Kiko is acting weird, and breathing funny.

[Tangie]

Hello guys,
Kiko, my cockatiel has made tooons of progress on everything. Earlier this month he had very bad diarrhea, but he seemed as active as usual. I brought the little buggar to a vet that said they had a qualified Avian Veterinarian. I thought it was odd that they had one of their healthy B&G Macaws right in the waiting room where other sick birds could give him something. I didn't have much money at that moment, but I did as much as I could. He isn't tame{the exception is me}, so he attacked the vet and gave him a bloody thumb.
The Vet grabbed Kiko, turned him over, and looked at his body. But the thing is, he didn't look thoroughly at all! They didn't look in his mouth or at his cere and nostrils. And sometimes clear fluid comes out of Kiko's nose, and it had happened right then too. I insisted they do other tests but the vet said do not bother! He looks healthy, and try and continue giving him a proper diet. He gave me some worming medicine and vitamins and some sort of antibiotic. For the vets defense it worked, but still....
The past week or so, Kiko eats some of his pellets, and he discovered broccoli! His first healthy vegetable. For the past few days he seems to be really clingy to me. He goes to the corner of the cage closest to me, and just hangs there quietly. In those positions he twitches slightly, and he makes this weird stuffy sound and it looks like he is making a mini yawn.{Kinda} I don't know what that means...Other than that his poop is perfectly normal, and he seems to be stubborn and loud as ever. Nothing could have bothered him respiratory wise, but when I came down-stairs my dad had just started to use a space heater. I turned it off as soon as it started, but my dad insisted on using it, and he rules the house. x/ Kiko is upstairs and I covered him all the way. And besides, before I knew that Space Heaters had Teflon and non-stick related objects, I had used it in the same room as Kiko for a while. But that was a long time ago, so I think it's okay. I just don't know what to do about it....the vet said he was perfectly healthy, so.....

 

[Blueridge]

WAIT space heaters have TEFLON??? I use one in my room with my bird every night????? WHAT!!

 

[Tangie]

Well, definitely non-stick substances. I just heard about it, too. A lot of stuff have non-stick substances that are bad for parrots. We just have to be careful, I suppose. But I realized Kiko may be hiccuping....But he's never seen it before. Is it possible he could be allergic to broccoli? He is obsessed with it, and has been acting differently since then. There was this little piece of broccoli in his water and he almost drowned himself to death because he kept sticking his head under the water and breathing in the liquid....

 

[Terry57]

I had purchased a new ceramic heater for my bird room, and the first day it was on, 2 of my birds were not doing well at all...very lethargic. I read on another forum that sometimes chemicals used in the manufacture can be a problem for birds, so I emailed the manufacturer of mine and they replied that it was definitely not safe for birds. I emailed several other manufacturers and Bionaire was the only one who replied that theirs are safe for birds. I know there are others out there, I stopped looking after hearing from Bionaire. That may not be the problem with Kiko, but maybe worth looking into. My first ceramic heater that wasn't safe was a Lasko.

 

[Tangie]

I am absolutely positive that it is not the Space Heater as I only had it on in my room several months ago. He looks completely normal, and in fact the twitching is so small, almost no one could notice yet unless if they weren't paying attention. It's really hard to explain, but it's so small. The other thing I noticed is that he seems to be drinking a ton of water. How much water drinkage is normal for your parrots? This morning when it was still dark, he had a scare and bumped against one of his toys and fell. He was sitting on the ground and blinking, but he didn't move for a while before he finally just climbed up the cage and sat down on his perch....