- Hey everybody.
Jamieleigh here from bird tricks and I am here today
with a special guest, Matt Gosbell here
at the Melbourne bird veterinary clinic.
And today we are going
over eight signs that you may have a sick bird.
So number one, weight change.
What kind of weight change should people look for in a bird?
Hopefully you guys are weighing in grams.
Like I've taught you .
what would sure be a sign
of sickness as far as weight change?
- Okay, so keeping an eye on
the bird's weight is really important.
So
any drop in weight
can mean
a disease processes is going on
but as well as looking at weight
we look at body condition as well.
So we're feeling the chest muscle.
If they're dealing with a sickness
they will lose chest muscle very quickly.
Cause it's the biggest muscle
in the body of the Petro muscles.
Whenever I deal with weight
every individual bird is slightly different
so I don't have a weight and he should be or core.
I look at their weight, look at their previous weights
and their histories and also feel their body condition.
But certainly a drop of even 10% can be significant.
One thing that's very tricky is just looking
at your bird and looking for them losing weight.
It's very hard to see because of their feathers.
They fluff their feathers up and they look the same.
So often what we tell clients to do is look not only
at the eating
because the other thing I find is a sick bird.
That's, they're still hungry and they go
to the food bowl and they mess it all around the place
but they're not actually eating the food.
- Yes.
So look at the droppings as well.
So the birds should be doing the regular amount
of droppings.
And if they're unwell
and not passing droppings, then they're probably
not eating
- Yes. And so that's actually number two is abnormal poops.
- Yes
- So let's talk poop.
What is an abnormal poop look like?
- So a lot of people, well, first
before we talk of abnormal poop, we should talk normal.
- Yes
- So a lot of people don't understand.
There are actually three components to a bird dropping.
Everything comes out of the one hole.
They don't have two separate holes
on the outside of their body.
That means the urine
and the fecal component come out together.
Now their kidneys operate very different from ours.
So there's two parts of the urine.
You'll notice that on a bird dropping
you'll get a white component, but that's actually coming
from the kidneys and you'll get a fluid component
like a ring of fluid around the dropping.
And that also is coming from the kidneys.
And then you'll get the dark part, which is the fecal part.
So what we're looking for is has the bird got diarrhea.
So it'll have average sloppy sort of dark part to it.
If they're doing excessive urine
you'll get a whole lot of extra urine
but you might still have a normal form fecal component.
If you get discoloration of the white part,
that can be kidney
but of course also be a dietary problem as well.
- Okay
- Sometimes you get change in color.a change in color
Doesn't always mean that there's something wrong.
- Yes
- So for birds, for instance
if they have blueberries will often produce a really
bright
purple colored dropping.
- Yes
- So don't panic.
If you've been feeding blueberries
if you have a purple dropping come out of the bird
- Exactly. We feed a lot of beats during one of the seasons.
And so we get those actually it'll have scare you
because it'll be like that pink reddish dropping
which means, you know, a lot of people blood
- So if the dropping is very green, particularly
if it's got a bit of a fluorescent sort of dark color to it
that's not uncommon
into when you've got a say liver disease.
So liver disease can result in those sort of droppings.
The white part of the dropping becomes very green
or yellow that can also mean liver problems
or it could mean that they're not eating very well.
So the dropping will become yellow
or it can mean an issue with vitamins and minerals
as well. Deficiency.
A lot can be told by looking
at a dropping grossly, but it shouldn't be over-read.
- What about the bubbles in the poop?
Does that mean something specific?
Is that just gas or what is that?
- Yeah. Bubbles in the poop doesn't really mean
anything specific.
but if you're getting that with other signs and symptoms
it's worth having a chat.
- Alright
So number three is changes in appearance.
And what kind of changes in the overall appearance
of a bird would you look
for that would be signs of illness to you that you would
you would notice right away when a bird's brought in.
- So most commonly birds will fluff up.
So when we get sick
our bodies raise their temperatures
birds need to kind of fluff up and their
their temperatures rise by fluffing up.
So their appearance are often fluff up.
They'll often reduce their motion
put all their energies into keeping themselves warm.
And one of the first things that we do when
we treat these birds is provide the warmth for them.
And that makes a big difference in their demeanor and
and their ability to fight disease.
- Awesome. Is there anything in the eyes like
will they get a little squinty
or watery in any sense, anything like that?
That's kind of what people would associate with people
you know, when you feel bad, it's kind of in your eyes
first of do birds show it in their eyes.
- Sure. I think it's important to understand
that birds are a flash flax species
which means that subtle signs are really important
because they will hide all their weaknesses.
So even in the home environment
they will tend to hide their sickness.
So if you are noticing subtle things
it's important to ask the vet, call a vet or go
for a vet visit, pick it up early
because they often off phone
so if you come to me and say,
it's been sick for two or three days.
And I'll find when I examined the bird
that the bird is close to death
and there's very little we can do to save it.
Whereas if we saw it a few days earlier,
when at first symptoms we can do something about it.
- Okay
I would say another sign is probably loss of appetite.
So how crucial is this?
Is this like a day with the birds gone with the loss
of appetite?
Or how long would you let that go?
When you start noticing
- Wouldn't let That loss of truck very long at all.
- What about any discharge?
- Now, discharge can be really important.
So we look for discharge, particularly around the mouth
around the nostrils.
And some subtle discharge can still be very important
because when the sinus has built up and they've got sinus
disease or problems there, it's gonna first go down the back
of the throat.
Birds have not a hard pellet, quite like us.
They have a slit in there, a palette that goes right
into their sinuses and goes down the back of their throat.
So they have a much more communication in the back
in their mouth than what we do.
So any discharge coming out, their sinuses, they're already
had some discharged going down their throat already.
So discharge a small amount of discharge could actually
mean quite a substantial problem because they've already
had discharged going down their throat.
There's a number of sinus diseases and some very
serious sinus diseases that can be co-occurring
in that in that scenario.
- Would a kind of a snotty sneeze count.
So if your bird sneezed
and you felt like mucus actually hit you
would that be a sign of discharges that kind of like
- Yeah, well, that's important as well for sneezing.
It depends on the species and the situation
but so any sort of sneezing is not common.
So a little bit of sneezing here and there
it might be from dust,
and a little bit of sensitivity to the environment.
Some birds will do that,
but if you're constantly getting sneezing
and you're getting rid
of discharge, you wanna get the bird checked
One of the common big diseases we get is called silicosis.
So this is an important disease in Paris.
Some parts can get exceedingly sick
with this disease and die.
Some parts can get over it,
but the other problem
with this disease is it's actually contagious
to people
and people may get seriously sick
from this disease as well.
I see this more commonly in newly purchased pets
and it's also a stress disease.
So some pets can carry this for some time.
And if they're stressed
about the disease will start to show up.
- This is something that I really take
with my words as a lack of activity level.
So I fly my birds, we fly them outside.
We use them in our shows.
So that's usually the first sign to us.
If it's unwilling to do something that it's normally
excited to do
what kind of level of inactivity would you say is
a red flag that you would want somebody to bring a up
- I guess if you're concerned about a change in activity
then it's worth considering bringing it in straight away.
If you're comfortable though that the bird is
still eating very well, it's passing, dropping.
So don't just look
at the eating because sometimes they just spread food.
- Yes
- Everything else is quite normal.
It might be okay to sit and wait
and see what's going on and look for any other symptoms.
But if in doubt, you're better off to get it seen
birds are very, very good at hiding their illness.
So subtle changes are important
- Yeah. So just kind of any sort
of lethargic looking bird
- Yeah. Absolutely
- Red flag
Okay. I'm going to say this is a super obvious one.
Unfortunately, it's one that I get on social media a lot
but its like hey, I don't think my bird's feeling so well.
It's puffed up at the bottom of the cage.
- Yeah.
- Red flag in right away.
- Huge red flag.
- Yes
- So birds that are fluffed up
at the bottom of the cage are often very sick
and that can happen very quickly.
It can also be at a point where the birds actually been sick
for some time at the owners.
Haven't seen the subtle signs and suddenly it's tipped
over the edge and it can't hide its disease anymore.
And it's really sick.
- Yeah. Well, awesome.
Thank you, Matt.
I appreciate you being here and going over all the details
with me and everybody who's watching this.
So hopefully this helps that you guys up for success
for spying, those illnesses early and always air
on the side of caution with these guys here
it's hard enough to spot these little signs.
So just always call your vet.
If anything feels different to you, oftentimes our birds
it's just something that doesn't feel right.
And your vet isn't gonna make fun of you for that.
They are gonna completely understand.
Cause with birds they're incredibly sensitive.
And sometimes that's the only tell is
that it just doesn't feel like your normal birds itself.
- Good
- Absolutely.
- Yeah. I mean I think we, I think we were pretty awesome.
(laughs)
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