Gouldian chick coughing, increased frequency of swallowing

[hanabi]

I have a 5-week old Gouldian chick that obviously has some sort of health problem. The chick "swallows" a lot more than my other finches, and it periodically appears to cough, perhaps to expel something caught in its throat. I uploaded a couple of example videos of the symptoms to Youtube. Sorry for the poor quality but I'm filming through cage mesh:

Example 1

Example 2

Is this an example of air sac mites? Or some other parasite in its throat? I am currently treating with Wormout Gel, but there is still no change after two days of treatment. The only other medication I have available at the moment are Triple C, Ronivet, Oxymav B, and Coccivet.

I'm not sure of the cause of this illness, but one possibility is feeding my finches live meal worms that were added to boiled eggs and then fed through a mincer. I've noticed a number of my finches swallowing more often than I had previously seen, but none are coughing or appear distressed like this chick, and it may be unrelated to the meal worms.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Ross

[lovezebs]

hanabi

Poor baby. He does appear to be coughing.

Regarding the live mealworms... I know that when my birds eat live mealworms, they sort of chew on them, eating the Inside stuff and leaving the empty shell/husk behind.

Is it possible that eating the shell (for lack of a bettter word) is causing this (possibly irritating their throats)?

When you mention "feeding through a mincer", what sort of a mincer is it? and how do the mealworms come out after the mincing process? Are there still larger pieces, which may get stuck in little throats?

I add freeze dried mealworms to my egg food mix, but prior to that, I literally pulverize them into a powder.

This is just a thought.

I hope your birds get better

[debbie276]

Could it be an upper respiratory infection.
If you wet the throat and shine a light onto the trachea you should be able to make a positive diagnoses of air sac mites. They will be little black dots. Best to do it in a darkened room. If you don't see any asm you should consider respiratory infection. There can be many causes so a vet would be best.
Good luck

[slwatson]

hanabi

Poor baby....I had something similar in one of my male gouldians once, and I put him in a hospital cage with extra heat and treated him with enrotex, which was suggested by a forum member. He eventually recovered

[lovezebs]

hanabi

Hi Ross.

Has your Gouldian chick improved any ?

[hanabi]

lovezebs

debbie276

slwatson

I'm happy to report that this chick has substantially recovered. It would appear that Debbie was probably correct with the diagnosis (URTI) and slwatson provided a path to the treatment. I used Triple C instead of Enrotex, and noticed a gradual decrease in the "coughing" over several days. As of today I have not heard the chick cough even once, so it (he? she?) is well on the mend.

When you mention "feeding through a mincer", what sort of a mincer is it?

This one:

Mincer

how do the mealworms come out after the mincing process? Are there still larger pieces, which may get stuck in little throats?

Yes the pieces vary in size from whole to tiny, so I guess it would be possible for a chick to get a piece of the exoskeleton caught in its neck. I think I'll just skip mealworms for my non-insectivorous finches.

Thanks for your advice guys.

[lovezebs]

hanabi

That's really good news Ross.

Wouldn't mind seeing some more of this baby (very cute) .

[debbie276]

Wonderful news!!
all the best

[slwatson]

hanabi

I'm so glad the baby is better!!!!

[hanabi]

lovezebs

Just for you then

Gouldian chicks feeding

The previously sick silver chick is the 2nd chick to appear in the video. You can see its nostrils are still a little dirty (must have been quite a bad infection).

I currently have around 20 chicks in my "crib" cage but around half were too shy of the camera to come feed with their more adventurous mates.

[lovezebs]

hanabi

Thank you Ross, they are truly adorable

Are the white chicks, actually whites, or silvers ?

Please explain your seed feeder, it's quite fascinating .

[hanabi]

lovezebs

Are the white chicks, actually whites, or silvers ?

To me they do not look in any way silver at all, but I have only ever seen them called "silver" so I guess that is what they are. You can see better photos of the kids here, along with their parents:

Silver 1

Silver 2

Silver 3

Silver 4

Silver 5

Silver 6

Silver 7

Some will colour up with purple breasts.

[hanabi]

lovezebs

Please explain your seed feeder, it's quite fascinating

Oops, forgot to mention ...

I was tearing my hair out trying to find solutions to the problems that "normal" seed and water feeders produced. Yes we've all been there; now it's my turn For seed feeders, anything hung on the cage walls resulted in seed and husk outside the cage. Even covered seed feeders like hoppers had that problem, because I discovered that finches love to shoot unwanted seeds out of the sides of their mouth (Societies are particularly proficient at shooting seed and calcium pieces over a metre from the cage). For water, the problem was finches taking baths and pooping in the water Plus the fact that any good quality feeders are non-existent here in Japan and too expensive to import.

So PET bottle feeders are my DIY solution. Water stays cleaner for longer and seed stays within the cage floor area with very little waste. Simple to make and you can dial your own size (my 20 juveniles go through a 500ml bottle of seed in about two to three days so I'll simply move to a 1 or 2 litre bottle soon). I will admit that my Societies, on occasion, and despite feeding in the middle of the cage, still like to fly to the cage side and shoot seed out like a bullet C'est la vie.

[debbie276]

To me they do not look in any way silver at all, but I have only ever seen them called "silver" so I guess that is what they are

"silver" is a made up name
They are actually Pastel Blue (aka YellowBlue), they have 2 Pastel and 2 Blue genes which makes the bird unable to produce body color which makes them visually white.

[hanabi]

my 20 juveniles go through a 500ml bottle of seed in about two to three days so I'll simply move to a 1 or 2 litre bottle soon

Actually on closer inspection the PET bottle is only 300ml and when refilled it is never filled completely, so "3 days to empty" now sounds about right. I did some seed trials *here* and found these juveniles ate about 3.5 grams of seed per day.