Johnny & Akira (and their human Bella)

[xjkbel]

Hi All,

We've been lurking around these forums for a little while, so I decided it was finally time to sign up and participate! My name is Bella, and I have two very sweet cockatiels.

Johnny is my white cockatiel who has been with me since 2007. He's extremely cuddly (never wants the pats and scratches to end!) and absolutely spoiled rotten. He loves shower time, but only in the human shower. Every time he hears the water start he gets extremely excited and starts singing and whistling. I've recently purchased him a suction shower perch so he can hang out in there more often. Has anyone used these before?


Akira is my new 12 week old baby. (She hasn't been DNA sexed, but I'm going with she until her molt proves otherwise). She's missing a chunk out of her ceres on the left side (as seen in the photo), the vet advised this is likely due to pecking in the nest, however I'm still a little concerned to be honest as I've heard this could also be caused by chronic respiratory infections? Obviously I am no professional, and the vet thinks it's fine, but i'm a big worrier!



We hope to get to know everyone a bit better!

[liz]

Welcome to the forum.
The foody face is about as cute a possible. They are all special but only Myrtle will come to me to wipe her beak.

[Wolf]

Welcome to the forum. I can't say what caused the damage to the birds cere, but going with the possibility that this was due to pecking is reasonable, but I would also consider testing for possible respiratory infections. I see no reason to not check it out because although the vet may be right, if it is caused by some infection then time is wasting on treating it.

[Pajarita]

Welcome to the forum! No, it couldn't have been done by a respiratory. Enlarged nares ARE a consequence of chronic respiratories (I had an amazon with both nares enlarged to more than twice their size) but it takes years for them to become like that. This is a bird of only a few weeks so there are two possibilities: trauma or a genetic defect and, in either case, it would not affect the bird's health so don't worry. If the baby had a serious respiratory, you would have noticed symptoms by now (lethargy, labored breathing, tail bob, baby not gaining weight, etc).

[Wolf]

I thought, like the vet, that this was more likely to be the result of trauma, I did not think that it would take so long to have this effect if it were due to respiratory infection, so thank you for that. I also thought about a genetic defect, but don't know enough to really even broach it from that angle.

[xjkbel]

Thank you for the warm welcome and responses everyone (:

Pajarita you've definitely put my mind at ease - what you've said makes a lot of sense.

Akira has a follow up appointment with the vet this afternoon to get test results back from her initial check up last week, but I just thought i'd ask anyway.