Not again :(

[AlbertaAviary]

That sounds awful. I hope your birds are doing ok

[marie83]

Well its been a few days since my last report.

Harlie came off of the flagyl last Tuesday so we are a few hours away from a week since her last dose. She seems very bright, she is eating like a pig, clearing her bowl, minus the fresh foods anyway and then screaming for more. The feather loss appears to have stopped as abruptly as it started but there is still alot of scurf coming off of her and not much sign of any pin feathers.
Her faeces can be anything from normal to quite strange looking, solid, slightly loose, funny colours and funny looking in texture, its hard to explain (almost jellified, like collitis but a but more solid?).
The jellified appearance always coincides with the weird colour but it is so inconsistant, its happened maybe 4/5 times over the past 10 days.

Ollie however seems fine, his sheen is coming back on his feathers, he seems to be building up again in his general condition and his weight is stable at 75-76g, he is lively and actually started behaving like he wants to do some training so we did some yesterday and this morning. He is even showing signs of feather regrowth under his wings. Ollie has had no treatments at all so far under this vet yet a few weeks ago he was lethargic, losing condition and only wanted to sleep.

What on earths going on with them?, they are yoyo-ing about so much I'm starting to wonder what is normal for them .
I have spoken to the vet today and shall be doing again tomorrow as he has a couple of ideas but wants to double check things.


I hope nobody minds all the updates, I just want to keep some sort of record and here seems the ideal place to do it incase this story will one day help someone else.

[terri]

Isnt a relief after seeing them sick that they start doing the little things that we take for granted.Which is a sign of health.

[marie83]

Well I don't want to jinx things but things are looking good at the moment. Since I switched them both onto bottled water everything seems to have improved no end in both birds. It could be a coincidence of course but they are staying on bottled water until I can get a decent water filter from now on. They are bathing in the bottled water and I'm also cleaning the cages in it!

Like I say, I don't want to truely believe everything is fine just yet since they have been up and down hill a fair bit over the past few months but both birds are consistantly improving by the day, dare I say it they have been pretty much normal (I can barely remember normal)for the past couple of weeks, the shine is back in Ollies feathers and he is definitely getting good growth back under his wings. The scurf from Harlie has all but disappeared and she has stopped losing feathers too. Both birds have stopped screaming when preening too and dont seem irritable like before.

We are going to have our water tested but depending on if it shows anything obvious we probably will never know what caused their illness unless they relapse. Fingers crossed that wont happen though but I'll keep you updated if anything changes.

[Eurycerus]

Are you on well water? That's pretty scary if it's not a coincidence... I'll be interested to see what comes of the water testing. I'm so happy to hear that they are doing better!

[marie83]

Nah we are on a mains supply here. Call me dumb but I didn't know anyone still relied on wells.

[Polarn]

Hey, I rely on wells and prefer it that way! atleast as long as my water is clean I prefer it clean rather than with the chemicals added to larger water supplies. Plus I grew up wih well water and the taste of tap in an apartment or something, I can't stand it it tastes like water that's been stood still in a glass for to long so when I lived in an apartment for a while I never drank water. So yeah some of us still dig our wells for water. (I do have the main supply running past here though incase I ever get problem with the well, but tests are done on the water regularly, once or twice a year. )

[Eurycerus]

Nah we are on a mains supply here. Call me dumb but I didn't know anyone still relied on wells.

Maybe the UK doesn't have aquifers anymore...? I have no idea. But here in the states if you don't live in a City you're on well water. My boyfriend's family has the best tasting water ever and it's well water. Mmm soo tasty. That'll be so strange if your tap water is bad. You could probably sue as a class action lawsuit and make tons of money.

[Grey_Moon]

Actually, Eurycerus, if its marie's water I'm not surprised.

When I was into the aquarium hobby a few years ago, and when I traveled to Europe as a student (both to the UK and further on) I was well aware that the water quality was lackluster.
Plenty of aquarists in the UK both in the city and outside it had a lot of issues with excessive nitrates/phosphates and all sorts of metals and other things etc straight out of the tap!
Here in Canada we had aquarists complain about fish health if the nitrates got above 20ppm, some places in the UK had nitrates at 50ppm out of the tap

I remember actually being advised when travelling as a student (we were in England at the time) to NOT drink the tap water.
Europe is much older and more densely populated than North America is...I remember being surprised at the amount of water conservation (I'm from Canada....guess we're spoiled) so the natural water systems are much more heavily taxed and polluted for much longer than the water supply elsewhere while also having less bodies of water to disperse the pollution in.

But I'm hoping at least for Marie's sake that some bottled water gives her fids some relief.

[Polarn]

as greymoon said lots of the watersupplies in europe isnt that good, im from here and some parts of europe i wont drink the tap, but buy bottled water, a bit further up north here though I'll drink the water out of a stream. but sweden isnt that dense populated, more people living in london than entire sweden. and not dense populated neighbouring countries to the sides or north either. Never really been bothered about the tapwater in UK though except for the taste of any tapwater. here its more so the added peices of tapwater i dislike. in some cases fluoride is used to "purify" the water but more common is small doses of chlorine, neither of this is something i feel is a nessesity if you have a good source to begin with wich im fortunate enough to have. and seeing how birds are more sensitive than us it wouldnt surprise me.
Speaking of aquariums I know that on tapwater here you may have trouble getting some of the more sensitive fishes to survive, not to speak of breeding, but their usually fine when you get the water from someone (usually anyone) with their own well.