Conure passed, necropsy results and questions...

[HoustonConures]

Hi, my wife's pineapple green cheek conure passed yesterday morning and we had a necropsy done. The doctor just called me and told me she starved to death, but is getting me a price on lab work.

This has us puzzled as she was eating all the time, so much so that we refilled her bowl twice as fast as our other green cheek. She had plenty of energy and was eating the night before on her perch with her eyes closed, perfectly content.

A little background. She was 2.5 years old and always on a zupreme natural pellet diet with occasional fruit and a few dried papaya snacks. When we got her she was at least twice the size of the other birds in the clutch.

Can anyone offer any insight or possibilities of something that could cause this? A bird that has plenty of energy, eats a lot, no warning signs(that we could see), and starves to death? My wife is really worried it may be something she may have done or something she didn't so. She is at the vet now with the other bird to get him checked out just in case.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated, we just want to know what happened or at least know it wasn't something we did or didn't do. We did tons of research before we got them and thought we were doing everything possible to keep them in perfect health for a maximum lifespan. My wife absolutely loves the remaining conure and would be devastated if we lost him.

Thanks!

 

[ruffledfeathers]

Did they specifically say starved to death or malnourished??
Having just lost a conure last summer, i did pay for the histopathology report and felt it was worth it. Not cheap but not crazy expensive.
The reason i ask about "starved" vs "malnourished" is because earlier in my sun conure's life, she was found to be slightly anemic with low blood protein, basically malnourished, and was eating a "good diet" and had a very good appetite. I had to change her diet to high potency formula and give her a little more calorie dense and high protein table foods and it resolved. (that was not her cause of death). Anyhow i wondered what would have happened if i hadn't taken her for the bloodwork to know she was malnourished when i thought she was doing great. She also had high energy and seemed perfect, so i was shocked by the bloodwork at the time.
I think the vet check for the conure you still have is a great idea. Go from there. Sorry for the loss of your little one.

 

[sodakat]

This is just dreadful. My suggestion would be to immediately buy a scale and begin weighing your conure weekly. If the other one truly starved to death it would have been at a very low weight for the species.

I am very troubled by this. The pellets you are feeding were either not being eaten or are not providing the nutrition your bird required.

When you get your scale, weigh the pellets before you put them in the food dish, then when the bird is finished with them, weigh the crumbs left in the dish. Maybe they are being crunched up but not eaten.

I would work towards offering a greater portion of fresh foods in the diet too. Google "chop" recipes for parrots.

Good luck with your remaining bird. I am so sorry for your loss.

 

[Echo]

The scale is a must. Yes maybe she didn't eat the pellets, just crushed them? I know conures tend to like them moist, so I always have fresh water bowls available for them to dunk. I also believe that pellets do not offer an adequate diet by themselves and that fresh food is necessary in addition to them. I am also big on offering sprouts.
Sorry for your loss. I'm glad you had a necropsy done so that you can plan accordingly for your other bird.

 

[HoustonConures]

Thanks for the input everyone. The wife just called me from the vet and the other bird is perfectly healthy. Actually same exact weight as the last 6 month visit, 69 grams.

She said the vet kept stressing that she starved to death, she said there was no fat anywhere and that she only weighed 49 grams. That just doesn't even seem possible to me as she was larger than the other bird and never seemed to be thin at all. My wife is really beating herself up on the starving part.

The bird was always so active and eating all the time, even the night before. They both have a water bottle and put the pellets up to it multiple times to soften them.

Thanks for the info ruffledfeathers, this may be the same issue. It's still so baffling considering she didn't look thin. We do have a scale and we are going to make it a point to weigh the remaining conure at least weekly. I know birds can be tough to figure out when something is wrong, but this was definitely unexpected.

 

[Featheredsamurai]

This is why a scale is so important. Parrots feathers hide their weight pretty good and since they are very light it's hard to tell the weight of small birds. My galah was 250 grans when I got her and was extremely skinny, her chest was a V shape but the feathers hid it well. She is now at 280-290 grams and filled out.

Birds will do everything they can to hide their illness, as parronts we need to be detectives, constantly searching for something off. I keep a note book with Rosie's weight in it. Weight loss is often one of the first signs if a sick bird.

I'm so sorry for your loss

 

[HoustonConures]

The vet said she was 49 grams, the other bird is 69 grams and is smaller than she was.

I think this probably was a case like ruffledfeathers had. I know she was actually eating the food because she had plenty of poop in her cage fairly quickly and when we had her out she went about 3-5 times in 30 minutes.

Thanks again everyone. We will be more diligent about weighing now and see about getting more fresh food in his diet.

 

[BillsBirds]

Just a thought...were both birds in one cage? Or did they have access to inside of each others cage? Maybe your other bird was blocking the pineapple from eating enough. And then eating it's food. Could that be? I've seen similar behavior in birds housed together. Sorry for your loss.

 

[Featheredsamurai]

:red:

The vet said she was 49 grams, the other bird is 69 grams and is smaller than she was.

I think this probably was a case like ruffledfeathers had. I know she was actually eating the food because she had plenty of poop in her cage fairly quickly and when we had her out she went about 3-5 times in 30 minutes.

Thanks again everyone. We will be more diligent about weighing now and see about getting more fresh food in his diet.

Did the vet say your conure was only underweight? Or did he also have any other problems with organs and such? When I got Rosie she was eating a diet of sun flowers and some safflower. She wasn't a enthusiastic eater, but still ate. Sunflower is a very fattening food but her organs were failing and she wasn't getting the small amount of nutritional value she had available to her.

Have you heard of Harrisons's pellets? If you have it available or are willing to order it online I would suggest you change your current conures diet to that. A lot of people feed Zupreem natural(the colored pellets shouldn't be feed) but I never would, the main reasons for me is that they loose a lot of nutritional value through their cooking process, and because they add sugar.

Also make sure to feed fresh food daily, a chop mix is a fast and easy back up for days when you don't have as much time.

 

[WannaBeAParrot]

This is a sad story. Please help your wife to get through this and not blame herself or you. I wonder if the necropsy would tell vet if the bird had some problem where the food went through her too fast to be nutritious,

Also, could she have been regurgitating and dumping it, or the other bird eating the regurgitated food?

Maybe some genetic disorder if she was big but underweight.

 

[HoustonConures]

The vet said all the organs looked good, just underweight and the total lack of any fat. The vet kept insisting that the bird starved, making my wife cry from getting the feeling that she thought we weren't feeding her or something. She was definitely consuming the food she was eating due to the amount and frequency of the poop. They were in separate cages next to each other.

No one is blaming anyone about what happened. We thought we did everything necessary, but never thought to check their weight frequently. We know a lot more now, just sad this had to happen to know it.

 

[aliray]

My deepest sympathys on the loss of your pet.

 

[Abigal7]

My deepest sympathys. Do not feel bad. I can tell you guys are putting effort into careing for your birds and you will learn news things as you take care of your little conure. Birds may look small but they eat alot more them we think in order to maintain weight. Feathers do hide thinness well. I thought I was giving my bird enough food until at the vet visit I was told my green cheek conure needs to gain some weight. I now have two dishes for food. I keep pellets handy. I do not buy the colorful blend pellets. In a second dish I give a variety of things such as sliced fruit, veggies, pieces of boiled egg, or the cooked food I bought at mysafebirdstore.com. I also do feed some seed. My green cheek conure currently weighs 63/64 grams. In the wild birds are usualy moving and eating (they need to replace the calories they use when they fly). I notice my conure likes to soak pellets in the water. I agree with everyone that you need a scale to weigh your current bird (a scale you weigh food serving would even do). I could not tell you if your bird have a deficincy that caused starvation (but anemic and low blood protien does happen in birds).

 

[sodakat]

I have to wonder if there is something the vet missed. 49g for a 69g bird is small but doesn't seem like it would be "starving". If the bird was pooping regularly, it was eating.

I hope your wife doesn't beat herself up over this. Sometimes a failure to thrive is congenital. I wonder if the vet examined the bird's heart. Something doesn't seem right to me here as far as cause of death. Sometimes vets do not know. It sounds like you received more of a report on the state of the body, rather than a cause of death.

I am so glad the other conure is doing well. Best wishes.

 

[Featheredsamurai]

I agree with sodokat. It also may be possible your conure had some sort of minor genetic defect. Ask your vet if they did a dissection to see if there was any thing strang inside of the body.

 

[HoustonConures]

The conure that is ok is the one that weighed 69 grams, we do not know how much the one that passed normally weighed. We only knew the weight of the living one from taking him to the vet due to drinking too much water, but we are starting to monitor the weight now.

The conure that passed, I would imagine should have weighed around 74-78 grams. She weighed 49 grams at time of the necropsy. The vet did say she didn't have any food in her crop or intestinal tract, so I imagine she did do a dissection. The vet stated no food in the digestive system would mean she had not eaten in 12-24 hours. We saw her eating about 12:30 at night when we went to bed though. Found her about 11:00am or not long after. Isn't it kind of strange for a starving bird to appear completely normal before this happening? You would think starving would cause anything to get weak and slow first...

We were talking more about the genetic disorder possibility and started thinking about how she acted. She wasn't a normal spunky bird with real personality like our other conure. She almost seemed "special", like she never grew mentally past the baby phase. She was hyper and inquisitive, just not really "mentally interactive" if that makes any sense.

 

[legal_eagle]

So sorry about your wife's and your loss. That's really sad.

I would recommend a different brand of pellets. I use Roudybush, which I think were developed by a veterinarian. One of the points made by Roudybush is that they contain a better balance of fat than the pellets sold and the big-box pet store. I've also heard that Harrison's are good, but have never used them because my GCC has done well so far (14+ years) on Roudybush. I also give my GCC a couple of avicakes everyday so she gets some seeds, which I think is also part of a balanced diet.

 

[Sasha2]

After reading such a sad story I wonder if birds have thyroids...I really dont know but if they do could it have been a problem there?
I mean eating tons and losing weight, hyperactivity, seems so much like a human thyroid condition.

Just a thought.

 

[ruffledfeathers]

I know at this point there is nothing further that can be done but yeah, i totally trust my avian vet and when he examined Georgie, he said he was sorry but he just couldn't find any real reason she died, that her organs looked normal, etc. But when he did the tissue samples (i guess they take little slices of all the major organs) and sent to the lab for the histo report, they did find a cause of death. So there could always be something way beneath the surface that was abnormal. In the present, be glad for the healthy one you have. It's hard having that feeling of 'no control', i know. (i was overprotective and Georgie died anyhow).

 

[MonicaMc]

I think there was probably another cause... although rather than going genetically, I would lean more towards an illness or virus that would be the cause.

BirdChannel.com


I have a cockatiel that when I first took her in, I think she weighed 40% or more underweight than what she should have weighed. She was 54/56 grams in weight and the average cockatiel weighs 90+ grams. Granted, I weighed her after she ate, so she could have weighed less without food. Reason why she was so underweight wasn't because she was sick/not eating, it was because she was literally being starved to death by the people who had her. For a long while she weighed just under 90 grams, but her last weights have been above 90 now.


A bird doesn't typically starve itself unless it's sick. If it was starvation, I must wonder how often you feed your conures and what the color of the droppings were/are. Did you feed food daily or dump a bunch of food into the dish and refill when necessary? (but not daily) If you fed a seed diet, this would make sense because seed hulls/shells could be mistaken for entire seeds. Did you change the diet any? Is it possible that the formula for the diet changed?

Zupreem did have a recall on some of their products... however, it was for the fruit blend variety and you said you were feeding the natural kind.



In all honesty, I'm not reading anything that sounds like signs of neglect, so I feel that she was probably sick with something that no one noticed and was missed in the necropsy. I'm sorry you and your wife lost one of your green cheeks, and I hope she can forgive herself for something that she probably had no control over.


My condolences from my flock to yours.