last month i ask questions about Jack who had injured his wing and had fatty cysts. his wing is improving but slowly,he can fly short distance but gets around the aviary by climbing on the wire which has been good for him because he is loosing weight and his cysts are getting smaller.the cysts are under the skin in his chest so i have noticed that his chest does not look as swollen.he is going through a molt that is why he looks scruffy.

Jack a month ago

 

Jack now

is he loosing weight because you put him on a diet? I worry about such drastic weight loss.

jack loves eating and use to spend all day sitting in the food dish so i moved the food away from his favourite perch so he would have to move to get to his food.he is a lazy bird. he is still eating but not as much as before. have i done the wrong thing, the vet said that i had to make him exercise to get rid of his excess weight and then the cysts would improve.

I always place the food in the flights on a tray on the floor. The birds have to fly down and if too fat climb back up to the perches. The Perches are 1.8 m off the floor so that is a lot of exercise for them to fligh down and climb back up. As they loses weight they can start to fly back.

 

I would keep an eye on him as Elly said just to make sure that the weight loss is because of the extra exercise he is getting.

No I don't think you have done anything wrong I just worried. Do you feel that his exercise has increased that much to give him this much weight loss? Did you weigh him before and then now to see how much he has lost? I just worry that a drastic weight loss could be from an underlying sickness. BUT if you believe that what you have done is reasonable for the amount of weight loss he has had that is okay. Maybe another avian vet check-up just to ensure everything is okay..that is just me and I don't want to worry you but if I didn't but it out there and something happened that I would feel horrible (make sense).

Edited March 7, 200817 yr by Elly

l agree with the others to keep an eye on him.

do you have a digital scale to monitor his weight?

i have never weighed my birds because i only have 12 i catch them a couple of times a week and check them so i usually know by feeling them if there has been any changes in them.he does go to the floor alot to eat the seed that has been spilt and beacuse he cannot fly well because of a sore wing he has to climb up the wire to get back to his perch so he is been alot more active than he used to be.he does not have a pooey bottom and is always sitting with the other birds and chatting with them and cleaning himself so he seems to be okay in himself.