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Diabetic Blue and Gold

Talk about bird illnesses and other bird health related issues. Seeds, pellets, fruits, vegetables and more. Discuss what to feed your birds and in what quantity. Share your recipe ideas.

Re: Diabetic Blue and Gold

Postby Loriusgarrulus » Sun Jan 01, 2017 6:22 am

Would it be worth soaking her pelletts in warm water,( not boiling as it can wreck some vitamins) and changing them regularly, removing uneaten so they dont go off to increase the fluid uptake and negate the dehydrating effect of dry pellets.
I soak my lories pellets in apple juice and he loves them, not sure if a water soak might be better for the diabetes. Hopefully someone else might know.
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Re: Diabetic Blue and Gold

Postby missscoot » Sun Jan 01, 2017 7:55 am

I actually am soaking her pellets now because with the glipizide in her water yesterday, she wasn't drinking as much. I am sure the med is probably not the best tasting. I was concerned that she was not getting enough of her med or enough to drink. Her amount of urine is less. So I soaked them in hopes that this would help and she does appear to be eating the soaked pellets and actually was drinking out of her bottle this morning. I don't want to add fresh water because I am afraid she would choose that over the water with her med in it. I also wonder if she is drinking less and has less urine because the glipizide has actually lowered her sugar levels. I used test strip this morning but doesn't register any sugar where the day before yesterday it was over 1000. I
know it isn't completely accurate but obviously there is a difference.
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Re: Diabetic Blue and Gold

Postby Pajarita » Sun Jan 01, 2017 11:43 am

Well, why don't you try giving her the medicine in water with juice (I would use lemon, it's low in fructose and it's very good for the liver -natural detoxifier- and parrots love sour) or with baby food from a syringe (all handfed parrots love to eat from a syringe, especially if it's warm). That's what I would do because, that way, I can ensure the bird gets the entire dosage all at once and I wouldn't have to worry during the day. I use the meds in water method but mostly with passerines because none of them are handfed so giving them meds in their beak is extremely stressful to them. But, when it comes to parrots and meds that need to be measured, I do it in their beak. And then you can give her a nice bowl of water which I am sure she will enjoy (bottles are sooooo unnatural for a bird!).

I can well imagine how overwhelmed you are right now! But do consider a change in diet because eating a diet closer to what nature intended them to eat is not stressful to an animal - it's actually the opposite, it reduces stress, both physically and psychologically. Nature is a very hard taskmaster and extremely thrifty so every single behavior, every single nutritional parameter, every aspect of their environment is exactly as it should be and there isn't a whole lot of leeway about these things - not in the long run. And I believe that our 'tweaking' things for our parrots is what is causing them to get these diseases which are completely unknown of in the wild. Pellets are a man invention which doesn't even comply with the basic nutritional parameters of parrots natural diets (I know the manufacturers say they do but theirs is a completely unregulated industry so they can claim whatever they want and still be within the law). Man has a tendency to think they know more than nature and to put profits before the animals' wellbeing and that never works out well for undomesticated species...
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Re: Diabetic Blue and Gold

Postby missscoot » Sun Jan 01, 2017 3:12 pm

The reason the glipizide is in her water is so that she gets a little at a time throughout the day and hopefully as the medicine works her urination slows, her excess drinking slows and then the amount of her medication lessons. At least this is how the vet explained it to me. So I can't just give it to her all at once and I wouldn't even know the dosage to give her that way.

As for the pellets, I understand what you are saying. But Mickey has been on Kaytee Pellets her whole life (along with natural foods also). 26 years. I wonder if changing her diet now at this time is what might give her stress in itself not the food I would give her. I am not sure what kind of diet change you would recommend. I know it is suppose to be low carb and low sugar diet. I would think that I could possibly try to encourage a different diet slowly with access to her pellets also. What I don't quite understand though....It was recommended to me to seek out the thoughts of a well known Avian specialist in Florida who specializes in illness in birds. Under the section telling about her was a list of many things she does and one listing was Veterinarian advisor for Kaytee. If pellets are that bad why would a well known specialist do that if they didn't believe in the products. Just a thought. And its so funny that when I first brought home Mickey pellets were the thing to do!!! Absolutely the best thing for your birds. I guess things have changed. :) Thank you so much for your time and thoughts.
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Re: Diabetic Blue and Gold

Postby missscoot » Sun Jan 01, 2017 3:18 pm

Oh I will try the lemon in the water though to see if it might cover the taste of the med some. Thank you for the idea.
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Re: Diabetic Blue and Gold

Postby Pajarita » Mon Jan 02, 2017 1:29 pm

Well, humans take glipizide once or twice a day (when the dosage is high) so I doubt it needs to be done throughout the day. The norm is once a day, 30 minutes before breakfast - I tried doing some research to see if it's any different with birds but there aren't any real indications anywhere (diabetes in birds is still uncommon although I have heard of more cases lately), only that vets recommend the owner puts it in the water -same as glyburide, a similar oral med for type 2 diabetes and also used for birds- but no explanation on whether this is actually necessary or just to make things easier on both the bird and the owner.

A transition in diet is never done cold turkey, it's always done at the bird's pace, slowly and gradually. The bird is never supposed to actually go hungry although, for a diabetic bird that is taking medicine that lowers blood sugar, I would make it even slower so as not to cause a dip in it that would cause the bird discomfort. I hope that when you say Kaytee's pellets, you are not talking about the fruity ones which actually have white sugar added to them and which is, precisely, what parrots should never, ever get, sick or healthy.

Avian vets don't study parrot nutrition or behavior. I have a few avian medicine and surgery text books (the same ones they use to pass the exam to become board certified -there is no graduate school on avian medicine, just a test) and the chapter on avian (not parrot) nutrition is actually very short because if it was going to cover all the different species, one would need the Library of Congress just for it (think of all the hundreds of different species of birds with completely different diets there are - you have carnivores, omnivores, herbivores, fructivores, insectivores, etc all the way to nectarivores!). Avian vets study avian anatomy, physiology, pathogens, etc so they can treat disease, disorder or injury but not natural diets. They are used to dealing with animals that have been domesticated for thousands of years (like dogs, cats, cows, sheep, etc.) and for which we are still making mistakes even after thousands of years of accumulated knowledge (think about it, it's only very recently that we stopped recommending feeding carnivores food made out of corn and soy - most people still feed Dog Chow and Cat Chow even though everybody should know better by now) Of course, the anatomy and physiology of each species is directly related to the diet nature evolved them to have but, in general and although very few of them will admit to it, avian vets don't really know that much about parrot nutrition and what each species nutritional parameters are. The greatest majority of them will recommend pellets for them, but that's because the only real info they get about this subject is from the pellets representatives who, of course, repeat the same mantra: 100% nutritionally complete diet! As if you could feed the same thing to a macaw, a cockatoo, an amazon, etc and as if a processed, low quality ground up grain and seeds mixed with man-made vitamins was anywhere near what nature intended for them to eat! And because the ones that actually do know more about parrot nutrition (because they have had parrots of their own and learned about it) don't trust people to feed them right (and this was admitted to me by more than one avian vet, mind you!). They look at pellets as the lesser evil... but I believe that, eventually, they will begin to realize that most of the unheard of in the wild conditions captive birds develop are, in fact, caused by an inadequate long term diet, lack of exercise, etc.

Personally, if you are feeding her the fruity Kaytee, I would stop immediately (or as soon as possible) and would start her on organic gloop with raw produce (with emphasis on high moisture, low glycemic index items) and some nuts for dinner (all nuts are low GI). I developed gloop 20 years ago after getting my first rescue diagnosed with high uric acid and finding out that the medicine the avian vet was prescribing for her was no good for the long term as well as the fact that she had gotten sick from the diet she had been eating all her life and which I had continued in my ignorance. I feed gloop to all my parrots and found it to be a wonderful food for them (it's easy, it's organic, it's nutritious and they ALL love it!) as well as a very convenient medium to add supplements. I have treated birds with liver damage, kidney deficiency, neurological problems, pluckers, self-mutilators, etc and it has worked out for every single one of them because it's closer to what nature meant for them to eat and you don't need to measure it so they can eat as much as they want without gaining weight. I have tweaked the recipe countless times because I have not stopped doing research on their natural diets and, as we learn more and more about them and about nutrition in general, I have eliminated certain ingredients (like dry corn, for example), switch others for better ones (like brown rice for black and/or red one) and added beneficial ones to it (like sweet potatoes, butternut squash and artichoke hearts) - and, most likely, it will be tweaked over and over as it is and always will be a work in progress.
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Re: Diabetic Blue and Gold

Postby missscoot » Tue Jan 03, 2017 8:18 pm

Thank you for the information and your thoughts. I am following the directions my vet has given me. At this time that is all I know to do. I would like to try to change Mickeys diet in hopes that it might help but I really don't know where to begin. As you said there isn't a lot of information out there. I don't even know what the slop diet is. I don't know if I should use supplements.
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Re: Diabetic Blue and Gold

Postby Wolf » Wed Jan 04, 2017 9:26 am

No information given here is meant to replace what your vet recommends. But it is always a good idea to do your own research as well as to ask lots of questions.

Vets are not generally trained beyond just the basics when it comes to diet and behavioral issues. Changing aa birds diet from a poor one to one that is more nutritious is always a good idea, but it should be done gently, not all at once. Even the Ct of changing our own diets can cause us stress if it is done too fast.
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