Pudgy Budgie was ordered a diet

[RavensGryf]

Budgie was ordered a diet

I haven't had our Budgies for long, (13 months). I suspect they are about 1 1/2 years old maybe. Last June, both Pix and Twigs weighed in at the vet's at around 31-32 grams. Lately, my husband and I started noticing how Pix was looking slightly larger than Twigs. We didn't think much of it, then in the past month or so we started noticing he is MUCH bigger than the svelte Twigs, and this time we knew it wasn't our imagination. Twigs shares his cage, and therefore the same food - Harrison's Organic lifetime pellets. Those of you who know Harrison's, know it's some pretty special stuff . Furthermore it is the formula which is NOT the higher protein/fat one. Should not cause weight gain like seed... That is unless one is almost CONSTANTLY eating it. That is another thing we noticed about Pix, that he seems to want food much more than a normal bird, and consequently he poops A LOT more than he should.

I started reading about fatty tumors. Today the vet took a blood test, but said he didn't think he had tumors. Upon examination of Pix's body, he found that he was morbidly obese. Not only did he have the large fat hanging over the perch (abdomen where overweight birds show fat first), but he was also fat on the upper chest, sides, and back. Everywhere (besides his tiny head). That explains why his entire frame started to look larger even across the back and his length which I couldn't understand. He was 44 grams today. Approx 30% bodyweight gain within 6 months. Vet says he's at risk of Diabetes and death, so we are going to do something about it.

The vet thinks that Pix's brain chemistry which signals us that we're full or satiated and to stop eating, isn't working properly. SO, I'm going to buy Twigs a new cage separate from Pix so that we can monitor his diet. Hopefully the separate cage (same room) will also help with taming Twigs - the much wilder one. That is something else I have to post about.

Anyway, we were relieved to hear that most likely it isn't Cancer. Still crossing fingers. Pix is such a cutie and we really love him.
He's one of the guys (parrots)

Anyone else have an extremely overweight Budgie? What did you do and what was the outcome?

 

[Joshuwaaa]

I hope your budgie Pix is okay, lots of attention and cuddles, exercise and play.

I think separate cages sound good so you can monitor him without twigs, then they can play outside the cage

 

[ct92404]

My budgie, Chipper, has a weight problem too. (Which I wrote about earlier). She's even heavier than Pix. But she was always a little bigger than most parakeets, even when I first got her as a baby. And it seems like she got chubby fairly slowly, over time. The vet has said before that Chipper is a bit heavy, but hasn't actually told me to put Chipper on a diet yet. Otherwise, she seems to be fine and the vet said she was doing well. I think in my case, it really was my fault. I was giving her pretty much just seeds, and I only got her to eat vegetables recently. The good news is that I don't have to convince her to eat them...she gets excited about it!

I really hope things go better with Pix. With you and your vet paying such close attention, I'm sure you'll get to the bottom of it soon.

 

[RavensGryf]

You're lucky Chipper eats veggies. Especially that it was easy to get her to do it! I noticed it's much harder to get adult birds to start eating veggies, rather than a young bird who has been weaned onto lots of different types of veggies so has always been used to it.

Chipper must have a large frame size to begin with? I think you mentioned her weight on your post about her? Pix used to be a little guy frame wise. Good luck with Chipper too

* Pix now has a separate cage with some new toys that he already likes, and is right next to Twigs' cage. They're bonded, so they want to get to each other and I feel bad doing it, but better than Pix eating himself to death. I will let them visit daily though.