concerned about my ringnecks health

[maydayparade23]

Hi everyone, I would like to address some concerns I have about my ringnecks health but before I go into that I'd like to share with you some background information so you can understand my view points. My bird is a ringneck parrot and his name is Monty. He is cared for by everyone in the family but is in love and attached to my brother and has been since he was a baby. Now, my brother has gone away for a week and it is the longest time Monty has spent away from him. Since my brother has left, Monty has changed dramatically and nothing like I have seen. He has been displaying some unusual behaviour and now also has symptoms that are concerning me that I'm considering taking him to the vet, but the thing is, my brother is the only one that calms down Monty, the only one Monty trusts and the only one that can handle him.

The first few days my brother was away Monty has been seeming depressed and not his talkative self. He has starting plucking himself not often but sometimes. He seems very stressed and often waits at the window for my brother to come back but hasn't had luck yet. He is still eating the same but the plucking and his other behaviours as stated are concerning me.

To add to that today I woke up to find him at the bottom of the cage he appeared to be breathing heavily but when he saw me when to his perch. Since this morning I have been monitoring him, he has sneezed once, chucked up white phlegm once and has continued to breath heavily that he seems to move forward when this happens. This only started this morning. He seems a little bit better and is no longer sleeping at the bottom of his cage and has been flying around the house enjoying himself and cleaning himself (no plucking yet). However I am concerned is he suffering separation anxiety and is there something else? I'm closely monitoring him today but if there's no change my mum is taking him to the vet but we are worried it may stress him out without his one love aka my brother bring there. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated

[Wolf]

You could call it separation anxiety but I call it grief. You see the bird bonded to your brother, just exactly the same as it would have bonded to its mate in the wild. In the wild the only reason for its mate to not be there is that it is dead and this is the way that the bird is seeing this , His mate( your brother) is gone presumed dead and the bird is grief stricken, with broken heart the whole nine yards. just the same as if the love of your life walked out the door and died.
This type and amount of stress can make the bird very ill and if it is not better in the morning I would take it to the vet to make sure that it is not getting a serious illness from a depressed immune system, brought on by stress.
You could get it a mate although you would need to quarantine the new bird for 30 days. This would have an effect on the bond between this bird and your brother although if your brother keeps working with it and spending time with it the bond would not be lost although it would be lessened.

[Pajarita]

He is sick and needs to see a vet. I agree with Wolf that the bird is grieving for your brother but grief causes emotional stress which, in turn, depresses the immune system so he also got sick. Please take him to the vet asap because I don't like the phlegm he brought up and the labored breathing. Birds go down real fast when sick and depressed.