Hi everyone,

 

One of our budgies is sick. I found her sitting by herself on the bottom of the aviary all fluffed up this morning. She had very slightly soiled feathers around the vent but seemed to have lost a lot of weight overnight.

 

She was perfectly fine yesterday when i was checking them all. We have had two become sick and die suddenly (within a day and a half) with these symptoms in the two weeks ago and since, we have changed the water three times a day and cleaned everything regularly.

 

I have brought her inside in a cage by herself and put a lamp near the cage to keep her warm. I have also put sulfa in her water in an effort to help the diarrhea, but she hasn't improved since this morning.

 

Please, anyone who has seen this before, I need advice.

It sounds like you have coccidiosis or something more sinster going through your aviary sulfa AVS is the go or coccivet can you get hope of either. Maybe you should consult a vet for some advice.

Multiple deaths especially with very quick dying is very sinister . I would take a sample bird to the vet asap for testing. It does sound like cocci but it could also be something else like salmonella or ecoli ...

With the hot weather we have had here in Perth, have you been hosing down, wetting, or spraying the birds and ending up with wet ground at all ?

 

If so coccidiosis will be in play and you need the birds...................all of them.................on COCCIVET as soon as you can get it into them.

UPDATE:

 

We took her to the vet this evening and he said that it sounds like air sac mites.

 

He has given her invermectin and told us to put bioxytetracycline in the water. He also said to treat the whole aviary so i have spent the last half hour catching each of the budgies and putting a teensy drop of invermectin on each of their heads so it's absorbed through the skin and I have also put the bioxytetracycline in their water.

 

We cleaned the aviary on Friday. We haven't sprayed them with water so the floor hasn't been wet, instead we hang a wet towel over the end near the air conditioner outlet fan so that the air blowing through the towel is cold.

 

I will update tomorrow morning, hopefully she will make it through the night...

I didn't know air sac mite was fatal ... in fact I'm pretty certain it isn't. :rofl:

 

Whatever the bioxytetracycline is, I think that is an antibiotic that is treating your birds for their sickness.

He did say he thought there was another problem but I can't remember what he said because he thought out loud and I got confused about what thing was what.

 

Anyway he did say that the bioxytetracycline was an antibiotic so it's obviously treating a bacterial disease as you say.

 

I have a microscope and we looked at microorganisms in biology last year. I couldn't see anything that looked like coccidiosis when i looked. THis was before we took her to the vet and he said he didn't think it was that so... fingers crossed.

 

I hope it works, i feel so helpless at not being able to do more, it's so frustrating not being able to ask the bird what is wrong.

Awww... I hope she makes it! As much as it is a pain to catch all your birds, at least you know they have all being treated. I need to catch all of mine soon and am not looking forward to the shredding of my fingers. Also remember treating through water can cause problems in extreme heat, as the water will evaporate causeing doseing issues. I'm guessing you're keeping her inside too, somewhere nice and warm and quiet. Fingers crossed for you.

Unfortunately she didn't make it.

 

Another problem with giving medicine in the water is that they have to drink it, which I don't think she did.

 

I don't think she drank anything since I brought her inside and therefore she couldn't get the antibiotics she really needed.

 

Thank you everyone for your support and suggestions, I'm hopeful this sort of thing won't happen again.