Hi all, I need some help and advice. I'm an amateur breeder, we have had approx 20 budgies for the last 2 years, colony breeding and selling the babies. For the first 18 months, we had no probs, but the last few months, the breeding has slowed up and the breeders have started dying. We are now down to 7 birds.

 

Our set up is a 3m X 2m backyard aviary, concrete floor. We have sticks as perches and approx the same number if not more breeding boxes as hens. We feed them budgie seed. We have had budgies dying every week or two. Before they died, they would be sitting puffed up on the aviary floor, and we would find them dead a day or two later. We've previously had mice in the aviary, but my husband laid bait (where the budgies couldn't get to it), and I haven't seen any in there for a while.

 

Now I've spent the last 4 hours trying to read these forums about what might be going wrong. I am ashamed to say that until recently the floor of our aviary was very dirty. My husband took the birds out and cleaned the aviary last week and washed it down. We thought this was the problem, but we had another die again today. We use a lice spray, but no other meds.

 

From my reading, it sounds like the likely candidates may be:

-Coccidicosis

-psittacosis

-mice droppings in food/water.

 

And from my reading, potential meds I should be looking at giving are

-coccivet

-a sulfer solution (not sure on details of this)

-ivermectin (the ivomec pour on for cattle - apply to skin on beck)

 

Can anyone give me any more help? Or any specific ideas? Or should I just try all these meds at the same time?

 

Thanks so much for any advice - I am a novice breeder, just looking for some ideas from people in the know!

 

Cheers.

Hi Vicki

First thing I'd do after cleaning out is take out breeding boxes and rest birds. Do this every year for a few months so the birds can get strong agian. They need a lot more than just seed for a diet. Greens, veg,seeding grasses, gumtree branches to name a few.

I would definatly delice the birds (a drop or 2 to the back of the neck on the skin. Do that a few times a year and you can treat babies in the nest so long as they have feathers.

Its likely that you have something bad going on and I would say that you wont know what it is for sure unless you take a few birds to a vet - preferably one who specializes in birds.

The only other option is to guess and treat accordingly. You might get some info from their droppings, for example dark green dioreah could mean Mega bac/Avian Gastric Yeast....Treat with citric acid in the water.... Hopefully some birds survive. Good luck.

Hi, thanks for the reply. Sorry, I should have mentioned that we also feed them fresh grass seed and cuttlebone. But I will put some green veggies in there too. We have taken the boxes out now as they have stopped breeding.

 

What are your thoughts about medications? Could you recommend a cocktail of meds that will target the likely diseases? I will try to pick up some medications tomorrow.

 

Thanks.

Vicki I sent some more info on mail.