sick gouldian

[star]

Does anyone know what is wrong with a gouldin when it has what appears to be involuntary head bobbing. The head sort of looks like it jerks away from his body. It will be several small jerks and then it will happen again later and just come and go.

This is a sick gouldian. He is sleeping a lot . Eating is not good. He spends all day on the perch. He only flies to the other side of the flight to get away from other birds.

Please don't tell me to separate him. Not only do I think trying to catch him from an eight foot flight would be more stressful for him, but I have no spare cage right now . You probably all think this is awful. No spare cage!! What is wrong with her!

I cannot afford a vet and I don't know what to do for him. If anyone knows what this is please let me know. If I can't save this beautiful little yellow guy maybe I can save another if it happens again. If I knew what it was I would have a much better chance if it were to happen to another finch.

Right now I am diffusing essential oils and I have two products on order that I am waiting for. I have no idea if they will work since I do not know what I am dealing with.

So if anyone recognizes these symptoms or has suggestions I need help.

I feel so sad. I don't want to lose him. I am already crying.

[dfcauley]

I wish I could help you...... one thing you could do is offer some extra heat for the bird. Could you do that/??? Also, I would be sure it has millet to eat. Hopefully someone else will chime in soon.

[star]

There is millet hung all over the cage. He eats a tiny bit of it. I have my heat turned up pretty high and there are lights over the cage which offer a little extra heat over certain perches.

[L in Ontario]

It would be pretty difficult to do anything for just one bird if you can't isolate him away from the other birds into a small hospital cage with NV Powder or Guardian Angel in his drinking water and even more heat than whatever your general heat is set at. An ill bird really should be in a separate small cage to reduce stress from the other birds and to conserve energy of flying around the large aviary. Very sorry. Good luck with him. Please keep us posted.

[Sally]

I agree with the others, without being able to isolate the bird, it is very difficult to treat. Any small cage with 1/2" bar spacing will do, just an inexpensive one, as it won't be used too often (hopefully). I can't help you with the problem, though, don't have a clue what it is. One thing I would advise is don't bother taking your bird to a vet. Chances are, they have no experience with finches.

[B CAMP]

You might get some information check this link http://www.finchniche.com/a-sick.php

[HoangQuan]

oh Star, please dont cry , I understand how you feel
As the other said, you should isolate him. If you're afraid of bothering the bird, try to catch him out at night, I realized my gouldian would need a couples of minutes to finally "awake" since the light was suddently on at night, so there's a chance you can catch him easily by hand, with no harm.
If you dont have any spare cage at the moment, try using a little carton-box, drill to make many tiny holes for the air to go in and out. But be careful if you put a heat lamp inside, the temp may increase very quickly. putting two baskets upside down to each other may create a kind of emergency cage anyway. Try anything you can.
I wish you and your birds all the best. Hope can hear some good news from you soon.

[cindy]

Star...do you have a WalMart nearby? They have tiny cages for very little that you can use as a hospital cage.

This is an article with some helpful tips:

http://www.avianweb.com/seizures.html

If this is a seizure it would be best to get the finch confined to a smaller space until he is well. If he seizes and falls it can complicate things.

Hope he will be ok.

[franny]

I got a little travel cage from the petsmart for only $10. If you can, try to get one of those and put him in it, and then just turn on any incandescent lamp that you have, with a 40 or 60 watt bulb, near one end of the cage. I think he really needs heat.

I wonder if he doesn't have something in his crop? The head bobbing you talk about almost sounds like he's trying to regurgitate something. Maybe he's got an impacted crop? I think maybe you should try to catch him, and see if his crop feels hard. If so, then mineral oil seems to be the treatment. Give it just a drop of mineral oil right into it's beak, then massage the crop. Check this out:

http://www.avianweb.com/slowcrop.html

I also agree that taking a finch to the vet, is a waste of money. Most vets know little about finches other than textbook. No actual experience, so they'd be guessing, too.

I think it might be worth at least catching him to take a closer look. If he's already sick, and not improving, then nothing to lose by it IMO. Good Luck.