Is she underweight?

[Frumpydumple]

My Green Cheek always did feel and look much thinner than my mothers Sun Conure, but I always thought it was just because Erik(Sun) was a slightly bigger bird, because he is (probably) male and because he seems to be overweight, but I was feeling Cookie's(Green Cheek) keel bone and it feels sharp and I looked under her chest feathers and I could see her keel bone really clearly.

I don't have any scales to weigh her either(I plan on getting some soon).

She has pellets in her bowl all day and she gets fruit, vegetables, seed when she does tricks(often) and I also will be buying sprouted seeds to try too.

Does this seem normal for a GC?









I wasn't hurting her by the way.

 

[hacatta]

Does he get nuts?it contains good fats.

 

[Frumpydumple]

She doesn't, but she does eat sunflower seeds quite often. She doesn't seem to be able to crack open nuts.

 

[jenphilly]

Give her almonds, walnuts or pistachios.... You can find them in bulk section of many grocery stores. Never give salted, but you can find these unsalted easily.

Or add a goldentfeast or Higgins mix that has variety of grains, seeds and nuts. Golden tfeast sells a great shelled nut blend that all our birds love. Worst case, buy the nuts sold for baking, no salt on those either.

Or last option, crack the nuts for your bird. My Ivory loves nuts in shells but can't crack the pecans or walnuts. So I crack it in half and give it to her that way. She has birdie fun of digging out the meat and loves it. Always options to get healthy nuts into their diet!!

Sorry for typos, sending this from my phone!!!

 

[hacatta]

I too buy almonds,pecan and walnuts that i crack for them.
They love it so much.

 

[Frumpydumple]

I bought some scales today and weighed her. She was about 76 or 78 grams, but the scales might (or might not) be off by 2 grams. She is a big Green Cheek though, so she should probably weigh about 80 grams, so I still think she is underweight. I'll try some nuts too. She does get pellets and seed, so I don't really know why she would be underweight.

 

[MonicaMc]

Emily, what pellets is she on?


And have you tried asking her breeder about weight and getting some weight put on her? The breeder may have some good ideas about how much she should weigh as well as how to bulk her up.

 

[Dinosrawr]

I have a green cheek conure who only weighs 65 - 68 grams (it varies through the week, depending on when she's weighed), but she's quite small to begin with I believe. I use almonds as "you did okay" treats, so she gets a lot them. I buy them and chop them into small pieces, that way I can use a lot of them while not overdosing her. When she does exceptional, we're doing new tricks, or at the end of a training session, I give her the sunflower seed.

Doing that might help give her good fats and also make training sessions lots of fun Also, I just felt Avery's keel, and it feels relatively the same as what Cookie's looks. I don't think worrying about the keel itself is as important as the muscle that surrounds it, because there's always variation in pronunciation. That's just the beauty of genetics But I would weight her every morning and night (post poop), and see how average the weight is. If it drops, I'd be concerned, but if it's the same all week with no variation, I wouldn't stress it too much

 

[Frumpydumple]

She is on Harrison's High Potency Fine.

The man I got her from wasn't actually the one who bred her, he was just a friend of the actual breeder, so I don't have any contact information for the real breeder.

 

[MonicaMc]

Sounds like nuts and red palm oil may help then.

 

[Frumpydumple]

I have been thinking maybe she is underweight from being sick.

She sneezes a lot each day, chews her feathers and currently her feathers just look oily and she has some feather bronzing appearing. She just got checked out at the vet a couple weeks ago, but since no tests were done, I'm still thinking maybe she is sick.

I know a deficiency can cause feather bronzing, but what deficiency could she have?

I have been using an aloe vera feather spray so that could be making her feathers more oily, but I have only been spraying it on her tail to stop her chewing it.

She also does a strange thing with her beak sometimes, like she moves it strangely and kind of looks like she is gasping for a few seconds.

 

[Dinosrawr]

I think it's time to get blood work done. From what I understand feather bronzing can either be a dietary issue or a liver problem. Take a look at this link. It applies to an Indian Ringneck, but bronzing is bronzing:

http://www.justanswer.com/bird-vet/6d5zx-green-indian-ring-neck-parakeet-feathers-turning-brown.html

As for the gasping thing... is Cookie moving her upper and lower beak at the same time, and moving them slightly forward as they go up and down? If so, Avery does this too. But she only does it when A.) she's been eating millet and it gets "stuck", which is why I don't give it to her anymore, or B.) when I give her scritches right behind the ear. It's almost like its a response to their throat tickling from something, kind of like when ours does and we try to scratch it with our tongue and look silly in the process.

Ultimately, though, I do believe a vet visit is in order. Keep us updated and I hope that everything turns out well!

 

[Frumpydumple]

Thanks.

You mean kind of like yawning repeatedly? No, she moves her upper beak repeatedly for a few seconds. It's hard to explain. I don't have a video of her doing it, but I do have a video of another GCC doing it, it wouldn't let me upload it when I tried before, I'll try again though.

The other GCC was 4 months old and he used to do the same thing as well as sneezing and scratching at the inside of his beak. I think Cookie caught the same thing from him because I let them be together.

I agree, I do think blood work should be done, but it's hard to find a good avian vet here though.

 

[Dinosrawr]

Do you think HealthGene could be of assistance? I don't know if they do outside of Canada, but I do know they do blood testing for disease and the like - not 100% positive on vitamin deficiency. Perhaps in the UK they'll have something similar where you can get a testing kit and mail in a sample to get testing done?

From what I've looked at, Vitamin A deficiency is the major cause of feather abnormalities as it aids in development and pigmentation. Does Cookie get any sweet potato, kale, red bell peppers, mango, canteloupe, or carrots? All of these are extra high in vitamin A, and adding them into her diet might help with the feather bronzing. But from what you've said, sounds like she might have a minor infection going on it's frustrating there aren't as many avian vets... I feel as if all veterinarian clinics, small or large, should always cater to exotics. Especially because they're becoming more and more prevalent in our households... but who am I to try and change a profession that's been established for hundreds of years (and yet here I am trying to do that with the Education system, hah!).

I'll keep my thoughts with you two, and I hope you can find a great avian vet soon I wish I could ship mine to you! I've told her many times she needs to stay in my pocket at all times, but unfortunately she thinks it's selfish of me...

 

[Frumpydumple]

I don't know if that's possible in the UK, I'll look into it.

She got mango a few days ago and she ate some and she also got red bell pepper a few days ago, but she didn't really eat that. I've been trying to introduce new things to her diet.

For almost 3 years of her life (she's 4 now) she was on a seed diet with very little other things, so one of my biggest concerns is her getting liver disease.

Money is also a problem. If I took her to a good avian vet it would probably cost a lot too.

I'm trying to upload the video to photobucket right now, it's really slow though.

 

[Frumpydumple]

Uploading the video to photobucket failed, but I did manage to upload it to youtube. This is Storm the Turquoise Yellow Sided Green Cheek.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHyDZMAZ-K0]Storm's Breathing Problem. - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Frumpydumple]

Anyone else...?

 

[Freespin]

I get a conditioning food which is designed for young birds, breeding birds and during moults. Do you get anything similar over there?

 

[Frumpydumple]

I'm not sure, but I did find Feather-Up - Feather Conditioning Supplement and an egg food supplement.

 

[MonicaMc]

If she's sick, you should make sure she's healthy before worrying about weight. If she truly is sick, then trying to get her to gain weight isn't as important as making sure she's healthy. As long as she's eating, that's good.


An avian vet may be expensive, but you can always call around and ask how much it would cost to bring her in and get her checked out. You can also ask about payment plans.


Ask about gram stains and/or a nasal flush and gram stain of that. An avian vet could even prescribe you medication without doing any tests - although granted, I wouldn't recommend that!