Parakeet attacked by cat

[milenko]

Hey guys I'm new to this forum but I've always come on here to get tips on anything I'm curious about so I figured this is the best place to ask a question!

Anyways, I have a couple of cats and I always keep them out of my bird room. They've never really tried to get to my birds anyways, but I'm always extremely cautious. The other night I left my room for two minutes & forgot to close the door... so the cat had got one of my budgies in his mouth. Apparently he didn't have a tight grip on my budgie as it was very easy for me to grab him out of the cats mouth, he flew away just fine. After that incident happened, my budgies wing was injured because he was holding it up. No blood or anything but I still took him to the ER Vet to be safe. They kept him overnight in an oxygen cage & gave him antibiotics for possibly blood poisoning from the cats mouth. They said there were no cuts seen but he had a couple of bruises on his neck and wing. I went the next day to see how my bird was doing and he seemed very happy, flying around and not holding his wing up anymore. The vet told me he looked horrible in the morning and wasn't eating or drinking so i was expecting the worst. He seemed to think my budgie wasn't going to make it and advised me not to take him home because he would probably die and wanted me to keep him there for another night. I decided to take my budgie home because he seemed great and he wont eat or drink if its not from his bowls, when I brought him home he was singing and eat & drank so much. Its been 3 days since I took him home from the vet and have been giving him the prescribed antibiotics myself. He seems completely fine and normal, he's singing and eating and flapping his wings in the cage because he wants to get out (they told me to not let him fly for a week because of his bruised wing.)

I wanted to throw out there he is 9 this year. He seems to have a very very small bobbing of his tail occasionally, it's not always there but it's still a concern to me. I'm not sure if its the medication or the possible infection he could be fighting off thats causing him to have trouble breathing? Today he started making this weird throat noise... i really cant describe it but it sounds almost like he needs to clear this throat??? or some type of gargling... There's no coughing or beak breathing, he still makes normal chirping sounds. I find the weird sound to be present when he's eating from his crop??? I'm bringing him to another vet tomorrow to get a second opinion on him but I wanted to know what you all think? Than you!

[Pajarita]

Well, not being there and hearing the noise it's very hard to give an opinion but both the tail bob and the breathing noise could be related. Do you free-feed seeds? Because, if you do and taking into consideratin his age, it could be liver issues. Let me explain. When you free-feed seeds to any parrot, the too high protein and fat end up going into their livers in the form of fatty nodules (little balls of fat embedded into the liver). Because the nodules are taking room in the liver, thereby impairing its function (the liver needs to have the mass of organ tissue it's supposed to have so, when you fill up the mass with something else than organ tissue, the function is diminished), the liver, noble organ that it is, becomes larger so there is, again, the amount of organ tissue necessary for its function. The more fatty nodules, the larger the liver becomes and the more space it takes up inside the bird's body. This creates a problem for the body and ascites begin to form (basically, it's a liquid that forms in the abdominal cavity because, as the liver becomes impaired, blood flow into it decreases which, in turn, prevents the kidneys from getting rid of the extra salt and this, in turn, makes the fluid build-up). Because birds have pairs of air sacs all over the place connected to each other and the lungs, the build up of fluid prevents them from inflating properly and this causes the labored breathing.

So, let me know if you free-feed protein food (seeds, pellets, avicakes, nutriberries, etc) so we can eliminate the liver cause because I don't think that this was caused by the cat grabbing him.

[milenko]

Hey thank you so much for that info! The noise he's making sounds a bit like crackling. He's completely better from the cat attack, the vet said no more bruising anywhere. So the liver issues you described is exactly what the vet said to me as well, she took a look at his beak and his breathing and told me he seems to be having some liver issues from what she can see on the outside. She gave me some stuff to help with his liver which i give every 12 hours. Yes I do free feed seeds, so thats definitely part of it and I was told to start introducing other things into his diet. He has a female parakeet in his cage as well

Well, not being there and hearing the noise it's very hard to give an opinion but both the tail bob and the breathing noise could be related. Do you free-feed seeds? Because, if you do and taking into consideratin his age, it could be liver issues. Let me explain. When you free-feed seeds to any parrot, the too high protein and fat end up going into their livers in the form of fatty nodules (little balls of fat embedded into the liver). Because the nodules are taking room in the liver, thereby impairing its function (the liver needs to have the mass of organ tissue it's supposed to have so, when you fill up the mass with something else than organ tissue, the function is diminished), the liver, noble organ that it is, becomes larger so there is, again, the amount of organ tissue necessary for its function. The more fatty nodules, the larger the liver becomes and the more space it takes up inside the bird's body. This creates a problem for the body and ascites begin to form (basically, it's a liquid that forms in the abdominal cavity because, as the liver becomes impaired, blood flow into it decreases which, in turn, prevents the kidneys from getting rid of the extra salt and this, in turn, makes the fluid build-up). Because birds have pairs of air sacs all over the place connected to each other and the lungs, the build up of fluid prevents them from inflating properly and this causes the labored breathing.

So, let me know if you free-feed protein food (seeds, pellets, avicakes, nutriberries, etc) so we can eliminate the liver cause because I don't think that this was caused by the cat grabbing him.

[Pajarita]

The 'crackling' noise you hear is his compromised air sacs. It's the way that birds do what would be coughing for us. They can't really cough because the air that goes in when they breathe is not the same air that goes out right after (like we and all mammals do), it's actually air that was breathed in previously as it has to go through the entire 'circuit' of lungs to air sacs to another set of air sacs to another set of air sacs, etc before it comes out. And you described it exactly as it sounds and how it's explained by canariculturists when they want to teach the sound they hear in the canaries chests when they have a severe infection (usually with air sac mites).

You need to change his diet immediately (it's easy, actually -they all love gloop - you just have to put it on a paper plate at the bottom of the cage instead of in a bowl) and start him on milk thistle and dandelion root non-alcoholic liquid extracts in his water as well as capsules of both plus methionine in his soft food. One dropper squirt of each liquid extracts into a bowl of, say, four or five ounces of water and one capsule of each into, say, a cup of soft food will do the trick. Mind you, this is not going to cure him because once the liver is enlarged, it will not shrink back to a normal size but the supplements combined with a better diet will stop the progress of the condition and even reverse some of the consequences of it. Check to see what it is, exactly, that the vet gave you and tell me because, if it's milk thistle or something similar, I recommend you use my method instead of stressing him out by putting something in his beak twice a day...6

[tommythomas]

This is something really concern me. I have a few cats at home and a lot thing need to be considered if I decide to adopt parrot as a pet. Hope your Parakeet is getting better. This is a piece of new knowledge for me. The crackling sound.

[Pajarita]

Having cats does not mean you cannot have birds but it does mean that you need to plan in advance and NEVER let your guard down. I have -and have always had- multiple dogs and cats (I rescue them, too, as well as birds) and what I do is, early in the am, when I go downstairs to let the dogs out, I bring the cats upstairs to their room. This might sound hard but, in reality, it's super easy. It implies two things: 1) you cannot free-feed your cats (something that is not that healthy to begin with) and 2) feed them twice a day always in the same place. When I walk upstairs, all the cats follow me and even run in front of me and go into their room to get their breakfast and that's where they spend all the time that the birds are out flying. They don't mind at all because they love their room. They have clean litter boxes, beds, food, water, toys, condos in front of the window, krinkly tunnel and three way tunnel, etc. Once all the birds are back in their cages, they come out. Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

[GreenWing]

I dunno. Not everyone is as orderly and responsible as Pajarita. There are too many risks. Ask yourself if you really want to get a cat! And if you do, why? They're ungrateful beasts.

I don't like cats. I do like dogs, however and would love a dog. Would a parrot be able to co-exist well with a dog? Apparently in her former home, Chance lived with German Shepherds and she isn't scared of them. But there are some species of dogs (terriers) that are bred to hunt birds...

[Pajarita]

Oh, no, no, no, that is a very common but huge misconception about cats! They are intelligent, affectionate animals and not ungrateful at all. I feed feral cats and they have left dead mice and even a rat or two in the bowls where I feed them as a token of their appreciation of my feeding them - dogs would never do that! And it's not that I don't love dogs because I do (I have multiple). There are breeds that are more difficult to train to leave the birds alone but it's not terriers (they go after rats and all kinds of scurrying little animals), it's bird hunting breeds like retrievers, for example. But, having said that, I have a golden retriever and he is so used to the birds that he doesn't even bat an eyelash when they fly over his head. It's all a matter of training them right. But I would never trust training with a cat (their predatory instincts tend to be quite strong) and that's why they go into their own room when the birds are out flying.

[tommythomas]

Thank you Pajarita for the advice and tips. I am about to say something about the misconception about the cats then you said the same thing. Then it's good. Cats and dogs are two different creatures with totally different behaviour. Sometimes cat suit to my lifestyle, it is kind of creature that free maintenance (not totally of course)

[madhossion]

Hope everything is great with your pets!