Marek's Disease, old age, or something else...?

[zaftig]

Hi folks! I have a time-sensitive situation that suddenly had a wrench thrown into things. First, a quick introduction: I'm a 30-year-old work-from-home gal with a flock of seven feathered friends. Our permanent flock consists of three conures (ages 3, 15, and 18), one Jardine's/red-fronted parrot (10 years old), two 3-year-old budgies, and a gimpy-winged one-eyed cockatiel with a mysterious past. All but the budgies were adopted from my state companion bird club.

Anyways, hubby and I have done volunteer birdsitting for 18 months for two different agencies. We have an opportunity to help a family who is in dire need to emergency temporary relocation for their flock of four birds- an Amazon, greenwing Macaw, African Grey, and a mustached parakeet.

The macaw has a mild plucking issue (around the vent and very bottom of belly, not a pattern I'm used to seeing), and the parakeet had a sudden overnight molt last year and is still recovering. Both the macaw and the Amazon have been in their current household for 15 and 20 years, respectively. The African Grey and the parakeet were procured last year from Atlanta and transported up here to Alaska for addition to the existing flock.

What concerns me the most is the 48-year-old Amazon. Her pupils are VERY misshapen. No white spots or discolorations to indicate any of the more common eye disorders, just normal-colored iris with perfectly black pupils that are so wonky, I can't find an image online to illustrate the severity.

I Googled it and am of course concerned about the possibility of Marek's Disease. Is there anything else that might cause this symptom, like advanced age? I'm admittedly not familiar with the larger, very long-lived parrots, so I'm hoping it's something totally benign. I'm obviously going to recommend that the Amazon go in for a vet visit before I transfer it to my home, but my goal is to research the possibilities to be presented to the owner so they can decide how to proceed.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and I'm very appreciative of any input y'all have on this entire situation.

[marie83]

Honestly I would make sure they all go in for a vet visit and use strict quarantine procedures. Vets reckon 70%+ of all plucking cases are caused by medical or nutritional issues. Overnight moults are not normal either. One of mine did that, she shed a huge amount of feathers in the space of a few days and it stopped as quickly as it had started. We believe my two have other medical issues we have so far been unable to diagnose. Either way none of what you describe sounds normal imo.