Hi i have2 budgies. One morning they were playing flying accross the cage as usual they poco sat on perch and was loking at her leg. She then was shaking it as though she had cramp in this. I read that it could be a sprain or something and that time would heal. Its been about 4 week and she is still looking at the leg throughout the day and shaking it on occassions. SHe has also starting a type of preening on the breast area on the side of the problem leg. I have been giving these vitamin drops in the water and also tried changing the perches from the 1 cm type to branches. However have had to put the perches back in as they were hanging off the side of the cage all day. She is flying okay and perching okay. Of a nightime however they have a sea saw type swing that they use to roost. its not a perch but a small pastic bar where the stand?

I am reluctant to take her to vet as my last budgie died from shock within 10 minutes of returning from vet.

any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

I'm sorry to hear about the last trip to the vet, was it an avian vet or just a normal one? The fact that she is still mindful of it after a month means it would be best for a profession to look at it.

 

Are they tame? can you feel the leg for heat or swelling?

Have you treated the bird for mites ?

I agree with Nerwen on if it still bothers her. 4 weeks is a long time and budgies heal fast they have too or they die in the wild. I do suggest finding an avian vet to look her over.

 

What happened with your last bird? Was it very sick when it went to the vet?

Thanks for replying, with regard to the mites, there is another bird in the cage and he doesnt appear to be affected. could it be mites if only one is showing these symptoms, also i thought you could see them, is this true.

 

No the vet that i saw was not an avian vet as the closest to me is over 2 hours away.

She may have sprained it, or damaged a nerve to it. Because it has been so long since it started it may be nerve damage. This may have been caused by trauma or something else. With birds, because of the positioning of their kidneys relative to their sciatic nerve (the main flexor nerve of the leg), any tumours or enlarging of the kidneys due to disease will cause them to press on the nerve causing the leg to not work as well. The bird will tend to shake the leg as it feels weird to them. This is what my Saffy did with her foot that doesn't work properly due to nerve damage, she occasionally shakes it as she walks, because "it's not working/feeling right!" To see if this is the case, see if she can properly bend her leg easily, see if she moves it properly. If she can't bend it and her toes properly it is probably a neural problem, same thing goes for if she cannot straighten her leg properly, she would then have a problem with her femoral nerve which is the nerve that causes the extensor muscles to contract. The femoral nerve is not to my knowledge affected by the kidneys. The vet can do two things for you, they can take xrays to see if there is anything visibly wrong with the kidneys, and they can take a blood sample to see if the kidneys are properly filtering the blood.

If this is not the case, she may have just sprained it and could keep re-aggravating the injury. However it is best to get her checked out.

Regarding your last budgie that died 10 minutes after visiting the vet. Birds are very fragile things and die very easily if they are already sick, this is because budgies are prey animals and inorder to prevent predators from detecting their sickness, they try as hard as possible to hide their sickness and appear as "healthy" as possible so that a predator won't think that they are easy pickings. This makes it hard for us pet owners, who don't tend to notice things until the bird is so sick that it just cannot waste any more energy putting up a pretence. Thus many vets are scared of treating birds, because often a sick bird is a bird that will die very soon. When I told my vet that I was going to take Arkady in to see him he asked what's wrong with him and I said "He's not going to die" (he had a sore wing) and my vet said "oh that's good, phew", because that is quite common.

So perhaps because you said that the vet that treated your last bird was not an avian vet, they may not have picked up what was wrong with it, or may not have been able to do anything and your poor little birdy unfortunately died.

What I am trying to say is don't let that deter you from taking your little girl to the vet. My budgies have gone through multiple ordeals and have come out of them singing. When I had to take Arks to the vet, I had to take him on the bus just to get there and then after the appointment I had to wait for half an hour until the next bus came, so during that time I went and sat down next to a pond and watching the waterfowl and ducklings and let Arkady enjoy the view, then a big giant black swan came up out of the water and started to waddle towards me . Scary for Arkady (not so much for me they are pretty friendly little swans these dudes and I knew this one was an older chick) It preceded to waddle over to us and then spread its wings and flapped them. Poor Arkady this gave him huge fright, needless to say, he does not like swans!! But he survived this ordeal well and with in half an hour back home he was singing away.

I hope this helps

Just have a good look at her foot and don't be afraid to feel her leg. Make sure you feel every joint. Don't forget the stifle/knee the joint that is equivalent to our knee, it is located quite high up and hidden in the feathers. The hock/ankle is the part that many people mistakenly call the knee or elbow of the bird, and is the main joint not covered in feathers, it is the equivalent of our ankle. Birds walk on the "balls" or "tippy toes" of their feet.

She may have a partial dislocation in one of her joints, which will not heal by itself and may be another reason for her sore foot. This will need to be popped back into place by a vet.

So all and all a visit to the vet is in order. Unfortunately though the answer may not be found as in the case of my Arkady, we still don't know why his wing is sore.

Good luck with your girly, sorry I blabbered on a bit