The article is specifically intended for pet owners and is intended to be used as a basic guide on how to properly care for a sick or injured bird. Always follow the advice of your veterinarian and do not use this article as a means of avoiding a practical veterinary examination. The key idea of ​​this article is to reduce all the stress on your recovering bird.

1. HEAT: Sick birds will sit with fluffy feathers in an attempt to keep warm. The effort to conserve heat places an additional burden on the already weakened bird. Your vet will determine if your bird requires hospitalization, but if home care is acceptable, I recommend setting up a tent to keep your bird warm. A bird’s natural temperature is much higher than ours anywhere between 103F-106F. Therefore, what is often warm to us may turn out to be cold, and this is particularly true of sick birds. An easy way to provide warmth is to cover half of the cage with a blanket and place a heat lamp on the other side as a source of heat. Generally speaking, we keep our sick birds at ambient temperatures that range between 85 and 95 ° F. This will vary greatly with the particular bird, so it is important to monitor your pet to ensure that you are providing the correct temperature and, Of course, seek the advice of your veterinarian. A bird that is too hot will have very elegant feathers attached to the body, will keep its wings (shoulders) slightly away from its body, and may pant. If you see any of these signs, your bird is too hot and the room temperature should be lowered accordingly. For the heat of the night, I recommend using a red light. Sick birds, like sick people, require rest, and if they are kept under bright lights all night, they will be deprived of sleep. In addition, during the day it is important to provide them with light so that they are encouraged to eat and can be watched. Therefore, the entire cage should never be covered during the day. I do not recommend heating pads because it is very difficult to regulate the temperature. If a bird is not perched and sitting directly on the deck, it can easily overheat or burn itself. And in my experience, baby birds that are raised on a heating pad quickly dehydrate and are again subject to burns.

2. STRESS: Weakened birds should be kept in a stress-free situation. Often times, what seems normal to us can cause stress on our feathered friends. I suggest looking closely at your bird’s environment with a critical eye to determine what the stressors may be. Some common ones include, the bird in the center of the house traffic with no possibility of resting, cigarette smoke or aerosols in the bird’s environment, lack of darkness / time to sleep at night, other pets, young children, too many stimuli visual (cage directly in front of a window), competition from cage mates, too much handling, poor nutrition, and extreme temperatures (such as birds kept in kitchens). I recommend that sick birds are kept in their cage and allowed to recover quietly. Think of this as bed rest for your pet! Too much handling can stress the bird and will require the bird to use additional calories. If the bird is housed with other birds, it is generally best to keep it in a single cage. Some birds can become overly stressed when separated from the colony, so you should seek your veterinarian’s advice on how to cage your sick pet. In general, however, removing the bird from the group will reduce the stress of competition for nutrition and allow it to be medicated easily and with better control. Of course, if an infectious disease is suspected, then the pet should be moved to an isolation cage and at least a separate room, preferably a separate house without other birds.

3. NUTRITION: If your doctor made dietary recommendations, now is not the time to make changes. Changes in the type of diet will put enormous stress on your bird and should be started when the bird has recovered. Always talk with your pet’s doctor about how and when to make dietary changes. Generally, I recommend offering all the bird’s favorite foods during illness because many sick birds become anorexic and can be lost due to starvation. If your bird normally eats seeds but is not currently eating, try putting millet sprays in the cage that most birds enjoy. The important thing to remember is that it has been months or years for the bird to become malnourished and this cannot be corrected in a day or a week. Slow changes are essential for the sick bird. If you cannot get your pet to eat, he must be hospitalized for tube feeding and further care. Birds have a high metabolic rate and can starve quickly. Therefore, it should always be assumed that a pet bird that stops eating is critically ill, there is certainly the possibility of death. Lastly, if your bird is a hand-raised baby and is not eating due to illness, you can often revert to manual feeding (syringe feeding) during the convalescent period. A good manual rearing formula should be used. The formula should be mixed with hot water as directed on the bag and offered to the bird. Do not force the bird to eat. Pet owners should never force feed their birds. A bird can easily breathe in (inhale food) and develop pneumonia and force feeding causes enormous stress to your bird. Returning to manual feeding is only useful for those birds that voluntarily agree to syringe feeding. Also, if hand-fed, the formula must be heated properly (follow the advice on the formula bag and your vet’s) to avoid food burns from formula too hot and culture stasis from formula fed too cold.

4. MEDICATION: Routes: 1. Injectable, 2. In water or food, 3. Topical, 4. Oral I prefer not to medicate in the pet’s water or food. Medication administered this way often causes a change in taste and can potentially cause the bird to reduce its food and water intake. Also, when a drug is put into food or water, it is very difficult to determine how much of the drug the pet has actually ingested. Thus, in my opinion, the best routes are injectable and oral. Topical medications are often not helpful for the pet and will cause greasy feathers.

Before bringing your bird home, the doctor or technician should show you how to properly medicate your bird. Briefly, the patient should be kept in an upright position and the syringe containing the medication should be inserted gently from the left side of the mouth and at an angle to the right side. Most birds will try to chew on the syringe to allow it to easily enter the oral cavity. Slowly depress the plunger of the syringe to dispense the medicine at the bottom of the spout. If your pet is having trouble while taking medication, stop for a few moments and try again. You should inform your veterinarian if you cannot medicate your pet. The medication can be mixed with a flavoring agent (FlavorX), which will help reduce some resistance. Occasionally, depending on the reason for treatment, your doctor may give you a long-acting injection instead of oral medication, but this has limited uses and is therefore not available for all pets.

5. FOLLOW-UP EXAMS: As soon as the disease was detected in your pet, he was taken to the vet for a complete physical examination and diagnostic work including laboratory tests. Unfortunately, many people will see that their pet is improving and do not realize that a follow-up exam is necessary. I always suggest rechecking the patient at varying intervals depending on the weakened state. The new test allows your doctor to assess the patient’s response to treatment and the owner’s compliance with instructions. Many times, during the treatment of an exotic pet, the treatment must be modified a little to ensure the best response. These new checks are also used as a way to reinforce the changes necessary for the bird to stay healthy. Additionally, lab values ​​can be rechecked to ensure that the patient is truly recovering and not just feeling well enough again to hide any weakness again. I cannot stress enough the importance of this monitoring, it is extremely important to the health of your bird.

Most importantly, follow your vet’s advice and ask questions to make sure you fully understand what is required of you to bring your pet back to health.