I recently read a topic posted by Karen about megabacterioses and wondered if perhaps my budgie, Jnr. who died mysteriously, could have had this.

The only symptom he had, not that I noticed anything unusual at the time, was being fluffed up. Another symptom I read about was gorging on food. Jnr. was doing this, but he was always a guts so i didn't think anything of it. Other than this he seemed happy and healthy, the night before he died he was active and chirpy as usual, but the next morning he was dead.

Do you think it could have been megabacterioses?

I recently read a topic posted by Karen about megabacterioses and wondered if perhaps my budgie, Jnr. who died mysteriously, could have had this.

The only symptom he had, not that I noticed anything unusual at the time, was being fluffed up. Another symptom I read about was gorging on food. Jnr. was doing this, but he was always a guts so i didn't think anything of it. Other than this he seemed happy and healthy, the night before he died he was active and chirpy as usual, but the next morning he was dead.

Do you think it could have been megabacterioses?

 

I'm sorry, I can't believe no one responded to your questions. It must have been overlooked, sometimes there are so many posts it's hard to keep up.

 

It's not always easy to diagnos megabacteria/avian gastric yeast. Some symptoms mimic megabacteria symptoms. The only real way to know for sure is in a necropsy. I think you can test feces but it's not always accurate, I read you can have false negatives. I don't have a large amount of experience with it, but I have lost one bird but I didn't have him in my house more than 12 days, he was already very sick...but I just didn't know it.

 

His keel was very prominent, meaning that he was very underweight and his keel bone was protruding. There should be a layer of subcutaneous fat over their chest. I have read that they look like they are eating but they are not actually ingesting anything. They just grind things to a powder. They look like they are gorging on food because they are actually starving to death and are very hungry. They just can't digest food once the disease has progressed without treatment.

 

I can tell you my Cleo's symptoms were vomiting (he had it smeared on his face and body), he was extremely thin, he tried to eat, he was puffed up, and was very irritable around other birds. Also the colour of their feces are very dark, almost tarry.

 

There are also two kinds of megabacteria, and one is acute and the bird can show symptoms and be gone within 48 hours, and the other chronic in which the bird emaciates over time, wasting away.

 

I hope I at least came close to helping with your question,

thanks,

Maureena

Thanks!

Yes, painful as it seems a necropsy would provide a definitive answer but as your unfortunate incident happened months ago, I guess it is no longer possible to determine. May you get over your loss and get a new companion, there are tons of budgies out there awaiting you!