PDD Bird

[Cin]

Hello, I have an umbrella cockatoo turned 2yrs in May. She has brought so much fun and joy into our lives. As you can imagine we were devastated when she became ill in JUly. Her blood test came back negative for the virus but she is showing symptoms. She is currently on Celebrex and something to help with digestion.

If there are others out there suffering with this please message me with any and all helpful suggestions

thanks cin

yes, sorry type O... PDD

[Wolf]

Are you sure that it is ppd? My reason is that PPd is a form of tuberculosis that a bird may get from a human but not the other way. The ppd test is highly inaccurate a lot of false positives. The only cases in parrot that have been recorded the bird got it directly from a human.

Are you sure that you don't mean PDD ?

[Cin]

Yes it is PDD, sorry was a type O. I was in a hurry to get out the door this afternoon for an appointment. I've been told to alter her diet, and all I can get her to eat is some seed and pellets. When I got her she was on a strictly seed diet and it took months to get her to eat pellets. Before she became sick she was on a pellet diet with I table spoon of seed a day. She is very picky, doesn't like anything moist to touch her. Everyday I would offer her something new to try with no luck.

She is now unable to perch on one foot and is very off balance. She gets around her cage using her beak to help keep her from falling. I drive her to one of the best avian vets in our area, it is a two plus hr drive one way. Besides taking her there and changing the diet I don't know what else to do. How do you get the birds to try different foods? I am at at loss, with little to no experience with birds.

Thanks again in advance for helpful suggestions
cin

[Wolf]

The best way to get a parrot of any species to try a new food is to set down and eat it in front of them while constantly making good food sounds as well as telling them how good it is and keep offering them a little bite of it. This doesn't work right away, well it might but don't count on it, it usually takes many times of you doing this to get them to taste it even the first time. Even then don't give up, if they take a bite and spit it out, just keep trying. For most of us this is an ongoing process.

[Cin]

Thank you, will keep trying.

[Pajarita]

My dear, please, please, please don't take this the wrong way but I would strongly recommend you consider putting the bird down asap. PDD is a very painful and completely debilitating disease that has no cure so even if you can get the bird to eat a better diet (unlikely as everything the bird eats gives it terrible pain -crop starts with sores which graduate to actual perforations and disintegration), treat it with pain medicines (they also try antivirals, including experimental parrot-specific gamma and alpha interferon, muscle motility drugs, etc) and supplements, it won't change anything because if your bird is already having balance issues, the degeneration is now neurological and that means a few months of life at best with constant physical suffering. I realize that you love your bird and must be devastated by this terrible news (my heart goes out to you, believe me!) but this is a terrible disease which is always fatal, and, in your bird's case, it's already advanced and not in its first stages so the kindest thing you can do for her is to end her suffering sooner rather than later.