Signs Of Illness In Your Pet Bird

Have a certified Avian Veterinarian's telephone number and location on file BEFORE you have need of it and please pay attention to your feathered friends body language. His life could depend on it.

1. Odd changes in sleeping habits: Sleeping more during the day, sleeping with both feet down, sleeping on the bottom of the cage is an especially bad sign.
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2. Fluffed-up appearance: A fluffed-up parrot is trying to stay warm.

3. Loss of appetite.

4. Change in attitude: listless, not behaving normally, cranky, lethargic.

5. Panting, or labored breathing: may indicate respiratory problems.

6. Change in droppings: more liquid than usual, dark, or an odor (if no change in diet could possibly have caused a difference; eating blueberries, beets, or something else dark-colored in a significant amount.)

7. Debris around face or feathers: indicates poor grooming or vomiting, potential signs of illness. Feces around the vent area are especially not a good sign.

8. Severely overgrown beak: generally indicates a liver problem, due to years of a poor diet.

9. Feather-discoloration: again, possible liver problem.

Common Health Disorders Of Parrots:

1. Nutritional disorders - obesity, which can lead to tumors, liver, and kidney problems. A severely overgrown beak is an indication of a liver problem.

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2. Bacterial infections: Mycobacterium avium, Psittacosis.

3. Viral infections: Psitticine Beak And Feather Disease, Polyomavirus

4. Fungal infections: yeast (can infect mouth, digestive, and respiratory), Aspergillosis. (Fungal infections most often affect undernourished birds, emphasizing the need for correct nutrition.)

5. Foot disorders: gout, lameness, Bumblefoot (infection)

6. Feather disorders: self-mutilation, beak-and-feather disease.

7. Reproductive disorders: calcium-depletion, egg-binding.

Bird in photo is "Birdy"; he is approximately 29 years old.

By one.of.a.kind from AL

Answers:

Signs Of Illness In Your Pet Bird

Can't help but to be curious :-o What is wrong with Birdie that he has no body feathers and very few wing feathers? (06/10/2010)

By Deeli

Signs Of Illness In Your Pet Bird

He was actually caught in the wild, and his wings broken so that he couldn't fly. A lot of other issues in his past lead him to feather-pluck, (poor diet, abuse). Parrots react in this manner when they have things such as this happen to them, and poor Birdy has feather-plucked for so long, that the feather follicles are damaged, and he will never be able to regrow them. His picture is on this post to demonstrate what neglect, improper diet, and abuse can cause a parrot to do. So sad. (06/13/2010)

By one.of.a.kind