bile acid readings way high for young gcc

[ickybird]

we have had a new gcc for less than a week. She.he, is very active, in good feather, weight right in the middle of where it should be, bird smells a wee bit sour to me, but I am the only one to smell it. Poop is totally normal, even on lab. EVERYTHING looks great.....except the bile acids are off the charts. Three times higher than what you would expect.
When the A/vet told me what was wrong, we set out to find how to fix it and how it happened. I notified the store and the manager was VERY helpful. But I was able to give her more helpful information than she was me. They do have their own vets but either they do not do blood work, or they did not catch this ( crappy lab?). The other three birds that came with this one have all been sold. This bird is only about 5 months old.! In the store, they were on a pellet, frozen veg diet. The handfeeder uses a national brand of formula. I asked the store to find out what protocols are used at the breeders as far as cleanliness is concerned. Because the bird is with in weight limits and has no eating disorders, I assume the handfeeding process what done correctly.
WE have the bird in quarantine and intend to keep it there for 90 days. I have the bird on denamarin 2 x day. and When the vet gets in some milk thissel, I will be putting the bird on that. Our diet has always included Harrison's pellets and TOPS. I am going to be adding some dandelion greens, parsley and broccoli, as well as a bit of egg to the diet. ( no more frozen peas, corn and carrots, I was thinking about black cherry juice. The A.vet is going out to her contacts for anything that she may learn.
Something is wrong. I don't know if something WENT wrong or if the bird is genetically 'wrong'. Does any one have any suggestions, ideas, more questions I should ask?

[marie83]

I don't really have any ideas or answers for you but I do hope you get to the bottom of it. Keep us updated so we can learn too.

[Pajarita]

High bile acids values mean one thing and one thing only, the liver is not working properly. For a bird that young, it cannot be diet (GCC are fruit eaters so a high protein diet would mess up their liver -and that means NO pellets! but it takes a while for this to happen) so it can only be disease, infection or a genetic defect. Did your vet do a full body X-Ray? This would tell you if the liver is swollen (it would not be enlarged on such a young bird) or too small or has any weird 'connection' missing or something. If it is swollen, you are most likely dealing with an infection. Not all infections make the white cell count go higher, fungal infections sometimes don't although all bacterial ones would.

If the liver is not swollen, you might be dealing with the sequela of a disease that was cured but damaged the liver in the process (like chlamydia, for example).

Now, unless it's a genetic malformation, it's fairly easy to bring back the liver because, thankfully, this organ is so important to life that it actually regenerates itself. The key to doing this is a low protein, low fat diet and supplements. And it's because of the low protein that you can't feed pellets as pellets never give you an exact protein content. If you look at all the pellets nutritional labels, you will see that they all list protein as a 'not less than' or 'larger than' value so, if the label says, say, 20%, you could be feeding 40% for all you know and the label would still be correct. That's why I always recommend that birds that have liver and kidney issues be fed mash, chop, gloop or goop. I feed gloop to all my psittacines from the budgies to the cockatoos and they all do VERY well on it (and I have birds with severe liver damage as well as kidney malfunction). Gloop is a dish made out of cooked whole grains (when you are talking liver, another thing that is VERY beneficial is to feed only organic food because all chemicals are filtered by the liver and by not feeding anything with chemicals you are saving the liver work and it can concentrate on healing), beans and veggies. You need to use cereal grains like wheat, barley, kamut, brown rice, oats, mix with small white beans (only this kind, not another) and cooked veggies like chopped broccoli, baked sweet potatoes, corn, peas, diced or grated carrots, green beans, etc.

Then you have the supplements (and I am an old pro at this because I take in old birds with health problems so I've had to deal with liver issues for years):

Mixed with their spring or filtered water (again, you want to eliminate all pollutants to save the liver work): aloe vera juice (from the inner leaf and not gel, only juice at a rate of 1/3 juice and 2/3 water), Liquid, non-alcoholic milk thistle and dandelion root extract and lemon juice (vit C helps the liver heal itself) and a bit of lactulose (you will need a prescription from your vet for this)
Mixed with the gloop: Vit B6, methionine, cysteine, milk thistle, dandelion root and artichoke extract capsules.

I have a cockatiel that I took in eleven months ago in terrible shape. The AV said he would not last two months because both his liver and kidneys were almost gone but he is still alive today and he even got a bit better (the polyuria has not disappeared but it has diminished greatly and he now perches and preens -not normally but he does it whereas before he didn't).

[toyszruskid]

Pajarita - I sent you a PM with a question regarding high bile acids in my recently adopted Eclectus. The message is showing up in the Outbox and not sent folder, so I'm not sure if it sent! I know this is an old thread, but I'm concerned about my bird and have some questions. Thanks so much.

[Pajarita]

I already replied to it. Let me know if you need anything else.