Help!! What's wrong with my bird??
I have a blue parakeet (budgie) that is about 9 yrs old. He's always been very healthy, though this summer the heat really seemed to affect him...for awhile there he was really quiet because we kept the shades down etc., but then he perked back up to being his cheeky self.
Today I just had the shock of my life, I saw he has picked allll the feathers off his butt. He looks like an oven-ready chicken from the bottom; I mean, you can see a patch of naked skin about as big as a quarter! WHAT is going on??
He still has his long tailfeathers, but he has picked his butt clean below his legs.
Bugs? He never bathes himself in a birdbath, preferring the "flick water over myself from the water cup" method.
Vitamins?
I don't know what to do. There are no avian vets who actually know anything in my city.
I'm seconding the mites. Mkazas used to do that every year around now, and it was some kind of little beastie that came out in her poop according to the vet. But then my gramps would take her outside a lot too, and who knows what she would eat outside.
Well the shop we buy our good stuff from reopened and I got the food he likes, not the stuff we've had to make do with during August while they were closed. And I gave the cage a good deep clean (toys and all) and sprayed both it and the bird with a special bug-spray. I also got some calcium drops, on the shop man's advice (he's forgotten more about birds than I'll ever know.) My Sweetheart was pleased with the new food, to the place we had to remove the cup of seed once or twice because he was just pounding it down! I noticed before using the spray that his beak was slightly warm...it's much cooler now and he seems much happier.
The man said it's possible also that he didn't like my lazy student and was stressing out. I know I was! LOL
;)b Glad Sweetheart is feeling better!
Yay! so glad things are better... stress can easily trigger that kind of feather-plucking, in many birds... maybe 'environmental factors' (annoying-student factors!) *were* playing a role! anyhow, glad it's resolving... so hard to find a vet who knows anything about birds, & it really sucks when something's wrong/ no medical advice is available... glad you have the bird-shop guy!
He is also 9 years old which is getting up there, for a budgie. Poor ol feller. But he's much brighter since I started on the vitamins.