Help with sick budgie

[HereForPrize]

s

[Pajarita]

Hi, HereForPrize, and thank you for both having a male/female pair AND for worrying about their wellbeing.

Normally, I would tell you to quarantine the sick bird but if they have been together for months, it would be futile so, unless the male stresses her out, leave them together. This will mean that you will be medicating both of them but nothing I will suggest will hurt the male so it's OK.

Firs thing you need to do is to re-evaluate their diet. Make sure you are not free-feeding protein food (this is both because it's bad for them in the long term but also because it will be better in terms of the treatment). I feed all my parrots (including budgies when I had them) gloop for breakfast and all day picking and a good quality seed mix for dinner (my budgies used to eat ABBA 1600). Now, a good diet implies their getting different types of fresh leafy greens (a different one every day) but, for the first week, do not give them any as I want them to be thirsty so they would drink the medicated water. You need to buy antibiotics online. I normally recommend doxycycline because it does very well in water (easily soluble and retains potency), it's pretty safe in terms of side-effects in birds AND it's a wide-spectrum antibiotic but it's sold out where I get it (allbirdsproducts) so, unless you can get it somewhere else, get enrofloxacin (Baytril) . The best thing about doxycycline is that you mix it with their water while, if you use Baytril (enrofloxacin), you need to put the exact dosage in the beak. I guess you could put it in their water if you use a bit of water and a lot of enrofloxacin but the dosage might end up being a bit iffy although a higher dosage will not really hurt the birds. Do the treatment for three whole weeks.

Another thing you need to re-evaluate is their vitamin/mineral intake because if you free-feed seeds and not give them a separate supplement, another possible problem is that the female is suffering from an acute vitamin/mineral deficiency so, if you never gave them any vitamins, please start immediately. I recommend the ones that are in powder form and soluble in water (I use ABBA 2000).

Aside from that, make sure their cage is high up (never lower than your eye level when you are standing up) and kept extra warm with NO drafts whatsoever so, if they are in an air-conditioned room, put a heating pad at the bottom of their cage and cover the cage in such a way that the heat does not escape from it. Birds need high temperatures (85 to 90 degrees constant) to recuperate from injury, disease, exhaustion, etc. and lower temperatures actually inhibit their getting better. Also, make sure they are NOT in the kitchen unless you never, ever cook (the fumes loaded with oils deposit in the inside of their lungs and air sacs and end up killing them).

Hope this helps your bird and, if you have the time, please come back and let us know how they are doing. And, of course, if you have any doubts or questions, go right ahead and ask.