Conjunctivitis

[Sojourner]

lovezebs

Things are not going well. I think she has stopped drinking. She was drinking yesterday but nothing so far this morning. She is sitting on the very top perch. She is even ignoring her bath - which is a very bad sign. She NEVER ignores the bath.

The meds came yesterday afternoon. I'm pretty sure they're supposed to hand deliver 2nd day mail - the label says "leave if there is no response". But it was stuck in my mailbox I'm-not-sure-when. I kept driving over there (stupid mail pods) checking for it until I fell asleep in the early afternoon and didn't wake up again until after dark.

So I mixed it up and put it in the cage but they were already pretty well bedded down for the night. So she may not have gotten much of a dose yesterday - although I did see her bathing out of the feeder. She does that if she doesn't get a bath every couple of days and I'd not been putting bath water in there for fear of chilling her. I went ahead and put a bath in this morning when I noticed she wasn't drinking because she always drinks out of it before bathing - but no joy.

She is not even moving out of the way of my hand when I got in there to change seed dishes etc. I am really very worried by this point. Should I go get a dropper and try to give her water that way if I don't see her drinking in say 4 hours?

[Babs _Owner]

Sojourner

Has she gotten a dose of the medicine yet? If not, I would mix it with water and administer it by beak if she wont drink. That will hydrate her as well as medicate her.....if you think it wont stress her out too much.

I hope she pulls through

[lovezebs]

Sojourner

Usually if you dropper feed water, you aspirate them and they die from fluid in the lungs.

What you could do, is drizzle a drop at a time right at the corner of her mouth and see if she'll lick it up.

Is this medication going in the water?
If it is, it could be why she's not drinking.

[Sojourner]

Babs

I don't think she actually drank any last night as the water tube was still full this morning.

However I put the bath in one side of the cage and put the divider in, with Bambi on the bath-less side (but there is a drinking tube there) and Pye on the side with the bath.

I had to go out and use my wheeled weed whacker to whack the spring-flush weeds down. Takes 30 - 40 mins for the battery to run down (which happens to almost EXACTLY coincide with my battery running down).

When I came back in she had been at the bath. I'm sure she drank before bathing. So - fresh water in the bath, removed the divider, and put it back in the other side of the cage where it normally goes.

Bambi immediately made for the bath and managed a short one before Pye chased him back out of it. Since then she has been taking short baths, drinking a tiny bit each time. She flies back up to the top perch and after a 20 or 30 mins she hits the bath again.

So she is getting a little water that way. It is medicated water btw - I have to mix it up fresh every day, 2 cups at a time because that is the smallest amount I can mix of the doxycycline (1/8 tsp in 2 cups water). So this morning I put medicated water in the bath when I noticed she didn't appear to be drinking.

She does seem to feel a bit better now. Apparently moving the bath to the "wrong" side of the cage, and being separated from Bambi even that little bit, made her feel worse. So I guess I'd better not separate them, at least for now. I keep worrying about Bambi getting sick - but the thing is airborne anyway so what with central heat, well ... there's no true quarantining something like this in the same house on the same central heating system. He doesn't seem sick, she seems to be better if she can cuddle with him, they're both getting treated - I will have to hope for the best on that score I guess.

I'll keep an eye on her. I see her perched on the water tube perch right now and I'm trying to watch her unobtrusively. Hopefully she is feeling refreshed after her several medicated baths. I'm a good 15' away but I can clearly see the tube and the bath from here. She seems a little better after her baths. I'm thinking I may put the bath back in there (with fresh medicated water) several times throughout the day. I've got a lamp over one side of the cage in case she needs to warm up, she can go perch under it. She seems much happier even when she is well if she can bath all day, every day, LOL!

HA HA! I just now saw her drinking from the feeder! She must be feeling a little better after her baths and tiny sips of medicated bath water! She has been sitting there for about 15 mins now. She seem to take a tiny sip and then after awhile another tiny sip. So while she is a little dehydrated it looks like she is working her way back out of it.

I swear I worry more about these birds than I did my son when he was sick as a child. Of course, I was pretty much 99.9% sure he wasn't going to drop dead at any moment. Birds can be really fragile. How much do *I* need a life? LOL!

[Sojourner]

lovezebs

Yes, aspiration is a real concern I had about trying to go the dropper route. Plus handling is, I feel, to be avoided if at all possible due to the stress it causes, especially given I NEVER EVER handle these birds (though I should, to clip their witch claws).

Yes, the meds are in the water. However they are used to funny tasting water as I use water soluble vitamins (Oasis).

I think the issue was that she was a little dehydrated and listless. I had to fool her into drinking by putting the bath in there with medicated water in it. She always drinks a little when she bathes. At first she totally ignored the bath, for like 2 or 3 hours which is TOTALLY out of character for her. She must have a seal gene or two because she will body surf all day if you keep her bath filled up for her.

I had to take her off her perch and put her in the bottom of the cage, which I did by putting some weed heads in right next to her so still not handling her directly. The weeds flopped around just enough to annoy her off the perch. Putting my hand in right next to her did not do the job, also an indication of her listless apathetic behaviour.

However now that she has had the bath(s), she has perked up considerably. Hopefully letting her bathe in medicated water won't hurt her. For today, I'll keep putting fresh bath water in there several times throughout the day, then tomorrow we'll skip the bath and see how she does.

I have something called "NV powder" that was sent along with the other stuff I got (Doxycycline powder, and something called a "Megamix Cocktail" that is supposed to fix it so I don't have to take all the minerals (like calcium!) out of the cage because minerals (especially CALCIUM! and this is my perma-layer we are talking about here) interfere with uptake of the Doxycycline.

The NV powder seems to be an electrolyte. I don't know whether or not I'm supposed to add that to the water with the Doxy and the "Megamix". I'm hoping to hear back from Larraine at the gouldian place in GA about that. There is some sugar in it so that might help with any funny taste, but I don't know if that's a post-dosing thing like the KD Water Cleanse (that's supposed to treat possible thrush from the antibiotic) or if it can go in the water with the doxy and the Megamix.

https://ladygouldian.com/Doxycycline-Mega-Mix-Cocktail

https://ladygouldian.com/NV-Powder

Also it says on the Doxy jar that you're not supposed to put it in plastic water tubes. I don't know why. All I have are plastic tubes. Even her bath is plastic. No idea what that is about. I hope it doesn't stop the meds from working somehow, though I don't see how. Since I have to toss it every evening and put fresh in every morning, I don't see how it could have enough time to do anything bad, especially given they are out of direct sunlight and room temp here is 68F.

[lovezebs]

Sojourner

Glad to hear that things are on the up and up, and that your little girlie is feeling better.

Hopefully thinigs will continue to go in the right direction .

[wildbird]

Don't put any medication in the bath water. Some birds will not drink medicated water and will die. Clean water with NO medication in it should always be available.

[Sojourner]

wildbird

Birds that don't get their medication when they have psittacosis will die. Or go blind. Medicated water is all they are getting at this point. That is the SPECIFIC directions given on the medication itself and on all reliable bird health sites.

The only alternative is injection of the medication, which I am not even going to try for oh so many reasons, not the least of which is that you can kill the bird when you don't know what you are doing, and can cause new, completely different infections even if you DO know what you are doing. There aren't that many places on a tiny finch where you can inject medicine so you pretty quickly run out of new jab sites. Like the first time.

Given I am following procedures recommended by and approved by avian vets all across the county, I think I'll just continue on. I don't want my bird to die and I am doing things According to the Proper Form.

If you have information to the contrary from reliable sources or peer-reviewed literature, feel free to share.

BTW - Her eye is starting to look a little better - which is a HUGE improvement over getting worse every day. She still looks bedraggled, is still somewhat listless, but is eating, and, since I fooled her with the bath water, has started drinking reliably from the drinking tube. Yesterday she had stopped eating and drinking and was extremely listless, but she is a little better now that she's had 2 days of meds (I'm not counting day one because it was so late in the day when I put the meds in the water they didn't drink any that day).

[andiok]

Sojourner
thats great news, im happy for you.
at least you better too...

[Babs _Owner]

Sojourner

How is Pyewacket doing now? I hope she has continued to improve.