Scaly face

[absolutangel]

Hi guys,

Just a quick post - I've snuck on at work.

I have been keeping a close eye on Bumble as he's new and noticed yesterday his cere looked a little bit flaky. Looking again this morning it definitely looks different to how it did a few days back.

Maybe I'm being an over cautious mamma but scaly face was the first thing that sprang to mind. However I've only seen pics of how it looks once it's pretty bad. Can anyone describe how it looks when it first shows for me and how quickly it develops.

I know sometimes their ceres can look a bit flaky and I don't want to whip him off to the vets and stress him out again when he's just settling unnecessarily, but if it does sound like early stage scaly face I'll get him to the vet pronto. At the moment it looks a bit like the top layer is flaky, rather than appeaing crusty. Tried taking a pic before I left home but couldn't get one to show you. Any thoughts?

[Speedy]

Great Post :D

I myself have not had any experience with this as of yet with my flock but have seen some bad cases around. :(

Some of the more experienced members will be along soon and they will be able to give you more advice :D :budgie::budge:

[clifff123]

With scaly face a picture is a must for a true opinion of your budgie.
Cere will look crusty and flaky with the budgies in in the breeding condition.
Scaly face appears to look like a white layer on break and cere.

The starting of scaly face picture
http://www.birds-online.de/gesundheit/gesparasiten/fotos/raeudemilben05.jpg

[softie]

Grace had the first stages of Scaley Face. I never had a budgie that had this disease before him, so I was just as cautious as you were, and thankfully, caught it and treated it in time :)

http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa117/femme_fatal_miana/budgies/sweet029.png
http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa117/femme_fatal_miana/budgies/sweet022.png

You can definitely see that the cere is not normal looking and the small holes beginning to form in his beak. You may also want to pay close attention to his feet. Is he tapping them more than usual? Grace started "tap dancing" a lot right when I found out he had the mites.

If you catch the disease soon enough, some vaseline will do the trick. I would swap a dab of vaseline on a q-tip and just carefully smoothen it out onto his cere, beak and feet. Careful not to get his nares clogged!

There is always the option to bring Bumble to the vet, and they're be able to tell for sure :)

[Pippin's mom]

I have no experience with this just sending best wishes that it not scaley face!

[absolutangel]

Hmm, thanks so much for your replies, I'm still not sure. I have tried my best to take a pic but failed to get anything with enough detail to be able to show you. I don't think it can be breeding condition, he's only about 7 weeks. Is a flaky cere a sign of anything else?

His beak is fine, looks very healthy. On his cere it almost looks like the equivalent to peeling skin, and there's one patch where the top flaky bit has come off and it's brighter underneath. At the moment it doesn't really look like any of the pics posted (and thanks very much for them!) and I haven't noticed any odd foot work. How quickly can scaly face progress?

I think I will keep a close eye and see what happens, if it starts becoming like the pics I shan't hesitate to take him to the vets. I just don't want to cart him off or try the vaseline trick if I don't need to as he's only been here a week and is settling down and it'd be a lot of stress again.

I promise if things change I'll be off to the vet, just trying to balance the likelihood of it being scaley face and the damage a day or two delay might cause if it is, with stress to him and the chance of it being me being paranoid!

[absolutangel]

Ok I finally got a reasonable shot and I think my eye sight is going. It doesn't look quite like this to the naked eye. It certainly looks closer to the scaly face shots in this pic than I had been seeing. I feel horrible 'cause now I'm thinking it is and I should have got on this earlier.

http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/cc191/absolutangel77/P7210080.jpg

I think I shall take the phone no of an avian vet to work in the morning and try and get a late afternoon appt and slope off early from work.

[Keasha_Plus_Me]

When I got Keasha, his beak and cere were peeling, but that was because he didn't get enough moisture, I guess. It's normal for a beak to peel, but I'm not quite so sure about the cere. Personally, I don't think that is ScaleyF, but I could be wrong. Best of luck. :)

[CARRIE1981]

I have experience with scaly face, My green budgie Tommy had it ver severe and we were very luck to save him, i don't think yours has scaly face, Tommy's face went crusty over night and at first i wasn't sure but i could'net get in the vets till 2 days later:eek: and it went radidly he went very bad and stopped eating when we got to the vets they said how servere it was and started treating him straight away, it took a couple of weeks to see any progress, he stopped playing completey and would perch nodding off all the time he was a completey different charcater he was no where near his usual self and his legs got affected quite badly, i dreaded waking up in the morning just in case but thank god he got better and back to his usual cheeky self:D I think your budgie looks in very good health, has he/she had a health check? and is he/she still eating and playing as usual?

[nev90]

If your bird is only seven weeks old scaley face is not likely to have developed enough to be visable even if he was infected. Your bird looks healthy, it looks looks like he is just shedding a layer of skin on his cere which is quite normal

[Pippin's mom]

I'm glad you were able to get a pic posted. From the pics of scaley face I've seen I agree that Bumble doesn't have it!:D Oh that adorable face! I really like this head shot of hiim..he's adorable. Ilove his colors too!

[absolutangel]

Phew, that you soooo much guys, you have no idea how much better I'm feeling now.

I was planning to get a vet appointment but when I got up and uncovered him this morning most of the bits in the pic had sloughed away, which kinda made me think it wouldn't have if it was caused by burrowing nasty things. I thought I'd keep a close eye and see how it goes, and reading these posts has made me feel a bit more like that's the right thing to do at the moment.

I wanted to get a vet check done, but (I mentioned this on another thread) when I called our local vets they basically told me it wasn't worth wasting my money as I only have 2, it might have been worth it had I had 200 :eek: Needless to say I won't be using them. I've been trying to find a decent avian vet near here but no sucess so far. Called a place this afternoon that is on a list of avian vets and it turned out that basically he doesn't specialise but he will see birds. Doesn't sound any better than the place in my town.

Thanks Pippin's Mom for the compliments on the pic, I was half expecting to look at this and have a bunch of horrified people saying Oh my god, thats awful, run to the vets now.

[softie]

What a cute little baby boy! :D

I think he looks fine, no mites on that adorable face! :D

[Kip.The.Great]

I think he looks good too, he's so adorable! :D:D

[pinnkmoose]

CARRIE1981 your budgies look just like mine! and they are also sat on the curtain pole which is where my pair spend the majority of the time when out of the cage. anyway..
I would use some vaseline on his cere, it blocks the wholes so that the little mites that cause it cant breath so they die. I personally dont think it looks like scaly face tho. Best wishes
pinnkmoose

[absolutangel]

Thanks for all your replies and the compliments :o. In the way of an update, now there's hardly anything to notice on his cere so it looks like it was just a light peeling rather than anything worse. I'm offering him lots of different veg to try and make sure he's getting enough nutrients in case that was the cause. He's a happy little one, playing and chirping and trying to talk to Blue so no more panicking (for now ;))

[CARRIE1981]

That's great news:)

[anneekins]

glad to hear that it's not scaly face...and what a sweet little face he has!!!