Is My Budgie Mariah Sick or Just Weird and La

[DonnaBudgie]

I have a three year old female English budgie, Mariah. She's never been a high energy bird, in fact, she's a lazy perch potato. She had been bred twice before my show breeder friend sold her to me. He has a healthy flock.

Mariah can come out of the cage (32×24×32) she shares with four other English budgies any time she wants but until recently she seldom came out. She spends most of her time eating, preening and sleeping.

A few weeks ago she started coming out every couple days to sit on top of the cage with the other birds and fly around the room a few times before going back in and going back to sleep. Last week we got home from work at 9pm and did the bedtime routine of putting them back in their cages and we couldn't find Mariah. We looked everywhere. No Mariah. Then we looked in the large flight cage out on the adjacent enclosed porch (it was mostly dark) and noticed that I had forgotten to replace the 2x4 that blocked a one inch crack at the bottom of the wild girls' flight cage. These four girls don't get to free fly because they aren't tame. There was Mariah sitting on the swing sleeping! I couldn't believe she squeezed into that cage where she has never been when her cage door was wide open in the other room. Plus, she's a big girl- about 65 grams- and we couldn't believe she even fit through the crack. I easily got her to step onto a stick perch and moved her into her own cage.

A couple days later during mid-day Mariah was sitting just inside the door to her cage with her head tucked back sleeping. She was sort of blocking the way in and out for the other birds so I leaned down and tried to wake her up by talking to her. She continued to sleep. Then I reached over and tapped on the top of her head, certain that would startle her awake, but nope. So I started giving her a back to front scratch on the top of her head and she STILL didn't startle awake! She just kept her head tucked back and didn't move. I have never handled Mariah other than to have her perch on my finger and she wasn't handled by her previous owner either. English show budgies have been bred for two hundred years to be not only big and "beautiful", but docile so they sit nicely in the show cages while being judged. Nervous flightly birds do not show well. Some people don't like how the appearance of wild budgies has been altered to produce English show budgies, but I love them (I love all budgies) and prefer them in some ways, but that's a great topic for another thread.

Anyway, Mariah is still her usual self, just eating, sleeping and preening and coming out occasionally. Does anyone think Mariah may be sick? If it weren't for her coming out and flying and being bold and athletic enough to squeeze into a strange cage to sleep I would be very concerned. Her poops and breathing are normal, and she eats well. Here's a photo of her. She sits fluffed up a lot. That's the only other indication she way not be well.

u but she's a big fluffy budgie.

 

[sassybudgiestevie]

I am pretty new to this site, but I would say she might just be being moody when she ignores you
My budgie Pete didn't like the music I was playing, so he turned around on his perch and refused to look at me! (literally would NOT look at me) Does she have any discharge coming from her cere, or is she acting lethargic? if she is acting normal and eating fine i would assume shes probably all right...

 

[TiredOldMan]

When was the last time she had a check up with the vet. I personally wouldn't be concerned about anything you mentioned except the not being able to wake her.

 

[kme3388]

I’m sorry Mariah isn’t feeling well she is beautiful. I have no idea where you live. Was Mariah cold in your enclosed porch to where she could have gotten sick? How old is she? I would always recommend a vet when a parrot illness is in question. I’d rather give advice that would save your parrot if she is ill then to make an assumption and give wrong advice just to read days later that she passed away. I generally only comment on behavioral things, or diet for that purpose. Vets are expensive I completely get it. I just read so many posts on here where people’s parrots are more then a Christmas ornament in a cage. I’d rather be safe than sorry.

 

[DonnaBudgie]

My enclosed porch is heated same as the house, which is about 70. She's three years old and has no illness symptoms other than sleeping a lot and being fluffed up a lot. If there's anything wrong with her I fear it is something like a tumor which is so common in budgies and nothing can be done for it. I don't know if she doesn't feel well or is just a lazy sleepy budgie because she has been like this since o got her a year ago. To diagnose a tumor requires imaging and every time I've done that it costs several hundred $$ and nothing can be done. If a budgie is injured or acutely ill I will spend it to help heal the injury or infection but tumors are incurable . Maybe Mariah is just so calm she didn't care that I tapped her on the head or maybe she thought it was another budgie messing with her and she ignored it because she didn't even look to see what it was.

 

[kme3388]

I get what you are saying 100%. I spent $1000’s for one of my parrots feather plucking issues. It did educate me but it didn’t change the outcome. Those are hard decisions to make. I hope she is just a very calm budgie. I couldn’t get anywhere near any of my parrots without them knowing.

 

[DonnaBudgie]

I was shocked that she didn't appear to wake up. Either that or she woke up but didn't bother to un tuck her head to to object. Very frequently she look like she's sleeping and nothing I do or the other birds do can get her to look awake. I just never encountered a budgie who acted like this.
I forgot to say that a few weeks ago she had an episode that I thought was a stroke or something. She was trashing around on the bottom of her cage and my husband picked her up and held her in his hand with his hand wrapped around her body and her head sticking out. She didn't bite him. She just stayed still except her eyes were open and she turned her head back and forth looking around. I touched her feet and they didn't respond- they just hung limply. I thought she was dying. We put her in a perches cage with a towel on the bottom while we contemplated what to do. She just sat there for a while and a half hour later she snapped out of it and began climbing toward the cage door. I put a stick in front of her, she got on, and I put her back in her cage. Since then she's come out several times and flown around and then the episodes of tapping her on the head and finding her sleeping in the porch cage occurred. I wonder what's going on with Mariah.

 

[Jcas]

*I am not a vet*

But, anecdotally, what you described with Mariah “ thrashing around” and then “snapping out of it” sounds very similar to when my epileptic Quaker parrot has a seizure. This happens roughly twice a month. He flaps erratically, squawks, thrashes, and one or both of his feet curl and seem to become paralyzed. The seizure itself rarely lasts more than 5-10 seconds. Depending on how bad of one it is, he will recover in a few minutes to half an hour, though he is usually a bit disoriented for about ten minutes after. He is usually tired for a while afterwards, sometimes all day, and sometimes will be low energy or out of sorts as much as a day in advance of a seizure occurring . Is it possible Mariah’s sleepiness is you finding her in the recovery stage after a seizure that you missed ?

 

[kme3388]

Do you have a camera or anything so you can watch how she’s acting? I know one of my parrots kept falling off his perch at night. I couldn’t figure out what was happening. I could hear it, and every time I went into his room he was at the bottom of his cage not very alert. When I installed a camera I soon learned that when cars were driving by our house at night the head lights were shining right into my parrots cage. That’s when he was falling off his perch. It was startling him. Once I covered his cage the issue was resolved.

 

[DonnaBudgie]

*I am not a vet*

But, anecdotally, what you described with Mariah “ thrashing around” and then “snapping out of it” sounds very similar to when my epileptic Quaker parrot has a seizure. This happens roughly twice a month. He flaps erratically, squawks, thrashes, and one or both of his feet curl and seem to become paralyzed. The seizure itself rarely lasts more than 5-10 seconds. Depending on how bad of one it is, he will recover in a few minutes to half an hour, though he is usually a bit disoriented for about ten minutes after. He is usually tired for a while afterwards, sometimes all day, and sometimes will be low energy or out of sorts as much as a day in advance of a seizure occurring . Is it possible Mariah’s sleepiness is you finding her in the recovery stage after a seizure that you missed ?

Thanks for this response. It sounds so similar to her episode. I'm going to watch her more closely.

 

[DonnaBudgie]

Do you have a camera or anything so you can watch how she’s acting? I know one of my parrots kept falling off his perch at night. I couldn’t figure out what was happening. I could hear it, and every time I went into his room he was at the bottom of his cage not very alert. When I installed a camera I soon learned that when cars were driving by our house at night the head lights were shining right into my parrots cage. That’s when he was falling off his perch. It was startling him. Once I covered his cage the issue was resolved.

That's interesting. I know parrots can get spooked by headlights in the dark. My budgies sometimes do that on the cage floor thing in the middle of the night, too. I get up, turn on the lights low and wait for them to get back on their perches before going back to bed. I live on a pretty rural dirt road on a lake in Maine and there is very little traffic except in the summer. Our bedroom is farther back from the road and we have blackout drapes so I don't see the cars at night, and the room the birds are in usually has the same drapes drawn too. Maybe Mariah sometimes has seizures at night and that's when they get spooked. Who knows?