Male Gouldian Dirty Vent, please advise!

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lancerguy
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Male Gouldian Dirty Vent, please advise!

Post by lancerguy » Thu Sep 19, 2019 11:11 am

Hello all, I am a new finch owner and my male Gouldian has had a dirty vent for about a week and it is concerning me.

Background:
We received him with 5 other birds from thefinchfarm almost 2 weeks ago. The Gouldian hen was quite stressed when we received the birds, she was puffed up, shaking, and head tucking all the time.
She appeared very tired. All the other birds were very active and appeared healthy, including the male Gouldian. I applied a heat lamp to the cage and covered all but 1 side for about 4 days and she perked up considerably, however, at that point (~Sunday) I noticed the male Gouldian's vent was dirty (had some poop stuck to it and appeared wet). He has been provided bath water but we hadnt' seen him use it, so based on another post here on the Finch Forum, I decided to flip him over and clean his vent area gently with warm water and my finger. I was able to get it clean and released him back into the cage. Tuesday, we noticed his droppings were very watery so we added some citric acid to the drinking water to reduce the pH to ~5.5, based on reading on ladygouldian website. I provided some brown rice to them as well and mixed it into their egg food.

TLDR
It is now Thursday and his vent is still dirty. Both Gouldians droppings have tightened up from the citric acid and the rice but the male has a dirty vent. They are both perky and active, not puffed up and not head tucking, although I have seen the male head tucking a very small amount.

I have provided photos of his droppings from Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (today) as well as a current photo of his vent.

Does anyone have any advice on what I should do next? I'm not at the point of extreme worry yet because he is still active and perky but I fear if I wait too long he will develop a more serious sickness from his vent being dirty. Should I just clean his vent again? We unfortunately do not have an Avian vet within 3 hours of our town but we do have an 'all animal' vet that treats stuff like horses and cows? Also, the Ronex I ordered will be in tomorrow so if recommended we can treat them with that.
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lem2bert
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Re: Male Gouldian Dirty Vent, please advise!

Post by lem2bert » Sat Sep 21, 2019 10:09 am

lancerguy, There was a time on this forum when users replied more frequently than they seem to now. If I were you I would look up online for suggestions as to how to care for your Gouldian. Try to gain experience on your own, I feel that taking small birds to vets is to stressful , I do the best I can for my canary and he is doing fine. I hope your Gouldian is doing better. Good luck !!
Betty 1 toy poodle and canary.

lancerguy
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Re: Male Gouldian Dirty Vent, please advise!

Post by lancerguy » Sat Sep 21, 2019 12:56 pm

Thanks for chiming in. I figured out pretty quickly I wasn't going to get a response. He is doing better now thank you for asking.

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Re: Male Gouldian Dirty Vent, please advise!

Post by wildbird » Sat Sep 21, 2019 10:15 pm

It might be the stress of the trip. Glad to hear he is doing better. I agree with lancerguy about vets. It's very hard to find a really good avian vet for small birds, and vets that treat other animals are only experimenting with birds they see.

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Re: Male Gouldian Dirty Vent, please advise!

Post by terrig » Sun Sep 22, 2019 10:52 pm

It sounds like your gouldians may be carrying an intestinal parasite. Check their breast bone with your finger and see if anyone is thinning? Also if you dampen a cotton ball you can move the feathers back on the tummy and see if you can see infection? I have a picture from the clinical avian medicine book of coccidia which is one type. It kind of looks like fat but as you can see in the picture the breast is sharp so it is not fat:) Sometimes the birds can overcome these parasites on their own but the stress of a move may weaken them and they get the disadvantage. Ronex would work on simple protozoa like trichomonas or hexamita etc but would not treat for coccidia if you have that one? It lives in an occyst. If that is the case it would need a different medication. Have you seen in blood in the stool? I just happened on here tonight.. I have been raising gouldians over 10 years now:) They are my favorites!
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Re: Male Gouldian Dirty Vent, please advise!

Post by finchman » Tue Sep 24, 2019 4:17 pm

lancerguy sounds like he is doing better and I'm sorry I didn't see the post sooner. It sounds like you did the right things. If I had to guess I would think it was coccidiosis just starting, and you nipped it in the bud. It's something gouldians carry but tends to flare under periods of stress. Just my guess. If you need any birds in the future I'm a breeder that ships nationwide, I think you'll find better quality and a lower price. The other large sellers are brokers so the quality will vary depending on what batch of birds they are getting from their breeders. I would love to help you in the future if you need more birds or just have questions about your existing birds. I don't frequent this site much anymore but you can find the link to my site in my signature below. Feel free to contact me through the site if you need any help.

Kevin

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Re: Male Gouldian Dirty Vent, please advise!

Post by lancerguy » Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:30 pm

terrig wrote: Have you seen in blood in the stool? I just happened on here tonight.. I have been raising gouldians over 10 years now:) They are my favorites!
I have not seen any blood in his stool. While I thought he was getting better, I checked his poop today and it was a very diarrhea consistency, no tubular shape at all. We found a vet in town that will accept a stool sample so we are going to take a sample over to them first thing in the morning and have them take it to the lab. That way we don't have to take the poor guy in.

He isn't showing any symptoms other than the diarrhea. I have been giving him electrolytes and a small amount of ACV in his drinking water but haven't seen any improvement (but also not any worse).

I don't really know what I'm looking for if I were to pick him up and inspect him. Without picking him up I can see a kind of obvious split in his feathers where his breast bone is but I don't really know what a healthy Gouldian should look like so I'm not sure I should handle him and inspect him.

I have Ronex on hand and I have Amoxitex on hang but I do not have the Baycox or the Trimethoprim Sulfa, which is what people seem to recommend for treating their finches. Hopefully the vet is able to give me some insight, otherwise which would you guys recommend?

lancerguy
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Re: Male Gouldian Dirty Vent, please advise!

Post by lancerguy » Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:31 pm

finchman wrote: lancerguy sounds like he is doing better and I'm sorry I didn't see the post sooner. It sounds like you did the right things. If I had to guess I would think it was coccidiosis just starting, and you nipped it in the bud. It's something gouldians carry but tends to flare under periods of stress. Just my guess. If you need any birds in the future I'm a breeder that ships nationwide, I think you'll find better quality and a lower price. The other large sellers are brokers so the quality will vary depending on what batch of birds they are getting from their breeders. I would love to help you in the future if you need more birds or just have questions about your existing birds. I don't frequent this site much anymore but you can find the link to my site in my signature below. Feel free to contact me through the site if you need any help.

Kevin
Thanks Kevin, I had no idea of them buying and selling birds from other vendors. I'll definitely pin your website. Wish I had known sooner!

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Re: Male Gouldian Dirty Vent, please advise!

Post by finchman » Wed Sep 25, 2019 7:49 pm

lancerguy wrote:
terrig wrote: Have you seen in blood in the stool? I just happened on here tonight.. I have been raising gouldians over 10 years now:) They are my favorites!
I have not seen any blood in his stool. While I thought he was getting better, I checked his poop today and it was a very diarrhea consistency, no tubular shape at all. We found a vet in town that will accept a stool sample so we are going to take a sample over to them first thing in the morning and have them take it to the lab. That way we don't have to take the poor guy in.

He isn't showing any symptoms other than the diarrhea. I have been giving him electrolytes and a small amount of ACV in his drinking water but haven't seen any improvement (but also not any worse).

I don't really know what I'm looking for if I were to pick him up and inspect him. Without picking him up I can see a kind of obvious split in his feathers where his breast bone is but I don't really know what a healthy Gouldian should look like so I'm not sure I should handle him and inspect him.

I have Ronex on hand and I have Amoxitex on hang but I do not have the Baycox or the Trimethoprim Sulfa, which is what people seem to recommend for treating their finches. Hopefully the vet is able to give me some insight, otherwise which would you guys recommend?
If you feel his breast, the breastbone should not feel sharp. You might compare the feeling to that of the other birds. You would feel a definite difference between a skinny and healthy weight bird.

Probably a good move bringing a sample instead of taking him in. Honestly, it's often more stressful than it's worth toting a finch to the vet . It's hard to find a decent avian vet as well, unfortunately. That being said, if the vet thinks it's cocci he can give you Sulmet, or sulfamethazine sodium. It used to be an otc but is now prescription only. It's a strong drug but I've seen it bring birds back from the brink. It sounds like your bird is in the best hands with you!

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