Fluffy and sleeping a lot

H2015 · Post by **H2015** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 8:17 am

I recently got a larger cage and placed all my zebras in it (all of them are newly introduced), they were showing no signs of stress and most of them were doing fine.

Yesterday I had guests that stayed with us the whole day and I didn't have much time to check on them except to see if they had enough food and water.

This morning I was surprised that 4 of the birds are fluffy with their eyes closed (it was 1pm and in a well lit room). I made a sound for them to wake up and they flew to another bench but remained fluffy with eyes half closed. One of them went to eat a little but still looked the same.

I'm not sure if this is a case of air sac mites or not but I didn't hear any clicking sound while they're sleeping and there was no signs of gasping or heavy breathing.

kenny · Post by **kenny** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 9:40 am

hi h2015
did you do any cooking whilst your guests where there

ken

H2015 · Post by **H2015** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 11:10 am

How's that relevant? The birds are in the 2nd floor in an empty room with a large window, the temperature in the room is 20°C (68°F).

H2015 · Post by **H2015** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 2:25 pm

I just bought Ivervmectin, this is the only treatment available for air sac mites around here. I won't use it until someone tells me to do so.

EmilyHurd · Post by **EmilyHurd** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 12:12 am

I don't think it'll hurt them to use the medication as a preventative but it doesn't sound much like air sac mites, especially in a bunch of zebra finches. I would get them more like an antibiotic type treatment or something online like guardian angel? Have you ever looked at justbirdstuff.com, they have lots of medications.

Cooking could be relevant b/c maybe some foods cooked could be poisonious if exposed to the finches at all. Some cleaning fumes or scented type things can also be harmful.

Post by **Sally** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 12:16 am

Cooking with Teflon pans can be a problem, if they are heated while empty, they can put out some harmful fumes.

H2015 · Post by **H2015** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 3:21 am

Oh thanks for explaining the cooking part, but they're in a different floor and in an isolated empty room, I'm not sure what could be the cause of this.

Now I'll look around for an antibiotic treatment and see if I find any. The thing is, all the shops I went to do not carry medicines and could only order them upon request, and these orders can take up to 1 month.

I will order treatments that are commonly suggested in this section just to be safe if anything happens. The site justbirdstuff.com do not ship internationally but I found this: http://www.ladygouldianfinch.com/shopping.mgi

H2015 · Post by **H2015** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 3:34 am

I sat just a bit ago trying to find anything and noticed that one of them had diarrhea, so could this be a bacterial infection? I'm going out now to look for an antibiotic treatment.

Also, may I know what could have caused this so I could prevent it from recurring?

EmilyHurd · Post by **EmilyHurd** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 6:41 am

An antibiotic should help with diarrhea. Also, something with electrolites should help too.

H2015 · Post by **H2015** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 6:09 pm

Found an antibiotic treatment for birds and prepared a hospital cage for the one bird that I noticed had diarrhea, the others no longer look sick and are very normal with no signs of diarrhea either so I think they recovered on their own.

I'm keeping an eye on this one and hopefully there'll be progress tomorrow. Thanks everyone for the help.

EmilyHurd · Post by **EmilyHurd** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 11:56 pm

I'd still give the ones that look fine the antibiotic as well. Finches are very good are hiding illness.

kenny · Post by **kenny** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 8:25 am

hi h2015
it might well be that they are "going light"it is ver infectious and this is no specific cure for this its a kind of suck it and see type of thing when it comes to curing them.....if you feel the keel of the bird and there is no meat on either side there is a chance that it has the illness if you blow on the breast feathers whilst holding the bird on its back on the palm of you hand you should see 2 lumps of yellow on either side of its breast bone if not then they are losing weight pretty fast

ken

H2015 · Post by **H2015** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 9:50 am

I'd still give the ones that look fine the antibiotic as well. Finches are very good are hiding illness.

Yes that's what I wanted to do but I read online that after an anti-biotic treatment I'll need Probotic which I can't find here. So I thought it's better to treat the weakest and if the others show any signs again then I won't hesitate putting them in another hospital cage and treat them as well.

Yesterday the finch was always asleep and not moving much, but today he's fully alert, jumps on the perches, no longer fluffy, and also sings! So he's doing so much better already

The treatment says 3-5 days, so I guess I'll stick to 3 days since he's already improved a lot! The rest of the birds are showing no symptoms this morning and none of them (including the sick one) have their eyes half closed like they did 2 days ago. I'm guessing the rest were only stressed.

Here's pictures of him (or her?):

H2015 · Post by **H2015** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 9:56 am

kenny wrote:hi h2015
it might well be that they are "going light"it is ver infectious and this is no specific cure for this its a kind of suck it and see type of thing when it comes to curing them.....if you feel the keel of the bird and there is no meat on either side there is a chance that it has the illness if you blow on the breast feathers whilst holding the bird on its back on the palm of you hand you should see 2 lumps of yellow on either side of its breast bone if not then they are losing weight pretty fast

ken

They're eating very well though, would they still eat if they had that illness?
Anyway thanks Ken for telling me about this, I'll check tonight and see if that's the case

kenny · Post by **kenny** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 10:12 am

the problem is with going light is that the birds always seem to be on the seed pot constantly eating but do not derive any nourishment from the food i think the tell tale sign with that illness is that the birds droppings smell really bad !

ken