I need some advice. I need to review my cage set up at home to try to minimise stress in my flock. I'll give you the background of why:

 

After losing Rosie about 3 weeks ago to an unknown illness (autopsy came back inconclusive), Bessie came down with the same thing. She was immediately isolated and taken to the vet and treated, but didn't really respond. Last night she went downhill fast (matter of a couple of hours) and was rushed to the vet this morning. I didn't expect her to make it through the night, but she did.

 

I fully expected to get a call saying sorry she's gone, but she's still fighting. The mystery illness was diagnosed this afternoon. Turns out that it's a parasite the vet hasn't seen in years but it's treatable. Well that's good but Bessie is still in a really bad way – abscess in throat, gut infection and needs to be crop fed, so she's staying at the vets this weekend. Fingers crossed she pulls through. I have to treat the whole flock because they will all have the parasite and it'll be a matter of time before they all go the same way.

 

It appears that Bessie's illness may have been brought on by stress. Last weekend I introduced the 2 new hens to the flock after they were quarantined. Bessie was already a bit miserable after Rosie died because she was the odd one out in the flock (4 cocks, 1 hen) and was generally being ignored by the cocks. Introducing the new hens just made everything worse for her. She was completely rejected and isolated herself from everyone. Soon after this she got sick. It appears that the presence of the new hens upset Bessie.

 

What I need to do is review my cage set up to minimise any stress on the flock. When we're not home they are all in one large cage and are out flying around when we're home. The cage is 83.5cm l x 53.5cm w x 174cm h (picture: ) and easily holds 6-8 birds. I keep things interesting by rotating toys and treats around the cage. So far I haven't had any behaviour problems in the cage and the new hens are now in this cage after a couple of days.

 

I'm considering splitting up the flock so that there is less interaction between the hens when in a cage. The options are:

- keep hens in one cage and cocks in another

- put 1 hen in a cage with 1 or 2 cocks

 

What are people's experiences with these two options? Do the hens fight each other more if in a cage by themselves? I'm prepared to buy extra cages or whatever to fix this, as I can't go though this illness mess again if I can do something to help avoid it.

 

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

PS – sorry for the long post.

I'm sorry to here this I have my hens in a different cage now ( actually, I halved the cage horizontally ) and since they've moved they have been fighting a lot less, even feeding and courting each other! I hope Bessie pulls through.

I am really sorry to hear of the loss of Rosie. I do wish you the very best for Bessie. Are you able to tell us the name of the parasite? There may be others here who have experience dealing with it.

Until recently, I have kept my 12 budgies in two large indoor cages. I housed them according to personality and apparent friendships. I moved out any bird that consistently kept any other bird away from favoured perches or the food and put it in the other cage so that it had to start over in the pecking order. Eventually, I got it right. I have made a point of mostly keeping an even number of the sexes in each cage.

Edited October 15, 201014 yr by Catherine

I'm very sorry for the loss of Rosie and I hope Bessie makes a full recovery.

Unfortunately Bessie didn't make it through the night. I've got an appointment on Monday morning with the vet to treat the remaining 6, so I'll get all the details on the parasite to share with you.

 

Thanks for the advice Ratzy and Catherine. I've got a slightly smaller cage which can comfortabley hold 2 budgies, so I could put 1 hen and 1 cock in there (Nessie and Sandy appear bonded), and keep the remaining ones in the large cage (1 hen, 4 cocks). The remaining hen (Buffy) doesn't appear bonded with any of the cocks (Alfie, Sunny & Piper) but seems to along well with them. Sunny and Piper are best friends so I have to keep them together as Sunny can get quite protective of Piper! This would mean that there are even numbers in each cage as well. I guess it's a matter of trial and error while minimising the stress.

The parasite that Bessie had was Trichomonas (canker), but she wasn't displaying any symptoms of it until she was very sick and near death:(. The only sign that she wasn't well was that she was fluffed up. She didn't respond to antibiotics but didn't get any worse until she suddenly starting to vomit seed and produce lots of mucus from her mouth. - by then the damage had been done. The vet hadn't seen this parasite in a number of years, but my birds weren't purchased locally so they probably were carrying it when I got them.

 

Well I took all 6 budgies to the vet and 3 had crop washes to test for the parasite but all came back negative. However has a precaution their getting treated with Ronivet-s powder for 10 days. Hopefully I'll now have healthy budgies and someone else can become the 'regular' at the vet

 

 

Sorry to hear about your losses. I am glad your birds have all been treated and I am sure that everything will be much better for you. Stress usually brings out any disease the birds are carrying, and unfortunately, we cant always predict what might stress a particular bird. Some, like people, are easily stressed over minor things and some can take more stress than you would think imaginable and still pull through with health intact.

 

Good luck with it all

I am very surprised that your vet said he had not seen canker in years as it is pretty common. IS your vet an avian vet?

 

I think most experienced breeders would treat their birds for canker at least once a year. It is commonly carried in wild birds so it is easily passed on to an aviary bird.

 

The treatment for canker is RoniVet and you cimply add this to the birds water supply for a set period of time once or twice a year.

 

You only need to take all your birds to the vet if they are ill, otherwise simply ask for some RoniVet and use as directed on the side of the container.

Yes SL26, canker is common. It is something you need to be alert for. I am so sorry that you had to find this out in such a very sad way.

Yes, Dave I take my birds to an avian vet. It may be common, but given they hadn't seen it for a while at their practice, I guess it wasn't something that immediately came to mind. Also the bird weren't displaying typical symptoms of it either. From my research into this nasty little bug, I found it can be very difficult to pick up in tests anyway.

 

When the first bird (Rosie) died, all the tests performed on her didn't reveal canker. All that was determined from the autopsy and pathology tests was that she had an infection due to the presence of liver damage. There was no evidence of anything that would cause it (eg. megabacteria, general bacteria, viruses).

 

When Bessie got sick she didn't display any signs of canker either. When I got her back to the vet she was in a better way than Rosie so I guess more tests could be performed while she was alive and luckily showed that she did have canker.

 

Given they are indoor brids, their chances of being exposed to wild birds is very small (ie. only see them through the windows and secruity door mesh), so doing preventative treatments on them isn't probably necessary, other than regular worming.

 

Hopefully the rest will all be fine now. I just need to monitor their stress levels and move them between 2 cages if required. So far they all seem quite relaxed, so fingers crossed.