# follow up vet visit for budgie weight



## vrabec (Oct 8, 2021)

Hi:
Chiribiri has a 7-week follow up appointment with the avian vet in a few days, and I'm hoping some of you would be able to chime in with any additional questions I should ask or something I should prepare for before the visit.

When I took him to the new avian vet a while back, he weighed in at 23.5g, and his breast bone was very prominent and body looked emaciated when feathers parted. He was put on doxycyclin drops twice a day and I was to report to the clinic weekly with his weight. He gained about 1g per week, held ~28g for two weeks, then dropped to 26.4g. I've measured his weight now daily for the past week: 26.4, 26.6, 26.9, 27.1, 27.2, 27.8, 27.2. 

I've noticed a correlation in his weight change with how much food he eats the day before.. for instance, the 0.6g jump to 27.8, the day before, he was eating quite a bit, and even had some munchies before bedtime. Prior to the weight drop was sort of a very hectic week, over US thanksgiving: there was a lot of commotion at my house, routine was jumbled up, we tried 24 hours in his new cage, he got a couple days without his out of cage time, weather was sunny and warm, and I didn't give him much millet, if any. I bring all this up because he's very "I want out" of the cage when it's sunny and doesn't seem to eat. He also seems to eat more when he's out of his cage (his play area has no windows). Other possibly random correlations: he does this alarm chirp call a few times in the day, and when I come to inspect, I've noticed his food dish is full of hulls. I vacuum out the hulls, and after the shock of my presence, he squawks angrily then grabs a quick bite to eat... if I'm not paying attention to this, I think he doesn't eat as much because there are too many hulls? And this past week, it's been overcast and gloomy so he's been mostly quiet and sedentary.

The last weigh-in call (when he dropped to 26.4), the doctor said at the end of the course, we may need to do x-rays and poop samples to see if anything's wrong, as he really wants Chiribiri to be at ~30g*. He may have mentioned blood sample, but I'm sorry I don't recall if this was brought up or my memory is off.

Everything about him seems fine.. he's active, his feathers have gained more luster, poops look okay (large overnight, small during day). This makes me think he's maybe just a runt, but then, a 2g drop in a week is concerning. The conflict I'm facing now: I want to make sure he's healthy, but I'd also rather not subject him to any more handling trauma.

I'm going to bring up to the vet his "peep" noise he makes throughout the day, generally after ruffling or preening. It's like a dainty sneeze? I can't get timing right to capture this on video, but will keep trying.

Diet-wise, he's still on seed, and I'm continuing to be persistent to convert him to pellets and more veggies. He's a very picky eater, but I'm patient incarnate 

Thanks for any input and support!

*aka two chicken mcnuggets


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## Cody (Sep 5, 2013)

When weighing a bird on a daily basis it is best to do it at the same time every day, when I have done this I weigh first thing in the morning right before I uncover the bird, assuming that nothing has been eaten throughout the night that will give an accurate picture of the actual weight without the weight of consumed food. How much seed are you giving him in the food cup? Rather than vacuuming out the seed hulls, try removing the food and refreshing it and placing it back in the cage so he is not subject to the vacuum as it could be frightening him.


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## vrabec (Oct 8, 2021)

Hi: I weigh him every morning right after giving him his meds, generally ~6:30am, well before he's eaten anything. It's highly unlikely he eats during the night.. I cover him up generally about 15 minutes after his evening meds (6:30pm), and he's in the exact same place in the morning as he was in the evening and there's a stack of poop at the cage bottom. That evening before the small jump in weight to 26.9g, I heard some noise and found him clinging to the side of the cage. I took the cover off, turned on the light. He chirped a bit, then had a quick snack, and went back to his sleeping perch.

I take his food bowl out of the cage and out of the area, then vacuum the hulls out - certainly not anywhere near him haha he's already terrified of me as is! 

He seems to eat less if there is less food in the bowl - I found this out because I generally would add about 1 tablespoon fresh seed atop the older seed and sprinkle pellet powder over that, 2-3 days in a row before tossing it all. Over the course of the weeks, I noticed he ate less when there was "only" 1 tablespoon, and more when there was more food. He seems to eat 4-6g seed per day - I used to measure this early on, but it became tricky after we began the daily routine with his play time (different food dish). I check on him too many times in the day, and if I notice any poop in the food it's all tossed and I wash the bowl immediately.

Any tips as far as what to ask the vet or anything I should do to prepare for the visit?


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## Cody (Sep 5, 2013)

Have you ever discussed the possibility of Avian Gastric Yeast with the vet? The organism does not always how up in testing but can still be making the bird sick. I would have the vet run a gram stain on the droppings just to make sure nothing new has come up, also ask about supplementing with digestive enzymes, maybe there is some sort of malabsorption issue that the enzymes might help.


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## vrabec (Oct 8, 2021)

No, we haven't talked about that, I will certainly ask him about AGY, as well as digestive enzymes. Thank you!


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## vrabec (Oct 8, 2021)

Visit with vet later this morning. They asked me not to let him eat in the morning, just water. He's sitting on the perch now, eagerly waiting for his food bowl. Hang in there little buddy! 😭


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## srirachaseahawk (Sep 5, 2021)

vrabec said:


> Visit with vet later this morning. They asked me not to let him eat in the morning, just water. He's sitting on the perch now, eagerly waiting for his food bowl. Hang in there little buddy! 😭


“Why do you hate me?”


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## vrabec (Oct 8, 2021)

srirachaseahawk said:


> “Why do you hate me?”


😭
He just hopped to where one food bowl is typically kept and.. it wasn't there and he gracefully dropped to the cage floor. 😭 I have him on a super precise routine, so maybe there was hope it would be there and I was using some human cloaking tech.


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## Cody (Sep 5, 2013)

Poor boy, I hate when I have to withhold food, I have never had to with my birds but I have had to with cats and I always feel so bad. Just think how happy he will be when you can feed him.


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## srirachaseahawk (Sep 5, 2021)

Cody said:


> Poor boy, I hate when I have to withhold food, I have never had to with my birds but I have had to with cats and I always feel so bad. Just think how happy he will be when you can feed him.


I try not to be at home when the cats have to have food withheld...


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## vrabec (Oct 8, 2021)

Thanks 
X-ray showed that he's got slightly enlarged testes, gas, and has something dense in his gizzard. Vet thinks whatever the dense stuff is caused inflammation/infection, and the antibiotic treatement helped heal that and stabilize his weight. He took blood sample to test for zinc and lead. There are different paths to take once we know the results in a few days.


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## FaeryBee (May 9, 2011)

*Bless his little heart! I'm sending lots of love and healing energy. I hope he will soon be 100% healthy and happy!*


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## vrabec (Oct 8, 2021)

Blood test came back negative for lead and zinc. Since last week's vet visit, he's maintained a weight of 26.4g. Doctor recommended I just continue to monitor his weight, and because he hasn't been behaving abnormally for weeks, he didn't feel additional treatment would be immediately necessary. If he drops weight, he'll do an exam, x-ray again to check his testes' size, and likely proceed with chelation to rule out the thing he ate from being toxic.

Here I am trying to feed him these expensive organic pellets and vege chops he literally poops on in defiance, but before we found him, he ate something totally undigestible. WTF. *🤦‍♂️*

Well, time for operation bond with the bird to start.


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## Cody (Sep 5, 2013)

Have you tried feeding soaked seed, my birds love it. I soak the seed for 24-36 hours changing the water a few times, the seeds plump up and some of the millet will actually begin to sprout, you can see just a tiny point where the sprout is beginning to form.


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## vrabec (Oct 8, 2021)

Will try soaked. I tried sprouted a couple weeks ago, which was a comical failure:





From the various experiments I've tried (always very gradual), the correlation I've drawn is that he does not like like wet seeds. I've tried mixing with cooked quinoa, mixing seeds with pellet paste, squishing into banana or sweet potato, birdie bread, etc. Right now I'm doing powdered pellet on top of seeds, slowly increasing. He seemed to be less averse to it if I pulverized some seeds with the pellet, too - on these occasions, it looked like there were fewer pellets and "mash" in the bowl, but it's still tough to tell.

Needs his seed fix in the morning yo.


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## Cody (Sep 5, 2013)

When I feed the soaked seed I dry it first, I rinse it, strain it and then pat the seed dry between 2 paper towels before I give it to the birds. They don't seem to notice the tiny sprout emerging and gobble it down, whereas if it was fully sprouted some of my birds would not touch it.


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## srirachaseahawk (Sep 5, 2021)

Cody said:


> When I feed the soaked seed I dry it first, I rinse it, strain it and then pat the seed dry between 2 paper towels before I give it to the birds. They don't seem to notice the tiny sprout emerging and gobble it down, whereas if it was fully sprouted some of my birds would not touch it.


I need to try this. 
Hemi is a little picky on sprouts, and I hadn’t considered millet for this…


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## vrabec (Oct 8, 2021)

Cody said:


> When I feed the soaked seed I dry it first, I rinse it, strain it and then pat the seed dry between 2 paper towels before I give it to the birds. They don't seem to notice the tiny sprout emerging and gobble it down, whereas if it was fully sprouted some of my birds would not touch it.


THIS WORKED!!! It took about 36 hours to see tiny little tail emerging from some of the seeds. Set between two paper towels about 3 hours before I gave hime some in a clean food bowl this morning, he didn't even notice. It was interesting to hear almost no hulling noise coming from his beak, and some shells stuck to his beak, but he happily ate breakfast! The key was to dry them  First success as far as diet with this bird, other than a random nibble on bok choi and dandelion greens.

Is it okay to leave these out for the day, or should I move them to the fridge, toss them, etc?


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## Cody (Sep 5, 2013)

I feed the soaked seed a bit at a time and keep the rest in the fridge, I also do not give my birds cold seed, when I want to give them the seed that has been in the fridge I put it in a strainer and run warm water over it, dry it again and then feed it.


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