Health and Healing

Budgie health problems

The flocks of similar species in different countries have very different problems.

With UK budgies, we are more likely to see under supplementing
not over supplementing. By far the most common "bug" in budgie necropsies is
Megabacteria. Though the jury is out as to whether this is the real cause
of death or just a symptom of other debilitating diseases. Megabacteria is
probably in every flock of exhibition budgies in the UK. Fortunately the
birds are now building up quite good immunity and no major outbreaks have
occurred in the last three years. We are trying to encourage breeders to use
herbal immunostimulants but budgie breeders ..........!!

I'm not sure where Trich fits in the list but I think it would be number two
or three. I think Australian budgies would be similar. The problem with
trich at necropsy is that the parasite dies very quickly after the bird dies
so it is only reliably detected on live birds. Here in the UK if someone
says "vomitting budgie" trich will be the cause in 90% of cases.
Malcolm Green

Hi Malcolm,
Thanks for bringing up the possibility of parasites. I hadn't thought of
them but it is definintely a possibility. I've never heard of
trichomonas being endemic with budgies here in the US, but maybe it's something not mentioned among the breeders? The budgie problems I've
heard of most commonly in the US have involved mites and psittacosis.
Perhaps GB and US see different flock problems as they see different nutritional problems? Is that possible?
gloria


For what it is worth, the main budgie problems in Australia are (besides
tumours and intestinal gram negative bacterial infections) megabacteria,
Trichomoniasis, and coccidiosis - a herbal treatment for those three
would sure be useful since so far I have only found mainstream
veterinary medications work - when any of these diseases is identified
you have very little time, so it has to be a rapid (a couple of days to
take effect) cure. 

Never see too many psittacosis problems - that is a Neophema and
cockatiel disease here.
cheers,
Mike Owen
Queensland

Mike,
Interesting that you get coccidiosis in budgies down there. It is quite
rare in psittacines. Certainly our herbal ingredients work exceptionally
well against coccidia. We have evidence in poultry, rabbits and canaries.
We now incorporate these herbs into our eggfoods as well as selling them
seperately to those people who still insist on using other peoples eggfoods!

How well they work with trich and megabacteria is going to be harder to
tell. I certainly sell less of our medicinal trich treatment these days so
perhaps the herbs are doing the work there. As for megabacteria the same is
true. Since the Megabac-S came off the market the only people who ring me
up about trying to get it are non-customers. I think many of our happy
customers stopped using drugs a while ago since we started to incorporate
herbals into so many of our main line products. They don't see the need for
the drugs when their birds look so healthy anyway.
Malcolm Green

Brown's Hypertrophy

Hi everyone! I don't post here regularly, but have a scary question 
about my male budgie Kramer (age 4). His cere, up until about 3-4 
months ago, was a beatiful, bright sky blue. But I've been noticing 
that his cere color isn't as deep and bright anymore. It's almost a 
dull blue with a brownish hue to it. I haven't been able to find 
anything on a male's cere changing color, but this afternoon at the 
local Barnes & Noble, I found a bird book that said a color change in 
a male budgie's cere could mean a tumor on the testicle. 
Does anyone know about this? Thanks. 
Chris

As I've mentioned before, my conventional vet will only do 1 blood test at a
time on my budgie, because you can't get enough blood at one time to do a
full panel. I'm not saying it might not be helpful, I'm just saying it
makes complete bloodwork a little less feasible than with bigger birds.

My budgie had Brown's Hypertrophy (just what you describe with the nares).
At 8 years old she got very hormonal, tried twice to lay an egg & became egg
bound both times, almost dying one of those times because the egg was too
large and malformed. Because of this, I consulted with Dr. McCluggage by
phone (a holistic avian vet) and he sent me a supplement he calls TK Gin
Combo. This put an end to her hormonal surges & egg laying. It also took
away the Brown's Hypertrophy. Her nares are extremely light tan/off white
at times and other times are regular tan color. She no longer gets that
build up on the nares. Brown's Hypertrophy is somehow related to hormones
(possibly an excess?) and that's why the supplement took care of it.

Another budgie I had also suffered from Brown's Hypertrophy and she died of
an ovarian cyst, so it's not too far reaching to think her ovary may have
been malfunctioning.

The only treatment I've seen recommended by conventional vets for Brown's
Hypertrophy is to moisten & gently remove the skin (Avian Medicine,
Principles and Applications), especially if it flakes and blocks the nares.
This is only treating the symptom, of course, and not actually addressing
the underlying cause.

I don't know that any of this is of great help, but thought I'd share my
experience. Hopefully, someone more knowledgeable can offer some info.
Leanne