Cockatiel Care Questions

[skeleo]

My 8 1/2 year old cockatiel, Papaya, passed away unexpectedly yesterday. I am so heartbroken, but I'm trying to stay strong for my female cockatiel, Banana. I have some questions about how I can better take care of her.

Banana is an 8 1/2 year old, flighted, female cockatiel who I adopted almost four years ago from a rehoming situation.

VET: I want to take Banana to the vet to make sure she didn't get the illness that Papaya had. (I'm not sure what it was. I didn't think to get a necropsy done on him because I was so upset). She isn't showing any symptoms, but I am very worried she eventually will. If she does, she'll be going to the emergency vet as soon as I notice. Banana's also been having some problems I want to get checked. The main one is that she has been eating her own poop. She's always done this, but more so now that she's laying eggs. So, I think it's a calcium deficiency? She always has access to cuttlebones. She also has been having large, stinky poops and sometimes diarrhea. I think this could also be from laying eggs. She holds in her poop while she sits on them. But, I want to make sure she didn't get an infection or anything. But, the problem is, the vet may only take emergencies because of the corona virus. How urgent do you think this is? Should I just make an appointment now? Or wait until the corona virus is over (which who knows how long that will be!). I also want to know what tests you think I should get done? Should I get her blood tested? Poop? She also threw up twice a few days ago after eating! Like shaking her head and flinging vomit everywhere. She acted completely normal afterwards and hasn't done it since.

STRESS: She also just seems very stressed out a lot of the time. She's always been more stressed out than Papaya was. I don't know why she's like this. Maybe her personality, maybe from her previous home? Especially when she's laying eggs. She plucks her feathers a lot more than usual around this time. She plucks and overpreens under her wings and tail. When she's sitting on her eggs, she's very protective of them and hissing at people and attacking them if they get too close. She's just very on edge. She almost always does a little warning bite/hiss thing if my hands get near her (unless she's asking to be pet). She also rarely steps up if she's on the cage. I don't want to push her too much.

She's able to be out of the cage all day. She has a big playstand and plenty of toys. I spend most of my time in the room with her. I also give her Zupreem Fruitblend pellets in foraging toys only. I want to switch to a better brand. She has a natural day/night cycle with sunrise/sunset. She gets thawed food in the morning (maybe 25% seven whole grains and beans, and 75% finely chopped vegetables: sweet potato, carrots, a leafy green, an herb, sometimes a fruit, and a couple different vegetables. I change the veggies every month). Before bed, she gets seeds. I clean the dishes once or twice a day, and the liner once a day. I full clean the cage every weekend.

She has made some progress though since I adopted her! She's pretty consistently eating her fresh foods. And she spends more time with me and lets me pet her now. She will come over and sit on my shoulder and grind her beak. She also likes to eat with me.

DISINFECTANT: I'm also planning on doing a full clean of their cage and play area tomorrow because of Papaya's illness. What can I use to disinfect the cage? I'm afraid to use bleach because of the fumes.

COMPANION: Also, do you think I should get her another companion? This won't be for a while (not until I'm done grieving, and not until I move to a house where I have a room to quarantine the new bird). She wasn't very close with Papaya at all. They mostly got into little fights when they directly interacted. But I know how important having another bird friend is for parrots. And they did seem to forage and eat together. And she would call for him when he was away. And they took turns sitting on the eggs. But they never preened each other or sat beside each other. I just worry that she won't get along with a new bird. I will have to do lots of research about introducing two birds. The new bird would be a (hopefully flighted) male cockatiel from a rescue or rehoming situation.

Thank you.

[Pajarita]

Hi, Skeleo, and I am sorry that Papaya passed away.

Now, I do not want to alarm you but unless I read your posting wrong, I am afraid that you are not looking at things the right way. You say Banana is not showing any symptoms but she is! Namely: plucking, eating feces, smelly poop, diarrhea and vomiting - these are all symptoms of something wrong. Birds do not have diarrhea or smelly poop because they are laying eggs. It is true that the first morning poop is usually much larger and 'wetter' than normal for females that are incubating but they are not diarrhea and do not smell any different from regular poop. And they do not vomit, pluck or eat poop, either.

You say that you give her a cuttlebone but this is just calcium, it has no Vit D3 whatsoever and without it, her body cannot absorb the calcium in the cuttlebone so the first order of business is for you to get some calciboost and give her a daily dose for 7 days (it's put in the water so follow the same watering instructions I am giving below for the vitamins). Then get yourself some good multi-vitamin/mineral supplement (get a powder one that can be dissolved in water) and taking away the 'old' water every night, put fresh medicated water back in the cage at dawn (this is the time of the day when they drink so make sure you follow these instructions exactly to ensure she is getting the best bioavailability for the supplements). Give her a daily dose of vit/min powder for 2 whole weeks, then reduce to three days a week. Give her leaves (not chopped) of dark leafy greens every day. A whole grain/veggie mix is great but you do not say what kind of grains you use and that can also make a difference, especially if you are using a human product - also, it needs to be 50% grains, 50% veggies. Eliminate the fruity pellets immediately (this is, by far, the worst food you can give a parrot, full of bad things!) and use pieces of nuts for foraging. Re-evaluate the seed mix and make sure you are getting not only the adequate one (no sunflowers) and that it's fresh (buy the smallest package available).

Now, a better diet and adequate vitamin and mineral supplements could, in time, take care of diarrhea and poop eating if it was only diet related but vomiting and poop with bad smell mean you have an infection there so order some wide-spectrum avian antibiotic online and give it to her for two weeks (Allivet sells doxycycline in little envelopes already measured for 8 oz of water -a measuring cup) and, if the combination of the diet, the antibiotic and vitamin/mineral supplement does not take care of ALL the symptoms, call the vet and see if they can see her.

Also, I do not know where she is laying her eggs but tiel nests are narrow and deep with a small hole on one side at the top (like this: https://www.amazon.com/YJJKJ-Breeding-P ... 50&sr=8-14
) so if she hisses when your hand is near (you simply cannot stick your hand inside a tiel nest), it means she does not have the right kind of nest -and that can be VERY stressful to them because they need complete privacy so review that too and change if it's not the right kind.

I hope you don't take this the wrong way and I completely understand you are going through grief (I recently lost my beloved quaker, Keku, and I still cry every morning and evening when I say Good Morning and Nite-nite to the other birds) and that this requires a process BUT keeping animals means one needs to put their needs before ours so, although my most heartfelt condolences go to you for your loss, please do not wait too long for her to get another mate. Having said that, you do need to wait until all her symptoms are over and that she abandons her eggs (which you should replace with plastic ones because you have single mother that is very sick so there is no way she can raise healthy chicks). I don't know -nobody does- how long it takes for a cockatiel to be ready to breed again after a failed clutch but we do know that female canaries take ten days so I would assume it takes a tiel a bit longer - just as an FYI little piece of info that might come in handy for you.

Recapping:
- Antibiotic
- Calciboost
- Vitamin/Mineral supplement (I use ABBA 2000)
- Diet
- Light schedule (don't forget the two hours of twilight w/o artificial lights)
- Nest

Let me know if there is something that requires further clarification.

[skeleo]

Thank you so much for taking your time to help me!

I mostly mean that she is not showing the same symptoms as Papaya was before he died.

I use this grain mix for her: https://nuts.com/cookingbaking/grains/m ... grain.html Ingredients: Red and white hard wheats, oats, white soft wheat, rye, triticale, and barley.

Her nest is pretty much the bottom of a smaller cage I have beside her big cage. She keeps them in the corner of the small cage and theres a 3-4" plastic base on the cage that she kind of hides behind. Could I make her a nest with a cardboard box or something? I thought that giving them a nest encouraged egg laying and hormonal behavior? And I do replace her eggs with dummy eggs.

You said that she does not have a source of Vitamin D3, what should I do after the water supplements? Should I get her a mineral block or something too?

And I will order that stuff for her right away! Again, thank you so much.

[Pajarita]

I don't give my birds any 'real' nests either BUT, if I had a bird that had a mate, produced eggs regularly and is stressed out, I would because I think that making things easier on them ends up making things easier on us AND I strive real hard to avoid any source of stress to my birds. Do try giving her a cardboard box that is long and has only a little hole on one side (maybe like a soda can box?) and see if this works out better for her.

After you end up with the treatment, you will need to continue with the multi-vitamin/mineral supplement and that has vit D3 in it (as well as calcium, too) so that plus the cuttlebone will be more than enough for her needs UNLESS she lays eggs I suggest you give her a single extra daily dose of calciboost for every egg she lays (tiels lay one egg every other day). I once read that females use 25% of their reserves for each egg they produce and, as they 'take' calcium from their bones (birds can do this, mammals cannot) for the eggshell, I like to 'replace' it asap just in case. That is the way I have been doing it for many, many years and I have never had a single bird produce softshell eggs or become eggbound so although I don't claim this to be the perfect way of doing it, it has consistently worked for me through the years - even with the breeding canaries.

Also, if I were you, I would buy whole grains separately for her gloop because there is something very fishy about the grain mix you are using. The nutritional label indicates it contains 20% calcium and 15% iron but there is no whole grain or combination of them that could have that much iron or calcium naturally (that's why all grain products meant for human consumption have them added - and this mix is meant to be either used for human bread or as a human hot breakfast cereal). Grains are not rich in either so where are these high levels coming from? It has to have something added to it. Birds can only take a max of 2% iron - anything over that is stored in the liver and the accumulation of it produces a condition called hemochromatosis which has no cure in birds (in humans, they do transfusions of 'clean' blood) and is fatal. Did Papaya have advanced liver disease symptoms, by any chance?

[skeleo]

Okay. So, I give the Calciboost for 7 days. And the multi-vitamin supplement for two weeks, then three days a week forever? I thought that supplements in water was dangerous because of bacteria and the chance of overdosing them.

Where could I buy grains that don't have added iron?

And I don't think Papaya had symptoms of advanced liver disease. He was just sleeping at the bottom of the cage for a few days, but would perch at night. And then Friday, he was fluffed up and wouldn't respond to anything. He had seizures and couldn't move before he died.

[skeleo]

How does this vitamin supplement look? https://www.allparrotproducts.com/heart ... n-mineral/

[Pajarita]

Hmmm, I don't know... I don't like any supplement that has selenite in it but, in truth, I have no experience with that vit/min supplement. I have being using ABBA 2000 for almost 30 years now and, as it has always worked well for me, I've had no reason to experiment with others. I've never had a bird get sick from bacteria forming in the water from vitamins and, in all honesty, I think people worry too much over bacteria. And there is no way you can overdose them. Parrots are crepuscular feeders and mostly drink water once a day -sometimes twice- and, going by my observations, pretty much a pre-determined number of sips (which is what makes putting antibiotics in the water successful -because they will inevitably drink the right dose every day). Besides, you will only give her the vit/min supplement two or three times a week after you replenish the depleted reserves. A bird that eats a healthy diet doesn't need a whole lot of vit/min supplemented, it mostly needs the vit D3 and that's only because they are not exposed daily to direct sunlight. Another thing, do not give the bird spinach, collard/beets/mustard greens, parsley or anything else that is high in oxalic acid or iron.

Papaya did have liver disease symptoms. The lethargy and seizures are text book symptoms of hepatic failure and, if he was very skinny when he died, that would be another text-book symptom of it. If I were you, I would add milk thistle, dandelion root and methionine capsules to her soft food, just in case (just the merest sprinkle and get low ones in potency because it's for only one bird -I use two capsules of each in the bowl of gloop I use for everybody).

Any whole grain sold by itself is OK. Organic is best but regular Bob's Red Mill for grains and Lundberg for rices are good. I use oat groats, hulled barley, spelt, kamut, millet (I switch to quinoa during the breeding season) and red and/or black rice (do not use brown or white rice) as well as lentils and, after I cook them and mix them together, I add some flax seed (as well as sesame seed mid summer to help with the coming molt).

[skeleo]

Okay. Thank you so much. I will try to find ABBA 2000.

[liz]

I have been out of it for a while and trying to catch up on my reading. I read everything marked Cockatiel since I have 10 and am still learning.

I may have missed it in your post but you wanted to add another 'Tiel. Make sure you add a male. Male and female Cockatiels will bond to the point of preening not long after introduced. Two males will preen each other and bond like brothers. Two female 'Tiels are two 'Tiels in a cage and will never bond.

I go to the health food store to buy my grain. Ferro is the main ingredient since they really seem to like it. I try to mix 5 grains together. Oat grout, wheat seed, sorghum and etc. I try to get all the seeds the same size since I boil them together and don't want one to turn to gum while popping open the other ones. I then rinse it in cold water until the water is no long clowdy I make a batch large enough for 7 days, bag them and put them in the coldest part of my fridge. I float the bags in hot water before serving. I add frozen carrot and peas since they seem to like them the most.

My 'Tiels are free flight and do not play with toys. If I give them a celery stalk it has to be dark green. They will eat at the ends away from the strings and drag it all over their room.

I have found six eggs so far but they seem to know that they are not fertile and just lay them on the floor instead of in boxes. Impy, a crippled male wants to nest. Lat year he tries to get an egg under him. This year I found one stuck to his leg.

[Pajarita]

I am glad you are feeling more like yourself, Liz, and took the time to reply (for the people who don't know, Liz is our resident expert on cockatiel flocks as she keeps a little one that lives cage-free in a room fitted for their needs and adopts tiels with special needs all the time -Impy is one of them).