Sick cockatiel??

[Kims1984]

I am handfeeding two 5 week old cockatiels and they have been doing great. Well yesterday afternoon all of a sudden one of them started sitting puffed up. He still preens and flys and moves around but he seems just a little bit less active. Any idea what could be wrong?

 

[MonicaMc]

We are not vets so we can't diagnose what's wrong with your tiel! Sorry! But if he or she is sick, they need to see an avian vet!

 

[ct92404]

Unfortunately, there is no way to tell what could be wrong just based on what you're describing. But birds instinctively try to hide symptoms if they are sick (so they wouldn't attract predators in the wild). So you always have to be on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary. It sounds to me that the little birdie could definitely be sick. Any time you see a bird that is less active than usual should cause you to watch them more carefully. And since he's also had his feathers puffed, I would take him to a vet just to be on the safe side.

Birds do also puff out their feathers when they are sleepy...if you see him yawning a lot, then it could just mean that he's not getting enough sleep for some reason. But again, I would take him to a vet just to be safe. Changes in behavior are often the first sign when a bird is sick.

 

[crimson]

it could be 1 of 20 things, really impossible to tell by your description.
here is just a short list of what could be wrong
*crop infection
*impacted crop
*punctured crop
*bacterial infection
*intestinal bacterial infection
*bowel obstruction
*dehydrated
*failure to thrive
*maybe it digested something it shouldn't
the list can go on and on.
I would separate the "sick" one from the other baby for now, if it's contagious, you don't want both to get it, other than that I would seek a vet.

I had two babies that were 2 weeks old with stunted growth, failure to thrive, along with crop infections, I took both to the vets,gave them anti-fungal meds along with an antibiotic, they died 2 weeks later.