worming

[butler123]

In all the years my family and friends have owned budgies not one has needed worming. I thought this would be a problem for aviary birds but not for one budgie in a clean cage inside a house never associating with other birds:ohno:

Bobby became very quiet and sleepy when I had the flu and we were worried he had caught something from me. He stopped talking and started to cry at night when we switched out the light. This weekend he really started to worry us, shaking his behind like mad and eating as if he'd never seen food before. He really didn't look well.:(

Anyway my local chemist also sells flea repelents for cats and dogs and she had just started selling paracite replelents and wormers for birds. I'd looked up the symptoms for worms in a budgie book and started Bobby on the wormer yesterday. We tried to give him the drops straight into his beak but he didn't like this and decided he was goin to play dead which frightened me to death:eek:
Any way we thought the easiest way would be to dissolve the solution in his drinking water. He knew there was something funny about his water but eventually he had to crink something.

Today he looks more comfortable and is not jumping and shuffling around nearly as much and he has passed loads of the little blighters,poor Bob.

Anyway, this is just to show that this can happen to the solitary bird and I am sure there are others out there who wouldn't expect it too.

Does anyone know how on earth this happened in the first place?

[Wonderbird]

I am not sure how a bird gets worms. I looked in my book and didn't mention worms. How long have you had your budgie for? Lately I have heard of others' budgies getting worms...

I just found this article (http://www.birds-online.de/gesundheit/gesparasiten/spulwuermer_en.htm) on roundworms. I don't know if that is what your budgie had or not. But worms are contageous.

[butler123]

I don't think this is the same sort of thing. I have had Bobby for a year and a half. He has not stopped eating, he has been eating more than usual. Although he does feel thinner he has not lost weight drastically and he is much quieter than usual, although he still plays football on the mantlepiece quite happily. He has had loose droppings which don't appear to be mich different in colour, maybe a little darker. But he is a very clean bird with a very clean cage. The things he has been passing look like very small transparent maggots. The only place I can think he has got them from is his food, maybe I should try a different seed supplier:budgie:He's acting like a dog when they have worms.

[Wonderbird]

I'm wondering the same thing, about the food. Once I bought this fruit and veggie mix from a bird store that I got out of the bins there. I had the mix for a few months and eventually these little tiny insects infested the bag. Just that one bag is all. I had other bags stored with it that didn't have any bugs.

I am glad Bobby is okay now! Do you have a good avian vet to go to?

[butler123]

I don't have a specialist avian vet but the one I go to has had alot of experience with birds.

[Wonderbird]

That's good!