FINCHforum

I have just found out today about this condition and so far all the posts i've seen are that parrots get this a lot , i have not seen that it says anywhere if a finch can get this condition.

My questions are , can a finch get this sickness and is it possible for this to go away without an intervention?
I have read that it occurs because of vitamin A deficiency and honestly i didn't have a whole lot of vegetables this winter to give my birds .

I have noticed that my old male zebra has something in his nasal cavities , I am not sure if that is it , if anyone knows more about this , could you please educate me on this matter and also .
If you could send some pictures of how it looks on finches .

On top of not giving many vegetables during winter I have moved my birds to a new room just before winter , the space is a little bit smaller and I wasn't really opening windows all that often during winter because it would have gotten really cold , it gets really cold where i live , well not like in Siberia but either way it can get -10 -20 at times , this winter was absolutely cold so yeah i didnt want to chill the room out too often i did open the windows in another room and opened my door but I am not sure if that was enough.

If it is impossible to treat this condition any other way except with intervention i dont know what I should do , vets here in my country dont really deal with small birds and on top of that they probably buy their dimplomas , one of my dogs developed epilepsy after going to a vet and another one died as soon as he administered a vaccination .
There are farm shops in my town so i can buy medicine that is intended for chickens and alike, i cant really find anything that is specifically used on small birds .
And is it possible to use garlic in water to help the bird clean its guts , i have access to home grown garlic and as far as I know for humans garlic is very healthy or to re-phrase myself it has potential to kill some bacteria , not sure if it is specifically bacteria or something else along those lines but it is good.
I have read countless of different opinions about garlic that i dont know myself anymore , some articles say that it is good to occasionally give birds garlic , some say dont even try it will kill it and others say better safe then sorry , so I dont know.
If it has potential to help my bird i would use it because I have only natural things at my disposal .


I think i have made some serious mistakes during the winter months for my finches .
Any help would be appreciated thank you in advance and sorry for not being coordinated while typing , English is not my native tongue so i kind of loose myself in words and compose something weird sometimes.

(EDIT:I would add a picture but i dont have a high quality camera so i dont think anything would be visible, i might try)

..
Too add some symptoms i have noticed.
He drops his wings from time to time and shakes his tail , but at times he is happy and sings ,
I have not noticed that his voice has changed when he sings.
I do notice slight clicking noise at times
During night when i check on him and he notices that i am there , he would start moving his throat in the same times as he breathes in and out.
He breathes a bit faster then normal but not constantly faster
He also bobs his tail up and down from time to time.
his urine is a little bit in between green and yellow although i am not sure if it is urine , I did use a toilet paper so i kind of feel that the paper absorbed a little bit of the color from feces and on top of that it is not constantly green/yellow , at times it is clear.

He is a very very old chap when i checked online how long zebra finches live i couldn't believe the internet , I have kept him for over 15 years or more i dont remember exact date i remember when i used to have 2 more zebra finches with him they would peck at him so i separated them , the 2 zebra finches that pecked him lived less then him and he is still singing and making my days like the past i dont know how many years , it would break me if something ever happened to him .

The reason I found out about this site is because once he got sick , nothing special he overcame that you all helped me a bunch by recommending me to make a hospital cage and put a lamp 3 days pass he is back to normal .

I forgot to mention that his left eye started swelling a bit , I am not sure if this is connected to this
or maybe he even lost some feathers around his eye so it looks like it is swollen.
Here are the pictures I took I am not sure how well you will be able to see , oh and dont mind the seed that is stuck on his beak , he just ate an apple and then seeds so thats why it is stuck xD









Not sure if you can be able to zoom in on the picture

StodOne

His nostrils/nares look fine to me; many birds have a bony ring inside each one. He doesn't seem to have matted up feathers over his nostrils, so no nasal discharge or other signs of sinus infection.

The respiratory symptoms sound a bit like air sac mites; do have any Ivermectin, SCATT, or S76 you could give him? They should have Ivermectin at the farm store; it is often sold as sheep drench. You will have to dilute it so you don't overdose him, though I'm not sure by how much. Air sac mites aren't as common in zebras, but he is very old, so likely is more susceptible to them.

I can't tell what exactly is going on with his eye. Some use colloidal silver drops applied directly to the eye, but it is unclear how well this works.

I'm not sure what the poop color is from. This article suggests liver damage or anorexia, but I've had birds get green poos from eating veggies, so it isn't necessarily a cause for concern. If the poos are green in the morning before he has food in is stomach it might just be bile.

Heat would definitely be good to provide, but still make sure he can get away from it if he likes.

Icearstorm
That was a giant boulder just lifted from my chest , thank you very much for the reply , i will try to check if the farm shops have this medicine you told me .
I would also add that now that it is getting a little bit warmer outside , i notice that my zebra has less of these symptoms , it is still cold so i marginaly open the window , but either way he is getting less heat after i open the window.
Also could it be possible that he is getting these symptoms due to dry air? Recently the moisture in air was really low , on top of that i kept heating up my room without opening windows all that much .

StodOne

Here's the instructions for an air sac mite medication with Ivermectin as the active ingredient: Iverlux

I prefer to put medication on the bird rather than in the water in case the bird doesn't want to drink the medicated water. There always is the risk of asphyxiation if the bird is heavily infested with air sac mites, but the risk should be about the same regardless of the method used to medicate.

It says the active ingredient is 0.8g Ivermectin per 1L water, so since water is about 1000g/L, then that would make it about 0.08% Ivermectin. If the medicine you find at the store doesn't have the percentage or ratio of Ivermectin to water or contains active ingredients other than Ivermectin, then it isn't worth risking it, since you won't know how much to dose safely.

If the medicine has a percentage higher than 0.08% Ivermectin, then it will need to be diluted. Stir well before diluting, in case the Ivermectin tends to settle out of the solution. When I took chemistry, I think I remember them saying that the best way to dilute solutions was to take a larger amount of both the solution and pure water so the concentration wouldn't be affected as much by small errors in measurement. (For example, if one wanted to half the concentration of a solution, rather than diluting 1 unit solution to 1 unit water, diluting 5 units solution to 5 units water would be more precise, and diluting 10 units solution to 10 units water would be better still. The ratio of solution to water would be 1:1 regardless in theory, but since measurement tools aren't 100% precise, working with larger volumes lessens the effect of imprecise measuring tools; in practice, measuring 10 units solution to 10 units water would get closer to a 1:1 ratio than measuring just 1 unit of solution to 1 unit water.) Now the ratio of solution to water would be different than in the example, but hopefully that made some sense...

I'm not sure if humidity could affect his symptoms, but it does seem possible.

Icearstorm
Thank you again for taking your time to explain everything to me.
Ok I got it it is basically saying that one drop in 1 ml will be much larger then one drop in 1 liter , I dont know how to thank you enough for coping with my attempt in English , so far i was not able to buy the medicine as i was busy at work , for now his mood seems to be getting better as i am opening the window more and more , thank you very much for taking your time i wish there was a way i could repay you.

StodOne

I'm basically saying that three drops in three liters will be better/more precise than one drop in one liter, even though you'd think the solutions would be the same strength. But I don't know the exact amount of medicine to water to mix since I don't know how concentrated the Ivermectin you'll find at a store will be.

If your zebra is acting better, shipping an air sac mite treatment made specifically for finches or traveling to find one may be better, since treatment no longer seems as urgent, and the risk of messing up on diluting a solution now seems greater than the risk of waiting to treat. However, I don't know your bird or your situation, so it's your call to make.

If all his breathing problems are gone, then it may just have been some other respiratory issue, and air sac mite treatment won't help. At the end of the day, without your bird being checked over and maybe even tested by an experienced person, then it's just (hopefully educated) guessing.

Icearstorm Yeah he definitely is acting better , but i noticed that he preens quite a lot maybe it was due to molting , he woke up at night for some reason and kept singing for some reason either way thank you a bunch for helping i still will buy the medication and observe him for any more signs of symptoms.

StodOne

Hmm, that's odd. I've had birds sing in the middle of the night as well on occasion, though that hasn't happened for a year or two.