Hi everyone,
I am new to this forum but I think this will be the ideal place to gain some advice on my experience.
I purchased a Conure from a pet shop around 6 days ago. 4 days later the bird unfortunately died. When purchased, he looked in good health, we had handled him in the shop and found him to be friendly and playful. When we bought him home, he seemed understandably nervous, but not distressed and after a day or two of letting him settle in, he seemed to not mind being stroked and later handled.
The day he died, I had continued his normal routine of food, substrate and water changes and I had handled him. The bird seemed content and inquisitive. After returning him to the cage I left the room as he appeared to be napping on a perch. I had returned to check on him a few times whilst I had been doing household chores etc and found him in the same position each time, so nothing I thought was out of the ordinary. About half an hour later my partner checked on the bird and was horrified to find him on the floor of his cage. We assumed he had fallen and broken a wing or leg as he was unable to move. Despite this he wasn't making any vocalizations, making me think he must have been in severe shock. We took him out of the cage, it became apparent that he couldn't stand at all but he did flap his wings now and again. He was taken to a vet immediately, who found that the bird's physical condition was normal (no broken bones or respiratory problems). It was as if the bird's legs had become paralysed, his claws were not gripping at all. Before the end of the examination, our bird very sadly passed away.
Sorry for the length of this post but there were some things I noticed about the bird's behaviour that I would like to know if they contributed to his death:
1. He rarely vocalised - I have read that this particular type of conure (fiery shouldered) are fairly quiet, but I have lived around other species of parrot to know that they can be extremely loud, so I took that to mean they are still very vocal but not to the extent of other parrots.
2. Docile - We didn't handle him for the first 2 days of bringing him home (we opened the top of the cage to let him exercise), then on the third day we decided to get him out. I was suprised by how easy it was to remove him from the cage, and I expected that because he was so young and in a new home he would be nippy and try to avoid us. However, being raised in a pet shop and hand reared, I guess he was used to being handled by different people.
When in his cage we rarely observed him playing and he generally seemed to roost with his head tucked to the side for most of the day and night.
3. Vomiting or regurgitation - This is probably the biggest indicator that something was wrong. The bird would bring up it's feed after eating it and at first I thought this was regurgitation. I had bought this up with the pet shop owner who confirmed that the bird had been regurgitating to feed it's cage mate before we bought him. This seemed to happen mostly after the bird had eaten 'egg food' which we were mixing with water. I decided that if he really was vomiting perhaps it was because the feed was too watery, so I made it up and added just a tiny amount of water. From what we observed the vomiting seemed to stop after this.
Thanks for your time and patience reading all of this. We're very distressed by what has happened, mostly because the bird was obviously suffering and also because we had grown very attached to him. I know that there may have been a lot of contributing factors, but we careful to only feed him what the pet shop had given us plus fruits and vegetables that we had read were safe to give. He was housed away from fumes in a well ventilated environment.
Does anyone know of any viruses or infections that might have caused the paralysis?
I am new to this forum but I think this will be the ideal place to gain some advice on my experience.
I purchased a Conure from a pet shop around 6 days ago. 4 days later the bird unfortunately died. When purchased, he looked in good health, we had handled him in the shop and found him to be friendly and playful. When we bought him home, he seemed understandably nervous, but not distressed and after a day or two of letting him settle in, he seemed to not mind being stroked and later handled.
The day he died, I had continued his normal routine of food, substrate and water changes and I had handled him. The bird seemed content and inquisitive. After returning him to the cage I left the room as he appeared to be napping on a perch. I had returned to check on him a few times whilst I had been doing household chores etc and found him in the same position each time, so nothing I thought was out of the ordinary. About half an hour later my partner checked on the bird and was horrified to find him on the floor of his cage. We assumed he had fallen and broken a wing or leg as he was unable to move. Despite this he wasn't making any vocalizations, making me think he must have been in severe shock. We took him out of the cage, it became apparent that he couldn't stand at all but he did flap his wings now and again. He was taken to a vet immediately, who found that the bird's physical condition was normal (no broken bones or respiratory problems). It was as if the bird's legs had become paralysed, his claws were not gripping at all. Before the end of the examination, our bird very sadly passed away.
Sorry for the length of this post but there were some things I noticed about the bird's behaviour that I would like to know if they contributed to his death:
1. He rarely vocalised - I have read that this particular type of conure (fiery shouldered) are fairly quiet, but I have lived around other species of parrot to know that they can be extremely loud, so I took that to mean they are still very vocal but not to the extent of other parrots.
2. Docile - We didn't handle him for the first 2 days of bringing him home (we opened the top of the cage to let him exercise), then on the third day we decided to get him out. I was suprised by how easy it was to remove him from the cage, and I expected that because he was so young and in a new home he would be nippy and try to avoid us. However, being raised in a pet shop and hand reared, I guess he was used to being handled by different people.
When in his cage we rarely observed him playing and he generally seemed to roost with his head tucked to the side for most of the day and night.
3. Vomiting or regurgitation - This is probably the biggest indicator that something was wrong. The bird would bring up it's feed after eating it and at first I thought this was regurgitation. I had bought this up with the pet shop owner who confirmed that the bird had been regurgitating to feed it's cage mate before we bought him. This seemed to happen mostly after the bird had eaten 'egg food' which we were mixing with water. I decided that if he really was vomiting perhaps it was because the feed was too watery, so I made it up and added just a tiny amount of water. From what we observed the vomiting seemed to stop after this.
Thanks for your time and patience reading all of this. We're very distressed by what has happened, mostly because the bird was obviously suffering and also because we had grown very attached to him. I know that there may have been a lot of contributing factors, but we careful to only feed him what the pet shop had given us plus fruits and vegetables that we had read were safe to give. He was housed away from fumes in a well ventilated environment.
Does anyone know of any viruses or infections that might have caused the paralysis?
Are you getting a necropsy done? Has the store been notified?
