I seem to have a bad run with budgies at the moment. The budgies in my shop are healthy and happy, except one which arrived through a local breeder at the end of last week., It was the smallest budgie and as far as I know they handfed it for a week or so till it was ready to eat seeds. It spend Friday with the others (all from the same breeder and nest) and appeared normal. This morning I arrived at the shop and this budgies displayed signs which I know from ducks and geese: sitting with legs spread wide and very erect almost falling over, twisting head and very unbalanced. What is wrong??

sitting with legs spread wide and very erect almost falling over, twisting head and very unbalanced. What is wrong??

 

This sounds like a condition called twirling or stargazing. But I suppose in such a young chick, there could be any number of problems that would cause it to not look right. Can you give it a heat lamp, maybe isolate it from the others?

 

Did the breeder tell you how old it was, or for how long it had been eating on its own after they stopped hand feedig it? Maybe it wasn't fully weaned yet.

I thought I should fill you in as to what happened with the budgie with seizures. I found this on another website and especially budgies can be prone to these stress symptoms. It says as follows:

 

 

Symptoms:

• Seizures may be mild to severe, partial or generalized, frequent or infrequent; and may involve twitching, paddling or convulsing.
  
• A bird may present a sudden, temporary loss of consciousness and control of motor function
  
• It may appear disoriented and unable to perch.
  
• During a seizure, a bird may vocalize, lose consciousness, fall off its perch, flap its wings uncontrollably and stiffen its body.
  
• A bird may lose consciousness, vocalize and flap its wings uncontrollably.
  
• A partial seizure is characterized by a continuous twitching of a wing or leg.
  

Fortunately, many birds will recover from a seizure and slowly regain their ability to control their movements and perch.

 

After a week or so my budgie started improving. It is now almost back to normal and I will keep it at home as a pet.

Edited March 9, 201312 yr by Gaby

Hi Gaby, sounds like he is on the improve. I have had cockatiels and budgies seize after being netted and held obviously from the stress this causes and those birds have been fine but I am extra careful when handle them the next time.

Cheers Jenny