Hi everyone

 

I've had Avian Gastric Yeast/megabacteria strike once again within my little aviary...this time it's my Jada that has shown symptoms. I had treated everyone with megabac-s after Cleo died and disinfected a number of times. I noticed his symptoms late morning Sunday and we went to the vet immediately on Sunday and I was told I was doing everything right, having started once again with megabac-s and have ordered a large supply to have on hand. I also had been using apple cider vinegar in their water. Ironically, I was to the avian vets the day before with another one of mine for a toenail and beak trim and checkup and ran through everything I was doing and was told I was doing everything right as far as husbandry.

 

Sunday and Monday Jada was fluffed, his feces were very dark, and he was spraying/vomiting seed around. It didn't look good and we started him on treatment even before we took him to emergency. So we were sent home with the okay to keep going and in fact, I have a slightly higher dosage that I give Jada orally just to make sure that he's getting the medicine as I never know when or if he's going to take a drink of his water. It's now Tuesday evening, and Jada has much improved. He's in his hospital cage with a heating pad underneath. He is no longer fluffed and his feces appear on the way to a more normal colour. I am giving him rantitadine (not sure how it's spelled now...think that's right) every 12 hours which is like an antacid. He has lost 2 grams since this all began and I'm monitoring him very closely. He is eating on his own, eating his veggies, his apple and seed. He is very bright, alert and wanting to get out with the other birds, so it looks very positive. With Jada, I have a good chance as he was strong and healthy until he showed the first symptoms. I was not so lucky with Cleo as he was ill before we even got him from the Humane Society. He was well advanced in the disease by the time we brought him home.

 

Anyway, on with the battle and I certainly intend to win this one! I am not going to lose another budgie!

Edited November 3, 200618 yr by Maureena

All the best with beating this. It's hard to watch these guys struggle and when you do all that you can, like you are, it would be nice to get a good result. Sending positive energy your way............cheers karen

All the best with beating this. It's hard to watch these guys struggle and when you do all that you can, like you are, it would be nice to get a good result. Sending positive energy your way............cheers karen

 

Thank you Karen for all your good thoughts...I can certainly use them! :-)

best of luck, keep us updated.

best of luck, keep us updated.

 

Thanks Lovey, will do!

Hope you can get rid of that awful affliction, good luck to you!

Feed tham Oranges cut up. The old remidy was citus Acid... Hance the Apple Cider Vinagur.. I feed my bird this 3 days a week.

Feed tham Oranges cut up. The old remidy was citus Acid... Hance the Apple Cider Vinagur.. I feed my bird this 3 days a week.

 

Thank you Daz for your information. While both my avian vets have no problem with using apple cider vinegar, there is only one proven method for curing megabacteria and that is oral treatment with amphotericin, an antifungal drug.

 

Oranges and apple cider vinegar may help supress symptoms and I also had been giving them apple cider vinegar, but it does not get rid of the fungus. Also scrupulous attention to hygiene cannot be stressed enough.

 

I am sure that I will continue with the apple cider vinegar and citric fruits but clearly this is not enough in my situation.

 

Maureena

Do you give your bird megabac-s orally? Or in the drinkingwater?

 

If you give in the drinkingwater dont give your bird any weggies or fruit.

Good Luck with little Jada.

 

(I have a budgie who has mebacterioses/AGY chronically. He has had it for almost 3 years and he is still alive so AGY does not have to be a fatal disease.)

Do you give your bird megabac-s orally? Or in the drinkingwater?

 

If you give in the drinkingwater dont give your bird any weggies or fruit.

Good Luck with little Jada.

 

(I have a budgie who has mebacterioses/AGY chronically. He has had it for almost 3 years and he is still alive so AGY does not have to be a fatal disease.)

 

Hi Xsaga, sorry I hadn't seen your reply to my post. Thanks for your advice. For Jada, he gets a stronger oral mix of megabac-s which I give to him orally. At the same time, all the other budiges are getting treated through their drinking water. I was giving veggies, and have since bought a salad spinner and I rinse my veggies and then spin them until my arms want to fall off. There is no moisture left on the veggies. But having said that, I will take that into consideration for the next treatment time. This treatment is almost over so there isn't much point, but I will be treating again in the near future and I think I will remove their veggies at that time.

 

As for Jada, he is very much improved and is back with the other budgies. He is not getting the strong oral dosage now but is receiving the same as the others. He had gone down to 29 grams over the course of a few days of the illness, but has returned to his normal 33 grams.

 

Regardless, I am watching them all very closely. I think I get nervous at the slightest twitch.

Edited October 24, 200618 yr by Maureena

Jada has had a relapse, and a bad one. We are definitely in a fight now to save him. He had stopped eating. We got some baby bird food with enzymes to make a slurry to feed him by syringe but he just wouldn't take it. He went down to 26 grams by last night.

 

We were contemplating rushing off to the vet to see if they would crop feed him but we decided to put Berdie in with him to see if she would feed him. She and Jada are a bonded pair. Berdie obviosuly knew what needed to be done and she immediately set to work feeding him. She was very aggressive about it and she kept rapping his beak and bringing up her foot and pushing at him to feed. By this morning Jada is up to 29 grams.

 

I believe it was a mistake to have isolated her from him and since everyone had been exposed to this, it is better to have them together. After this, I won't be able to put Jada and Berdie with the other birds any more. It is too much of a risk to Jada.

 

Everyone is separated by two's or threes in cages now. I may even get rid of the aviary altogether. While no one else appears sick in any way, I watch them very closely. I think I will keep them separated this way and treat each cage set of birds at a time with megabac-s orally until I can get them all completed and then tested before I ever think of putting them all back together again into a new aviary.

 

Maureena

I'm so sorry to hear about your baby Did the medicine not work?

 

Our situation is stable now. The birds are singing and flying around like they had never been ill. All the time they have been eating well and they haven't lost any weight. But I know it will strike again. Eventually they start to vomit and fluff up. I don't think it is anything else but another type of megabacterioses. Maybe the easier one (they get ill, then they get better).

 

Just like Xsaga wrote, my vet said you shouldn't give any fresh food when they vomit. It's better for the stomach and the medicine is being drunk for sure (they get a lot of fluids from veggies and won't drink the medicine). I rarely give them any fresh food although they love it (once or twice a week - before they got sick they got a lot of veggies daily). I use Harrison's pellets as main food and small amounts of seed (mix) daily. Every day they get The Birdcare Company's "BioPlus" in their drinking water. Sometimes I add some calcium in their drinking water and a little vitamins (not too often).

 

When my birds are sick, it's hard for me to sleep at night. I stay awake and listen if the birds vomit at night. And I'm afraid that they might fall off the perch. I only have two budgies but I know what you are going through. I hope you don't lose all your flock. I'm not gonna get more budgies before these two are gone, I don't want the new ones to get infected.

 

I wish your baby would get better and that your nightmare would end. It's hard to lose your loved ones and not being able to help them.

 

(Sorry for my bad English.)

Edited October 31, 200618 yr by Parus major

I'm so sorry to hear about your baby Did the medicine not work?

 

Our situation is stable now. The birds are singing and flying around like they had never been ill. All the time they have been eating well and they haven't lost any weight. But I know it will strike again. Eventually they start to vomit and fluff up. I don't think it is anything else but another type of megabacterioses. Maybe the easier one.

 

When my birds are sick, it's hard for me to sleep at night. I stay awake and listen if the birds vomit at night. And I'm afraid that they might fall off the perch. I only have two budgies but I know what you are going through. I hope you don't lose all your flock. I'm not gonna get more budgies before these two are gone, I don't want the new ones to get infected.

 

I wish your baby would get better and that your nightmare would end. It's hard to lose your loved ones and not being able to help them.

 

(Sorry for my bad English.)

 

 

Oh thank you, you are a sweetheart. I appreciate your well wishes.

 

I think the medicine had worked and I did it for 10 days as it indicates but apparently that was not enough for him. Jada was also flying around, his old self again but I guess he is more susceptible to this while the others are not affected. I read an article lately that indicates prolonging the treatment for a long time, maybe even months or more or their lifetime. I am hoping between the medication, Berdie's help keeping him fed when he won't eat, keeping them separated from the rest, that we can get him better. Like you, I stay awake at night listening and worrying, I worry while I am away at work and cannot check on him. I worry about the other birds and I question everything that I do. I torment myself. I have read more than I care to on the subject and yet, there's not enough information for me.

I also give my bird (as Parus major) Harrison high potency... it makes him feel better with all this high dosage of protein. He also gets to taste a little bit of "peoples food" (pasta, rice, veggies, bread...)Unfortunately my Gunde can´t eat seeds, it mostly comes out undigested.(He probably has some damage from AGY/megabacterioses in his stomach) So Harrisons has done a great deal for him, but it took me almost one year to make him eat it properly. (He weights about 40 g, when he is sick he gets down to 31g)

 

Every third month I bring some tests to the vet to se if Gundes megabac-level has increased.

 

I keep a very high hygien-standard, I cleand the cage every day, change the paper in the cage tray every day, remove all the faeces (on perches), remove all the old food (I give them new fresh food every day), I wash the food and waterdish every day, aso.

I think that this helps to.

 

Gunde lives with his very healthy friend and he has never gotten sick.

 

Gunde gets a relapse about once a year. Then we give him megabac-s in the water for about a month. Some birds can need a low dosage of medicine in their water for the rest of their lives.

 

As you all say, you worry a lot about these sick birds. I am happy for every new day I get with Gunde, couase I never know when it will be his last. Who would have known that budgies could bring so much joy...

 

 

 

 

To Parus major:

"Every day they get The Birdcare Company's "BioPlus" in their drinking water. Sometimes I add some calcium in their drinking water and a little vitamins (not too often). " Parus major"

 

If your birds are eating Harrisons properly you should not give them any "bio plus" och calcium. They can get an overdose and that can cause great damage on internal organs.

 

(You shouldn´t actually give budgies high potency harrisons eather (becuase of the large ammount of proteins,) but in my case it has shown that this helps Gunde... maybe it does the same for other sick budgies?)

Edited October 31, 200618 yr by Xsaga

Hi

 

Both of your responses are very helpful to me, especially for emotional support. This is an extremely difficult thing to go through as you both know, and knowing that I am not alone out there battling this is very heartwarming.

 

It's breaking my heart not to be at home right now being able to check up on Jada and Berdie. Berdie is definitely mine and Jada's little angel. I watched her process all evening, her trips back and forth between eating and feeding Jada. I cried because she could accomplish what I could not, that she knew what had to be done and it just left me in awe of nature.

 

Thank you both for sharing your experiences and for your advice.

 

Maureena

Edited October 31, 200618 yr by Maureena

What a GREAT bird Berdie for helping out and releaving some of your anxiety. Hang on there Jada, sounds like you are doing better.

Unfortunately Megabac-S is not available in Finland. The diagnosis of megabacterioses is not sure for our birds, but I suspect it as the birds get better and worse regularly.

 

Sorry, the pellet mark that my birds eat is ZuPreem, not Harrison's as I wrote earlier. My birds have pellets in their bowl but get more than half of their food as seeds as I feed them on my hand. My vet said that BioPlus (includes probiotics) does not include that much of vitamins it would do any harm for the birds. It keeps them healthier. If I leave it out they start to vomit the next day. So I take the risk to "harm" them a little, as no cure is available in here. Also I've read that calcium should be fed even if your birds eat pellets. I don't know who to believe anymore... This is a quote from another forum:

 

The control of blood calcium levels is a homeostatic feedback system. The process works like this:

 

1. The bird consumes calcium which is absorbed into the blood - so the blood level rises

2. The excess calcium is pumped into the bones where it is stored

3. Blood calcium levels drop as various organs take it up and the kidneys remove some

4. So the bones are forced to pump some back into the blood.

 

This process is all activated by hormones.

 

Imagine the situation where the body is constantly fed good quality (easy to absorb) calcium. Calcium is always moving into the bones and never moving out again. Nature doesn't waste resources so it cuts back on the effort it puts into the movement of calcium from bone to blood. This is fine until a big demand occurs for calcium (most commonly egg production in birds and milk production in mammals). Suddenly the animal needs more calcium than it gets from the food but the bones are unable to provide enough quickly enough. In an emergency like this calcium is withdrawn from other organs. This leads to failure in nerves and muscles. Birds get egg bound and mammals get milk fever (stagger around and fall over).

 

In other words they show a symptom of calcium deficiency despite high levels of good calcium supplementation.

 

By using an 'on/off' regime of Calcivet supplementation we actually exercise the bodies ability to mobilise calcium both in and out of the bones. Hence no egg-binding or milk fever.

 

Because pellets diets are fed daily they cannot risk using calcium sources that could cause this issue. So they rely on good old limestone (calcium carbonate). This is a very difficult form of calcium for birds to absorb. So it often leads to calcium deficiency. Particularly as very few people feed pellets at anything like 65% of the diet. Twenty percent is probably more typical even in America.

 

However with Harrison's High Potency pellets at 65% I would only use Calcivet once a week at a dose of 0.5 mls added to the fresh food (I am assuming the bird actually consumes the full 0.5 mls).

 

Malcolm Green

Director

The Birdcare Company

Edited November 1, 200618 yr by Parus major

Xsaga: I understood that you have Megabac-S for your birds. How did you get it, from the drug store or from an avian vet? Did you need a prescription? How much did it cost? The medicine is not available in Finland, but I was wondering if it could be ordered somehow for example from Sweden. Or if I could travel to Sweden and get it straight from the drug store without any prescription.

Edited November 1, 200618 yr by Parus major

Xsaga: I understood that you have Megabac-S for your birds. How did you get it, from the drug store or from an avian vet? Did you need a prescription? How much did it cost? The medicine is not available in Finland, but I was wondering if it could be ordered somehow for example from Sweden. Or if I could travel to Sweden and get it straight from the drug store without any prescription.

 

 

I´ve got my Megabac-s from my avianvet in Sweden. It´s expensive, but I don´t buy a whole jar/can (40g)(it costs about 500 swedish crowns) ´(becuase of the expire date), I just buy 1/4 of the can for about 130 crowns.)

If you ever travel to Stockholm they have great avian vets, im almost 99% sure you can buy megabac-s from them.

 

I haven´t seen it available in any store, but you can buy it on the internet, but I haven´t found any european site that sells Megabac-s

http://www.birdsupplynh.com/catalog/produc...=605&osCsid=6...

 

 

 

Sorry, I thought that Bioplus was some kind of vitamins or mineralsupplies.

I´ve read that probiotics could help the birds to digest the food better and improve the "stomachculture". Nice to read that it works.

Maybe I should try it to...

Edited November 1, 200618 yr by Xsaga

Hiya

 

I was using the brand Prime vitamins powder with probiotics, but one of the avian vet's I go to said she didn't like it, mainly because of the citrus smell. I think she based her opinion solely on that. Anyway I read a very good article about megabac and probiotics and they mentioned Prime so I took another look at it and sure enough it has probiotics. So I did like the article suggested and put some in a salt shaker with a few grains of rice to prevent it from clumping and I sprinkle liberally onto some veggies. Then after a couple weeks the article suggested to do it less often. I am giving that a try.

 

By The Way, Jada looks so much better. He wasn't fluffed last night or this morning. I weighed him again and he's 29 g and I noticed Berdie feeding him last night. It looked like he was nibbling on some seed by himself but I'm not sure he's eating on his own yet.

 

I also put Zupreem pellets in my birds dishes along with their seed. I have complied with my vet's request to use Budgie Builder and Sunshine factor. But I don't like the sunshine factor because it is oil based and very hard to mix in with food. Another avian vet said I should be using Prime. Vets...geesh.

 

The different avian vets I have gone to all have their own different preferences on which supplements to give and what diets to provide. The only thing a person can do is read everything they can find and make their own decisions based on research.

 

Parus major - I'm really happy you may be able to get megabac-s.

Parus major - I'm really happy you may be able to get megabac-s.

 

I'm not able to travel to Sweden for a while... 130 SEK is about 15 EUR, so that's not so expensive. But to travel by a ferry and go to a vet costs a lot more. What if they don't give me the medicine if I don't have the birds with me? okay, I have to try to find out...

 

I've also noticed that there are not many vets who know much about birds. There are only 5 avian vets here in Finland and most of them around the capital city. I'm happy to live near by, but where do the people living in the northern Finland take their birds to? It's funny that you can buy yourself a pet but you can't take care of it if it gets sick.

 

I'll try to find a link to a site that tells about BioPlus. But later, I'm still at work.

 

Try to hang on, Maureena. My birds say hello to your little Jada

thanks Parus major. Jada is up to 31 g tonight and very active.

glad to here Jada is doing better, I come and read but don't always post.

Hiya Lovey

 

That's okay, don't need to say anything. :-)

We are still hanging in there today. I've got the upstairs birds and the downstairs birds now...I hope someday I can put them back together again.

fingers crossed - you are an amazing person