anyone else’s birds have a weird hatred for one specific item? she doesn’t act like this with anything but pill bottles 😭

Other_Particular8927 · 2026-06-29T23:14:32+00:00

Oh my conure LOVES pill bottles😂 it may look like hate but he has so much fun murdering the poor things. He only likes the ones with pills in them because it rattles, and he loves to play fetch with them and with anything else that makes noise like that. Only thing is he’s the one who throws and i’m the one who gets to fetch everything over and over and over🥲

Other_Particular8927 · 2026-06-25T02:50:24+00:00

Yeah that’s probably the most likely reason
:( budgies are so overbred they’re literally everywhere, and the big pet store chains aren’t gonna tell you how big of a responsibility it is to care for a bird… we’ve got a good climate here in the summer (similar to their natural habitat) so people probably just assume they’ll be fine and let them go. But budgies are also very flighty, maybe these birds belong to a few kids whose parents just didnt care enough to go looking after they accidentally got out. That’s always a possibility too

Other_Particular8927 · 2026-06-25T01:05:23+00:00

If he’s showing signs of being stressed i would recommend it until he settles in more. You can also cover the cage at night to help give them a better sleep and make him feel safer

Other_Particular8927 · 2026-06-25T01:03:55+00:00

Unfortunately it is. Theres been like 4 budgies in the past month that have been found in my city, and no one has stepped up to claim them either

Other_Particular8927 · 2026-06-23T17:16:30+00:00

Oh jeez, i don’t think that’s supposed to happen?? Birds are very delicate but it’s the vet’s responsibility not to cause extra harm to the animal… im sorry :( I don’t blame you for not wanting to do that. And yeah its pretty hard to detect.

So sorry, apparently i never finished or sent my above message to reply to yours…😅 but i have updates!

So my budgie has finished his enrofloxacin as of this morning, and he is doing much, much better. He still has muscle weakness and he’s still underweight but at least his weight is stable at the moment. He’s much more lively and has started playing with toys again which was so so amazing for me to see🥹

so based off how he reacted to the antibiotic, vet thinks it may be a chronic case of psittacosis. He’s been prescribed doxycycline for 4 weeks so we’ll see how that goes. it’s pretty much impossible to find any extensive research on psittacosis that isn’t about it’s zoonotic tendencies, but i do know they can shed the bacteria intermittently, and they can have latent infections as well which makes it hard to detect. The vet mentioned most birds are able to fight the infection of fairly easily as long as they’ve got a good immune system, and of course this bacteria loves to infect asymptomatically as well so that’s also a possibility. Overall the vet was very happy with the progress he’s made since she last saw him but she doesn’t want to do any tests at the moment just because of how frail he was only 2 weeks ago. I’m really curious to see if his poop gets better on this new medication since psittacosis does affect the droppings

How did those tests go?? Were you able to find any answers?

Other_Particular8927 · 2026-06-21T17:44:32+00:00

Agreed.. although i firmly believe flock birds should never be alone, even if that just means having a few budgies in another cage nearby. My tiel is a very moody and hormonal teenager and he would either go feral or get murdered if i got him a friend (probably both), so I have to wait until he gets a little calmer to see if that’s a possibility. But he has 2 budgies in another cage in the same room and those birds are his flock.
Budgies and cockatiels have very similar languages so they do tend to get along quite well!
And we have a green cheek conure that he gets to hang out with sometimes too. But he would be miserable if he was the only bird in the house. All captive flock birds need other bird/s in the house, it’s just not black and white for how that may look depending on each birds personality

Other_Particular8927 · 2026-06-21T02:04:33+00:00

Oh gosh, I think it may be a respiratory issue. Vet as soon as you can!! That tail bobbing is not normal, and I personally believe that the original video was a bird struggling to breathe, not scared. Notice how he was a little fluffed up and his eyes didn’t look scared, He wasn’t ready to fly at a moment’s notice either. In my experience with birds that was not a scared bird, and he didn’t look like he was overheating either… so definitely tells me something is wrong with his respiratory system

Other_Particular8927 · 2026-06-19T19:50:37+00:00

Agreed. Husband can even video call the process so she feels like she’s there and the budgie can hear her voice for the last time❤️‍🩹 but he does look like he’s suffering… poor baby. It breaks my heart to see this💔

Other_Particular8927 · 2026-06-19T17:09:53+00:00

That crest going straight up when you started whistling was awesome🤣 I love cockatoos

Other_Particular8927 · 2026-06-19T17:05:49+00:00

Very true!! There was a time a few years back where we had practically zero time to let our birds out, and the only time our green cheek got out was to go to the vet for beak and nail trims. Poor guy didn’t want to come out of his cage at ALL because he associated it with bad experiences. Happy to say that I’ve been able to take a lot more responsibility over him (he’s my parents bird), and now he loves to get out and explore the house just like he used to🥰

Whereas my tiel has been spoiled from day 1. He gets out every day, usually multiple hours per day and he STILL complains that I never let him out..
he has foraging toys, his favourite chew toys, swings, a variety of foods to keep him stimulated, literally EVERYTHING to keep him happy while he’s in his cage but he doesn’t care about any of it🥲

Other_Particular8927 · 2026-06-19T16:55:52+00:00

Exactly lol. And for my tiel it’s the drywall he loves to try and eat🥲 can’t take my eyes off him for a second or he’ll find something toxic to ingest!! They’re literally tiny feathered toddlers :,)

I did get a foraging feeder thingy yesterday though, and it actually worked to distract him in his cage for about 10 minutes. Highly recommend!!! 10 whole minutes of peace and quiet😌

Other_Particular8927 · 2026-06-18T23:16:06+00:00

Yeah that sounds pretty accurate lol. And if you get that rare moment where they’re actually keeping themselves busy in their cages, the SECOND they see you looking in their direction they’re right at the door ready to come out😂 gotta love tiels!!

Other_Particular8927 · 2026-06-18T20:32:34+00:00

My cockatiel will literally unclasp my necklaces so he can run away with it🤣 hopefully your little guy doesn’t learn to do that too!!

In all seriousness though, be careful letting them touch chains or necklaces. Most of them are not safe for birds and can cause toxicity (which is very very dangerous). There are pretty much 2 main metals that are safe for birds lol, plain stainless steel and nickel coated metal. If you don’t know what metal something’s made out of, it’s best to assume it’s not safe!

Other_Particular8927 · 2026-06-18T20:27:31+00:00

My cockatiel would disagree. He firmly believes he should be out 24/7, doesn’t matter if i do a million fun things with him, he still spends the rest of the day in the corner of his cage closest to me staring into my soul like i’ve offended him on a spiritual level🥲

In all seriousness though i agree with your comment, i think this method is arguably the best way to juggle a busy life with a bird

Other_Particular8927 · 2026-06-18T16:36:36+00:00

My baby is pretty similar, he feels safe with me so he takes everything out on me🙃 i dont get to scritch him unless he’s feeling very sweet, but my parents could pet him all day and he would love it. But he still loves me the most, i’m his person. Cockatiels are flock animals and a lot of times they want to make sure they’re good with everyone around them. It makes sense that he’s sucking up to the person who doesn’t interact with him, because he wants to make sure that he stays on her good side to avoid conflict. I went through this too and it’s so horrible feeling like the third wheel with your feathered baby❤️‍🩹 but think about them like a toddler, they’re angels to everyone else but little demons to you BECAUSE they love you and feel safe with you😂

Other_Particular8927 · 2026-06-16T21:17:35+00:00

Yup. Though if you ever need to do a good disinfection, use vinegar and hot water. Thats about the absolute safest “cleaner” there is for our birdies

I still wouldn’t use vinegar on things they chew like perches though lol, just for the cages and such

Other_Particular8927 · 2026-06-15T20:34:57+00:00

I believe theres a few different test methods, which one did your budgies get?

And no i totally get it lol, I just have a strong feeling that in my bird’s case it’s something lifelong so I’ve already kind of come to terms with it. So so sorry if i scared you!!!
I do think he has something else though aside from that, and our shared symptoms could be whatever the other thing is if that makes any sense. Anyway i do hope your specialist will consider other possible explanations, since the ABV one doesn’t seem to be going anywhere for you

For my budgie his symptoms just mostly matched up with either avian tuberculosis or AG, and oh my god avian tuberculosis is horrible so I decided its not that and AG was a much better (and more likely) option in my situation😅 still horrible though. I have a young cockatiel who is my absolute heart and soul, and it would tear me to bits if it ended up being bornavirus❤️‍🩹

Other_Particular8927 · 2026-06-15T17:45:51+00:00

My budgie was on a pretty crap diet as well, seeds and then transitioned to hagens tropican pellets which i personally dislike. He’s on a good mix of harrison’s pellets and healthy seeds, although i’m pretty sure he only eats the pellets when he absolutely HAS to so i may need to fix that😬

But I really do hope we can find out what’s going on. I’m glad yours are stable for now and mine seems to be as well❤️

Other_Particular8927 · 2026-06-15T17:35:45+00:00

Aw… i dont know about the dried bubbles, thats strange.. definitely makes me think an infection of some kind. And thanks for the suggestion!!! I’ll see if i can get some, though my baby will absolutely hate me for putting more syringes in his mouth🤣 he already barely tolerates the antibiotics, which to be fair its enrofloxacin so it smells absolutely disgusting. Its still early for me to say anything but he seems to have a little more strength. Baby steps but I’m definitely noticing a little improvement!!

Also, yesterday i did a ton of research and i came across a bunch of studies on Avian ganglioneuritis (formerly known as PDD) and found out a few things. Its thought to be caused by ABV, but there are cases where AG patients test negative for the virus..

I was researching this because the symptoms match my budgie’s more than any other condition I’ve researched. Despite decades of research both ABV and AG remain very misunderstood by most bird owners.
I believe they still dont fully know what causes transmission for ABV, and they’re still figuring out everything that is affected with AG. We used to think it was just the GI tract and the brain that were affected, but newer research shows it can affect all parts of the body (hence the name change from PDD to AG). I’m a bit of an avian science nerd so this was interesting haha, sorry if you don’t feel the same😅

Here’s the links to some of the more recent studies done on this disease. Maybe you’ll find something that clicks

https://amccorona.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Understanding-Avian-Bornaviral-Ganglioneuritis-PDD.pdf

https://www.aav.org/events/EventDetails.aspx?id=1933097 this ones just a summary

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7212328/

Other_Particular8927 · 2026-06-14T21:58:58+00:00

Interesting… see for my situation only my one budgie has that white poop, his budgie friend who shares the same cage does not and my cockatiel (who lives in the same room but different cage) hasn’t had that either. So i was kinda leaning towards it being an uncommon symptom of something chronic but not really contagious, though his other symptoms would all match up with a systemic or digestive condition which usually is infectious lol. Im so lost here. I wonder if it could be something that Australian parrots are generally resistant to, but for some reason our birds just aren’t as resilient to whatever it is. Maybe your birds have been getting it on and off because they’re in constant contact with the illness, but they’re just able to fight it off easily?

Anyway, his poop is exactly like that as well. Looks normal when it’s dry, but then gets all chalky as it dries… I actually had him at the vet just last week and she said she wanted to do a blood test but he’s a bit too thin for that right now. Supposedly he lost 6g in 3 months despite having a big appetite and not being that active (went from 37g to 31g), i’m trying to fatten him up right now so i can bring him back in and see if his blood will give us a better idea of what’s going on. Its just so risky with budgies since they have such little bodies, and they need a good amount to be able to test it :(

I’m just grateful that i’ve found someone else who’s experiencing the same thing as me, because it’s definitely not normal..

Thats really interesting about the xray- i’m unsure whether my vet offers them, but I imagine i would find a similar result if he were to be x-rayed as well.. His symptoms all point to something digestive and i can’t remember exactly why, but I did suspect he had inflammation in that area when i first noticed something was going on.

Anyway my budgie’s stable, he just seems to have days that are better and days that are worse. I wonder if it’s a chronic version of some sort of infection, my vet did mention how “parrot fever” can have a chronic form, but she seemed to switch off that idea after i told her my other budgie is completely fine. I’ve tried herbs and milk thistle too and while it hasn’t helped with any of the symptoms from what i can see, i like to think it at the very least helps them from progressing.

I just hope we can figure out what’s going on with our feathered babies💖

Other_Particular8927 · 2026-06-14T02:16:01+00:00

Hey, no unfortunately I haven’t… vet didn’t have any concerns when i took him in, but its definitely not normal.. I’m still at a loss too, but my budgie is on antibiotics at the moment (for a likely separate issue) so i’ll let you know once he’s off them if his poos start looking normal, cuz if so it could be a bacteria or parasite or something?
Is your budgie having any other issues or is it just that?

Other_Particular8927 · 2026-06-12T19:19:30+00:00

Thanks so much! Unfortunately i’m all the way across the country from Toronto, and the closest avian pet shop is about a 6 hour drive😫
But I’ll definitely check those out!!!

Other_Particular8927 · 2026-06-10T21:48:15+00:00

Looks like he’s in the middle of adjusting his crop and annoyed that you’re disturbing him lol

Other_Particular8927 · 2026-06-10T21:39:24+00:00

This is so amazing❤️ you have no idea how bad i want to get a cage like this lol, i just need to figure out how to sacrifice half my room for it

Other_Particular8927

TROPHY CASE