Not again :(

[marie83]

Yea its rubbish really, I believe in London the turnaround time is 4 hours...... Sounds pretty gross when you think about it like that. I don't know what the turnaround time is where I live as I've never really thought about it until recently. I've always thought there were no heavy metals in it unless people had the really old piping system and the only chemicals were flouride for our teeth and chlorine to clean it.
I've since learned that potentially anything could get into the water supply, I guess I knew that before but something I've not wanted to think about I suppose as us people like to bury our heads in the sand about scary things.

I've got a couple of filter systems in mind which I will just run water for everything through before use but they are a couple of hundred pounds but I need to sort my car out first. I just wish I had swapped them over to bottled sooner and stopped all the suffering if it is this.

I know one thing my animals will never drink or bath in tap water ever again.

I very much doubt I would be able to sue the water company unless tests showed something very specific and known to be dangerous. Even then I would need concrete proof to link it to my birds health problems, plus I couldn't afford the legal fees and I doubt I would get very far as I reckon the government will intervene and cover up somehow.

[cml]

Actually Marie, it might very well be the water! I really hope your birds will do better now once they are off it!

I didnt think of it before, but the breeder we got Stitch from lost over 20 birds to the water supply when he moved (very quickly), before he and the vets figured it out and got a water cleaner which he ran all his water through!

[Polarn]

I Think that in order to loose that many birds that quickly the most probable reason is an older Supply with copper pipes (older copper pipes contaminate the water with copper in it) or perhaps to confined (also seen in too deep wells) where the water gets too little oxygen causing way to high nitrate levels, or radon wich is a biproduct found in the ground basically everywhere but the radiation is higher in some places than others. I got a filter for it in my pumpstation even if the readings directly from the well showed acceptable results for humans to drink, and here lies also the main issue with suing a watercompany I think, their only responsible to keep the water clean enough to be safe for humans not any more sensitive creatures, and yes flour is a good part of the water and it naturally I occours in water the problem I see is when you have to manually go in and add chemicals because the water quality to begin with was too poor.

[Polarn]

Oh btw since mentioned earlier water with a nitrate level of 50ppm should never be drank by small children because with their body weight the concentration at those levels is high enough to make them sick. Personally I wouldn't drink with them readings unless there isn't anything else to drink that is... But considering the odds body weight is just a fraction of even a small kid I'm suspecting what makes them sick might kill our winged fellas.

[Elizebird]

I too am keeping up. I think the little we know about parrot disease should be a sort of general knowledge among parrot owners.

[Maria]

All of this information on this thread is extremely valuable. It also helps in great guidance as the basic testings that avian vets should do, etc. As, out there, there are good avian vets, and not so good avian vets. The not so good ones run all kinds of un-needed tests to run up the bill for you. The good ones do the necessary and basic tests to pinpoint the problem(s), confirm proper diagnosis, and prescribe proper treatment. I am glad this thread is here. This is where this thread needs to stay, right here, for great reference.

[marie83]

ARRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! its not over yet. Apparently it isn't the water then.....



Over the past 3 days Ollie has lost feathers from his chest and around the edges of his wings (not as deep as his wing pits like last time) It appears to be mainly on the right hand side of his chest. Harlie has started the screaming thing when preening again but only very very occasionally. Other than that they both appear to be in good health.
I'm waiting for a call back from their vets. So so frustrating.

[marie83]

Well I'm trying to keep Ollie busy to distract him from his feathers because at this rate I'm going to have a totally bald bird- it doesn't matter, I will love him regardless but I would much prefer him feathered for obvious reasons. I've stuck a higher proportion of foraging toys around with a larger portion of his daily meal allowence in (I usually spilt it into thirds) and whilst he is out and about I'm throwing in loads of recalls and other tricks because he seems very much himself apart from this.
Weight is normal, activity level, sleep patterns, desire for attention, faeces, appetite, respiration rate, trying to terrorize the rabbit.... all normal.

Nothing wrong at all it seems apart from he is fixated with his feathers, I've watched him very closely yesterday and today, it appears he is overpreening them and they are just sliding out rather than being pulled out, he is not screaming in pain or being really rough with them when they come out. I'm still waiting for the vet to call, I rang again this morning to remind them.

If anyone has any further suggestions about things it could be I would love to hear your ideas. I am leaning more towards it being a pyschological or hormonal issue, probably around 80% certain its not rather than the 99% certain I was before, but there are still questions I cannot answer, like why both birds? they both have different hormone cycles, attention appropriate to their characters so why would they both have it at the same time? If it was psycholgical why isn't it all the time? surely it then wouldn't be a re-occuring issue every few months? but surely if it was a medical issue it wouldn't just go away on its own then come back? Fair enough if both birds had treatment for something but the course finished to early then the infection or whatever it was could build up again but Ollie recieved no medication last time. I'm at a loss, this whole things driving me nuts.

[friend2parrots]

marie83, I am so sorry to hear about Ollie and Harlie. I know it must be hard to watch them.I read this entire thread from the start to finish, to try to get a sense of what has been going on, and I agree with you, it is really confusing. Really it could be so many things, and you've been taking such good care of them, this really is a mystery to me as well. Its good that you've kept this detailed record here, I think it will be useful for you as you and your vet try to figure out what to do, so I encourage you to keep logging in their progress here. I am not a vet, but may be there are some vets on this board who have experience with this type of thing. When I have a little bit more time later today, I would like to read through this thread again closely to see if theres anything in there that pops out at a second reading.

i don;t have much experience with feather-plucking in any of the birds I have kept over the years, but tehere is something significant i would like to share with you re: my Gcc Ringo. You know as I mentioned before he went through that stressful episode watching the roadwork from his window 6 months ago. well, for a full week after that he was a neurotic mess - a nonstop 14-hour a day plucker. but here's the funny thing - he didn't pluck his feathers - he plucked his favorite preening toy, that he always used to cuddle with right before jumping in his happy hut for bed. this made me think that maybe feather plucking is a stress reaction, and that somehow, thankfully, my bird had decided to pluck his toy instead of himself. he basically ignored me, my husband, and every other toy he had, and sat near this preening toy and plucked it nonstop, and even refused to come out of the cage because he was just so compelled to pluck this toy.

I don't know how Ollie and Harlie are with their toys - do they have a favorite preening toy, a kind of soft type of toy, that they touch with their beak regularly? I know all birds are different, but maybe you could bring such a toy closer to them to distract them, but still enable them to exericise the activity of preening/plucking. as a temporary measure while your waiting for the vet to contact you.
soorry I have to run now but I will think about this further and get back to you.

[marie83]

i don;t have much experience with feather-plucking in any of the birds I have kept over the years, but tehere is something significant i would like to share with you re: my Gcc Ringo. You know as I mentioned before he went through that stressful episode watching the roadwork from his window 6 months ago. well, for a full week after that he was a neurotic mess - a nonstop 14-hour a day plucker. but here's the funny thing - he didn't pluck his feathers - he plucked his favorite toy, made of cotton rope, that he always used to cuddle with right before jumping in his happy hut for bed. this made me think that maybe feather plucking is a stress reaction, and that somehow, thankfully, my bird had decided to pluck his toy instead of himself.
I don't know how Ollie and Harlie are with their toys - do they have a favorite preening toy, a kind of soft type of toy, that they touch with their beak regularly? I know all birds are different, but maybe you could bring such a toy closer to them to distract them, but still enable them to exericise the activity of preening/plucking. as a temporary measure while your waiting for the vet to contact you.
soorry I have to run now but I will think about this further and get back to you.

Honestly I am open to any ideas whatsoever, new and old, if I have heard ideas before and am already putting those things into practice then that helps me out, if all it does is reassure me that I'm not doing a terrible job at looking after them than that helps too. I must admit there are no preening type toys in their cages at the moment, but there are plenty of shredding/destroying etc type toys- soft woods, vines, leather, shredded paper in a ball. I tend to steer clear of putting anything "stringy" in their cages for safety reasons but you have just given me a couple of ideas I hadn't thought of like cutting up some fabric they cannot get caught up in and fastening it together.


As far as I know there hasn't been any disturbances, we live in a very quiet area and the pets are very rarely alone for any length of time, when I'm not in my bf is and vice versa so in theory we would know if there had been any problems. This past week and a half I can say with certainty that nothing has happened as there has always been someone at home. Apart from that Ollie is the most stupidly fearless bird, almost literally nothing frightens him although he can be cautious of new things, doesn't matter of theres fireworks, if I drop something, drilling upstairs, new animals about, he really couldn't care less. That said I'm sure there is stuff that can frighten him, theres just been nothing new that could have triggered it, im pretty confident of that, although wouldn't discount the idea.