Sick Budgie

[Dantheparrotdad]

I noticed on 26/11 my female budgie was lethergic and fluffed up so I called the local avian vet and he told me to bring her in. He weighed her and said she was underweight which was a shock because she's always eating. He listened to her chest and said she had laboured breathing and greenish dropping. He gave me antibiotics (Penicillin) to give her for 7 days orally, twice a day.

While I was at the vet my girlfriend setup a small cage in a different room to isolate her from the male. We've put a couple of toys, three bowls, one for seed one for water and one for vegetables. She has a flat heated perch and a few other nobbly perches.
She absolutely hates us catching her to adminster her medication and I've noticed she had some pasting on her vent too which I've been keeping an eye on and cleaning with warm water only and using cotton pads.

She's not drinking a massive amount of water but she is still sipping now and then. I also offered her some natural caffeine free chamomile tea which she had a small amount of.

She's eating some seed and has nibbled a bit of broccoli and she's had some millet. She's warm enough too and is kept as stress free (Apart from the medicine part!) as possible.

I have cleaned the cage she shares with her mate thoroughly, all perches, toys, bowls, bowl holders and the bars and trays. And I'm keeping an eye on him too. He isn't showing any symptoms at all and is happy as can be.

Is there anything else I could be doing? She used to eat quite a lot of vegetables but this has now drastically reduced due to her illness. I'm making different vegeatbles and some fruits available all day. I'm concerned that she will lose more weight while she's isolated.

Any advice would be appreciated

Thanks

 

[GaleriaGila]

Wow. Really sounds like you're on it.
I guess I can suggest a second opinion?
Certified Avian Vets

Find an ABVP Specialist - American Board of Veterinary Practitioners

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If none are near you...
Avian Veterinarians

http://www.aav.org/search/custom.asp?id=1803

In my opinion, any of the vets listed here should be better than a regular vet.
International contacts, too.
If none are near you, maybe you could call and ask for a recommendation for somebody in your area.
And... sometimes, distant vets will offer brief thoughts or advice...
Or... sometimes I find a place to start just by Googling "avian veterinarian near ((your location))"
Or maybe a local breeder might help... again, maybe Google?

About the meds. The Rb takes daily Enalapril for his heart (he's 40), and the way I handle that is to drizzle his daily dose over his dry Harrison's pellets, exactly, sorta, a tablespoon and a half a day, and let it dry and put it in his pellet bowl, and he eats it! I replace that daily at the same hour.

Stick with us. I'm glad you're here.

 

[Dantheparrotdad]

Some sad news. We had to make the heartbreaking decision to put our female budgie Echo to sleep.

Wednesday night I couldn't sleep at all. I was so restless. About 4am I heard her get down from her perch and she was walking up and down on the newspaper making a funny noise so I got up and opened her cage. She came over to me and let me pick her up. She seemed to calm down and she slept on my chest for about 90 minutes before my wife had to get up for work around 6am.

She was very clingy for the rest of the morning and early afternoon. We managed to get a vet appointment for 2pm. He examined her and noticed how timid she had become and he felt her and noticed a lump in her throat.
He said we could take her home where she may last another two days at most but the thought of her dying alone in her cage upset me. The other option was to see what the lump was but
He said it was extremely unlikely she would survive the anesthesia and recommended we euthanised her.

I was absolutely heartbroken and I picked her up and kissed her head. She nuzzled into my cheek and chirped. I think this was her saying it's okay to let me go.

We buried her in the garden today in a small custom wooden box that my children decorated.

I'm absolutely lost right now.

Sorry for the long post

 

[LaManuka]

Some sad news. We had to make the heartbreaking decision to put our female budgie Echo to sleep.

Wednesday night I couldn't sleep at all. I was so restless. About 4am I heard her get down from her perch and she was walking up and down on the newspaper making a funny noise so I got up and opened her cage. She came over to me and let me pick her up. She seemed to calm down and she slept on my chest for about 90 minutes before my wife had to get up for work around 6am.

She was very clingy for the rest of the morning and early afternoon. We managed to get a vet appointment for 2pm. He examined her and noticed how timid she had become and he felt her and noticed a lump in her throat.
He said we could take her home where she may last another two days at most but the thought of her dying alone in her cage upset me. The other option was to see what the lump was but
He said it was extremely unlikely she would survive the anesthesia and recommended we euthanised her.

I was absolutely heartbroken and I picked her up and kissed her head. She nuzzled into my cheek and chirped. I think this was her saying it's okay to let me go.

We buried her in the garden today in a small custom wooden box that my children decorated.

I'm absolutely lost right now.

Sorry for the long post

Oh @Dantheparrotdad I'm so very sorry for your loss of Echo. I think you did absolutely the right thing in letting her go, they do have an uncanny ability to let us know when they've had enough. And much better for her to pass wrapped up in all your love too, as heartbreaking as it is for us. My very deepest condolences and sympathies go out to you and your family, @Dantheparrotdad, I wish I didn't understand how much this hurts but I do.

 

[GaleriaGila]

I'm so sorry. I hope to outlive the Rb, which means, someday, what happened to you and your love may well happen to me and the Rbird. I don't know what scares me more... the devastating, unexpected loss... or a long drawn-out struggle with illness.
A while back, I read Einstein's theory of relativity, and wrote a bit about it here and there. It was fascinating to learn how time, mass, velocity... it's all relative. Time, for example, is not as straightforward as it seems. Time passes more slowly the farther you get from Earth's gravitational forces. This was theory in his time, but has been demonstrated now. This is of course only MY half-baked interpretation, but...
Time is a continuum, relative, each moment linked to future and past points. So once a thing has existed, it's still reachable, it's always there. Your living love is still here, in Eternity, and will be always. Einstein believed time travel would someday be possible. Boggles my mind.
So many wonderful ideas above.
As somebody said to me when my mother passed, "May the sorrow of losing her soon be outweighed by the joy of having had her in your life".
Thank you for sharing. Rest in Eternity, Echo.

 

[DonnaBudgie]

I hope you got through the holidays okay without Echo. I'm in tears just thinking about how I will feel when I lose my beloved budgie, Rocky.

 

[GaleriaGila]

Stick with us. We'll help if we can.