Pineapple Cheek Conure acting strangely.

[Cinae]

I'm more than sure this is my fault, too. He doesn't like to sleep at night and I assume it's due to being afraid of the dark/being alone. Since those two things tend to set him off the most. If there's light and someone is around, he's a very good, quiet bird.

I had been placing him in my grandmother's room the past couple of nights since it's now vacant. Unfortunately it's located above our Garage, has a hardwood floor, is a large room and can sometimes get pretty cool. I wrap his cage up as much as I can and he does sleep under a very fluffy hat that I gave him which he loves. I fear he may have gotten sick from a possible draft, though.

He only showed signs today of something being wrong. He's still alert as always, chirps, was actually just eating a bunch and drank water. The thing that has me concerned is he threw up on me, I also noticed old throw up on his ladder. The dried throw up on the ladder was chunky food, it may have had liquid too. The vomit I ended up getting on me was the same, basically. Just not as much. He was pretty quiet suddenly for over an hour, or so. He was fluffed up, looking at me. I took him out of his cage and he sat silently on my hand/on my shoulder doing nothing. Normally he's all over the place, running around, chewing on things, chirping, being frisky. Kind of like a puppy. He's just about to hit a year old on January 24th.

I'm pretty concerned right now, he seems a bit better honestly, but I'd still like to know the possibilities of this being something serious.

I ended up giving him a drop and a half of some Colloidal Silver and that was when he showed improvement.

Forgive me for the story. I wanted to be as thorough as I could.

[Wolf]

If you have a heating pad wrap it in a heavy towel and place it in a box and put the bird on the towel, you need to keep him warm and that means 90 degrees or 95 degrees F. Then try to find an avian vet right away as you bird is very sick. By the time that birds show illness thy could die. Also you gave your bird a metal that has known toxic effects on birds and by doing so may have poisoned him. Ingested silver is known to be toxic in humans, and birds are very sensitive to heavy metals. You really need to get this bird to a vet right away.

[Cinae]

I had looked up giving Colloidal Silver to birds though and people have done so before. It had actually healed/cured their birds, so I don't understand.
I'll be calling his vet tomorrow though to see what can be done. Currently, we're very extremely tight on money so I'm very unsure of what to do. I will definitely try to find a heating pad though and do that for him.

[Wolf]

I read your post and can produce links giving you fact sheets saying that it is not safe for ingestion by humans as well as the fact that the FDA is bring lawsuits to bear on manufactures of these products for false and unsubstantiated claims about the benefits of colloidal silver. Laboratory test have shown that it has no beneficial effects in the body as well as that silver poisoning is neither curable nor are it toxic effect reversible.
Can you provide documentation from independent sources( not the manufacturer) testifying to the validity of the benefits of this known poison? Silver poisoning has been known about for many, many years.
Most vets will take payments.

[Wolf]

I have worked with animals for 40 to 45 years both privately and professionally, mostly with abused animals, but I must admit that I only have a few years experience with parrots. It was due to a parrot showing up at my house in the country looking for food and water that I got involved with them at all. Since the temperatures were below freezing at night here in the mountains at that time of the year I let the bird come into the house, so that it would have a chance to live. I could not find where it came from so she still lives with me. Because I did not have the required know how to take care of this bird I started researching this bird, first by identifying it and then to find out what to feed it.
Looking back on it, I guess that I was lucky as there is no where locally that has any useful information about parrots so I went online and except for going to the store foe bird seed I studied and waded through a nightmare of claims that could not be documented and this misinformation covered every aspect of parrots from feeding and general care to training and even in some cases medical information. The keeping of companion birds is a new industry in the USA and only goes back about 20 to 25 years. There has been a lot of research since that time as most of what we were told that long ago was all based on chickens and not on parrots. Despite the research since that time the surface of companion bird keeping, nutrition and veterinary science has barely been scratched. There are no experts in this area whatsoever, not even the vets. This is how new of an industry this is and it is filled with information that has since been proven to be wrong.
It is for that reason that I searched for parrot forums and joined this one, and it is also the reason that I say that I will provide links to my sources of information and also encourage all people with these remarkable birds to start researching everything that they can find on their birds, but do it right and look for scientific articles pertaining to birds not any bird forum or individual. The forum can help by getting you pointed in the right direction and some of them are all fluff with very little useful information.

[liz]

I have 4 charge cards. That seems like a lot but the interest charges keep changing. 3 are on $0 but the 4th one has vet expenses. I am on a fixed income and just last month Jasmine, a little dog, tore a ligament and had to have surgery. $1100 will not come out of my budget so I charged it. I make above minimum payments and yes I have to pay interest but Jasmine can walk again.
When I took Rambo and Myrtle for their checkups I had the time but had already spent my money so I charged it then paid it off. It would be like having a gas card. You only buy gas when you need it. Without the card you might not be able to drive home.

Search the web for a 0% credit card with a 0 annual fee. If you don't have any credit it might be just $500 but it will be enough to get care for your pets.

I used to use it for my medical but thank the Lord the VA is now taking care of me. I can't afford myself.

[Pajarita]

Cinae, you are right that there are people who say they have used colloidal silver with success but then people say that pellets are good for their birds, that clipping them does not affect them, that keeping them at a human light schedule is fine and there is even people who swear by something called Herb Salad when, in reality, it's nothing but a gimmick. You can NOT go by what people say on the internet. It's not that all of them lie, it's that some are convinced of the wrong thing (have you ever heard of the placebo effect?) just because they saw it on the internet and without doing any type of real research.

Your bird is sick and although heat will help, he needs to go to a vet. You can't put him in a cold room even if you wrap his cage, his body simply does not produce enough heat, it's too small and, if you exposed him to dusk fully, he would fall asleep with night without a problem. By keeping him to a human light schedule and leaving a source of light in his room, his endocrine system is malfunctioning which, in turn, depresses his immune system making me more prone to disease.

Please take him to an avian vet asap. If you have to, borrow a credit card from somebody because, by the time you notice the first symptom, the bird has been sick for days so time is of the essence when they get sick.

[Harpmaker]

I agree that you need to get your GCC to an avian vet ASAP. Once a bird can't hide symptoms anymore you only have a short time to diagnose and treat your buddy before it's too late. Please keep us posted on what happens. We worry about your bird almost as much as we do our own.