Intestinal problem, watery poop

[Pajarita]

Actually, it's not that it tells 'quicker' it's that it's the ONLIEST test that measures liver function. No other test does. I do it for all my new and older parrots. It's essential.

[liz8200]

Ok Monday morning I will call the Vet and make an appointment for the test. He will probably want to do the probe still.
I hate putting my Conjure threw all the back and forth to the Vet. I want to know what the answer is and I hope this will find the problem. If it does not I will take him to the specialist for x-ray.
I have not had much luck with the diet. I made the Goop and he eats the beans out of it.
Why do you do the bile test on all your birds?

[Wolf]

First of all I would feed the gloop to the cockatiels as well, it is as good for them as it is for Bean and if they can see each other eating then it will encourage all of them to eat more of it. Also you must realize that it will take a little time as this is a food that he has never seen before and so he is rightfully suspicious of it. Be patient and sprinkle a little of his old food on the top of it and if he isn't eating a reasonable amount of it on the third day give him a single portion of his old food and then go back to the gloop for three days and repeat as needed. Un fortunately this is not something that you can afford to fail at so do not give up. It takes patience as well as persistence and consistency. It will happen.

[Pajarita]

Why do you do the bile test on all your birds?

I only have two birds that came to me younger than 3 years old, the greatest majority of them are what we would call 'older' birds (although they are not really old if one goes by their life expectancy) and have not had a good enough diet so I do the bile acids to see how their liver is doing because if they have abnormal or borderline values, I put them on liver cleansers and tonics for a while. Parrots usually die of three main causes: untreated respiratories, liver or kidney failure and all three of them are normally diet related. The respiratories are from lack of vit A and stress (depressed immune system) and the liver and kidneys are because of too much protein and fat in their diet. Now, respiratories are easy to spot and a CBC would show an increase on white cells indicating an infection (this is not 100% true because you can have a bird with an aspergilloma and it would not show anything on the CBC but I am generalizing). Kidney malfunction shows in the regular chem panel but liver doesn't until the liver is only working at 25% capacity - and I learned this the hard way with a parrot I had rescued that ended up dead of aflatoxin poisoning and had normal AST levels until about one month before he died (the vet misdiagnosed him and never even suggested I did a bile acids -and he is considered the best avian vet of the region where I was living at the time!).

[liz8200]

Wow now i get it. It doesn't show up in those tests. The Vet has tested everything you said. I did not think about the liver. He did some blood test that showed all the organs where ok according to the test. But what you describe makes since.
Should I take all the seeds out of the cage and only give him Goop with seeds on top? What if he doesn't eat anything?

[Wolf]

No seeds in the morning except those sprinkled on the gloop and don't forget to give him a piece of fruit a raw vegetable and a leafy green along with his gloop. This is all he needs for the day. Then feed a measured portion of a seed mix for his dinner and remove it when he goes to sleep at night.
If you put or leave the seed mix in the cage when you give him the gloop he will not try the gloop and you will never get him on a good diet as he will just continue to eat the seed diet which is killing him. It is unfortunate that he will have to get hungry enough to start eating the gloop because he doesn't recognize it as food yet, but his getting a little hungry is much better than for him to die when you can prevent it. It is unfortunate that you need to look at it in this manner as well. I wish that this had been caught much sooner than this so that this could have been done over a longer period of time, but this is where we are and what must be dealt with and I really do not mean to be harsh but anything less than the truth is not going to help either you or your bird.

[Pajarita]

I have transitioned literally hundreds of birds to gloop and this is what I do: I give them a measured amount of a low protein seed mix (budgie or parakeet mix - and for a conure the size of yours I would use two level measuring tablespoons) for dinner when the sun is going down. Once it's night and they are asleep (or half asleep), I take out the seed bowl and cover them. In the morning, when dawn is beginning to break, I uncover them and without turning on the lights, give them fresh water, a piece of fruit, a piece of veggie and a leafy green (they don't eat them at the beginning but they start doing it later on). Once the sun is out and I see sun rays shining through the windows, I turn on the overhead lights and give them gloop with a bit of the budgie seed mixed into it (not just sprinkle but mixed in so they have to look for them under the gloop). I no longer bother with making different stages of gloop but that's because I have multiple birds and, as the new ones see the 'older' ones eating it, they start doing it, too. But, in your case, I would start with just a mix of grains (wheat and kamut kernels, oat groats, barley, brown and/or black and/or red rice and wild rice). Make sure you don't cook them thoroughly and leave them 'al dente' (soft on the outside but hard on the inside) so they 'feel' in their beak like softened seeds. Once you see he is eating both the seeds and the grains (you will find empty, almost transparent, little 'skins') for several days in a row without even waiting to get real hungry, eliminate the seeds and start adding fresh sweet corn. When he has been eating the grains and the corn for several days, add sweet peas. Wait until he eats them and then add diced carrots - and so on and so forth until he is eating a 'normal' gloop of 50% grains and pulses (you can start adding the beans when you see he is eating most of everything in there) and 50% veggies.

I am caring for a sun conure while his owner recuperates and he came here eating nothing but the fruity pellets (and I do mean nothing else, at all!) and he now eats his gloop (corn, peas, carrots, sweet potato, broccoli, white hominy, blue kale, butternut or acorn squash, artichoke hearts) plus apples, bananas, oranges, cantaloupe, corn on the cob, blackberries, blueberries, grapes, pomegranate seeds, celery, red/orange/yellow peppers, spaghetti and butternut squash, grape tomatoes, white and purple potatoes, and even leafy greens! It's all a matter of timing and persistence.

[bean]

When you say add a tiny bit of garlic for taste, about how much, and in what form? Is chopped garlic,the kind in a jar o.k. if you don't have garlic cloves?

[bean]

I read back several pages about the bile acid test, and the AST values. On Bean's test results it says AST on the top line, and then BA, on the line under this. Am I correct in assuming that BA in this case should be the Bile Acid?

[liz]

I never heard of gloop before Pajarita and Wolf taught me. Mine nag me in the morning until they get it. By noon the grain skins are all over the place (they eat together) even stuck to their beaks. One morning as I walked by Flutter had a piece of corn in his mouth, called me then ran through the food dishes to get to the side of the cage. I guess it was the first time he ever had corn and he wanted to let me know that he really liked it. By the time he got to the side of the cage he had run through the food plates and had grain skins stuck to his feet.