the same time and noticed it was as skinny. I took it inside to look after it but it died a couple of days later.

 

Does anyone have an idea what happened to these budgies?

 

I am now watching the next pair as I bought 2 breeding pairs at the same time. Maybe I can this time save them if the same happens with those.

Thank you.

[Bird Junky 0]

Hi More info on your set-up diet etc, before we can even guess. Did you inquire about their diet

from the breeder???......B.J.

[Finnie 0]

There is a disease called megabac, where one of the symptoms is that the bird picks up food and then drops it without eating it. They look as thought they are eating constantly, but they really aren't.

 

But like BJ said, it's hard to say what's wrong without much information. You might want to take them to an avian vet for testing.

 

Is the other pair still in quarantine, or in the aviary with your other birds?

[Gaby 0]

Thank you for your replies. I did not ask what they were fed with . How silly of me. I am feeding the budgies in the aviary with Golden Cob Supreme Breeders Choice which is enriched with vitamins and minerals. What Finnie mentioned sounds very much like what the first one was doing. The second budgie was still eating because I saw the empty hulls,but it just as skinny. The other 2 budgies are in the aviary with the other birds and look okay. Do you think I should quarantine them again? Could it be worms? What is the best wormer to use?

Edited February 23, 2013 by Gaby

[Finnie 0]

Just because it is husking the seed, doesn't mean it isn't still spitting it back out. I think I read that the Megabac disease damages their throat so that they can't swallow the food, which is why they waste away. I'll have to see if I can re-find the article where I read that.

 

Maybe if the other ones are doing fine in the aviary, they don't have the same problem. If they developed a problem, though, I would take them out to a hospital cage at the first sign. Like you said, maybe if you catch it in time, you could save them. (But you still wouldn't know what it was you needed to save them from, so that's where testing comes in.)

 

As for a wormer, I believe Ivermectin works on intestinal worms as well as external parasites, such as scaly face mites.

[robyn 0]

Hi Gaby, sorry you have lost your birds. Did you notice any other symptoms with your 2 birds? e.g. when they have a respiratory infection they can make a clicking or wheeze type of noise as they breath. Air sac mites etc can also cause them to die quickly. OR you may not get the noises but they can be very sick.

As a first response if you have Ivomectin I'd give them a drop of that on neck a.s.a.p. It may help ward off a more serious disease until you can find the cause. Good luck with the rest of your birds.

[Gaby 0]

I will use Ivomec as you suggest. I am observing them carefully but so far , no new sick budgies. I have posted another topic, would you be able to help with that one?

There was no clicking noise or abnormal breathing. jThey were just fluffed up, very sleepy and head under wings most of the time. I feel a bit disheartened whether breeding budgies might just be too difficult.

By The Way I heard someone saying that purple or olive budgies are mutations and don't live as long as blue or green ones - Is that true?? :-o

Edited February 25, 2013 by Gaby

[Finnie 0]

 

By The Way I heard someone saying that purple or olive budgies are mutations and don't live as long as blue or green ones - Is that true?? :-o

 

I don't know if way back when some of the mutations were new, they might have been shorter lived. Sometimes when a mutation is just getting started, there is a lot of inbreeding due to the small gene pool they had to work with. But most of the budgie mutations have been around so long and are so common, that that is not an issue with them anymore.

 

There also used to be a theory that the violet factor gene had a lethal element to it, so that any double factor violet egg would not survive or hatch. So they said that the double factor violet budgie would be impossible to produce. But that has since been proven wrong. Violet is quite prevalent now, and there doesn't seem to be any lethality attached to it.