Anemia
Symptoms: The bird appears lean, its beak and paws are discolored, it is extremely apathetic.
Causes: An unbalanced diet can lead to a deficiency of red blood cells in the blood.
Prevention: healthy and varied diet.
Treatment: You must give the patient a lot of fresh vegetables, a good meal with vitamins and a high dose of vitamin B in the drinking water.
coccidiosis
Symptoms: Bloody diarrhea, significant weight loss, drool flowing from the beak, mortality after about four days.
Causes: Ingestion of food or water contaminated by saliva from infected animals.
Prevention: Regular cleaning and disinfection of the cage and accessories.
Treatment: Isolation, disinfection and visit to the veterinarian.
Collibacilose
Symptoms: drowsiness, in appetence, greenish diarrhea and dyspnea. Death in 50% of the cases, contagious for the human.
Causes: Ingestion of contaminated food or liquids.
Prevention: scrupulous hygiene of the accessories and the cage.
Treatment: Administration of 1 or 2 milligrams of Streptomycin, 2 or 3 times a day.
Constipation
Symptoms: Difficulties of evacuation, reddened cesspool and swollen belly. The bird gives with its tail small jerks jerks down to evacuate thin and viscous stools.
Causes: Too dry and astringent food or sudden changes in temperature.
Prevention: healthy and varied diet, rich in vegetables and fruit, precaution to avoid temperature differences.
Treatment: Change of food and administration of a drug to regulate intestinal transit. Freeze-dried cod liver oil can also be added to the mash, vegetables and fruits at will.
Conjunctivitis and blepharitis
Symptoms: The eye is closed, hungry, irritated.
Causes: It is an inflammation due to physical causes, chemicals, or germs.
Prevention: Life and healthy environment.
Treatment: It is advisable to administer a broad-spectrum antibiotic and to put eye drops or an antibiotic such as tetracycline in the eyes.
Abnormal growth of the beak
Symptoms: The upper part of the bill grows abnormally.
Causes: Absence of cuttlebone (sepia) and other dietary errors.
Prevention: Always provide a sepia bone and a diet as rich and varied as possible.
Treatment: Cut the horny outgrowth of the beak with scissors of the correct size and give a whole sepia bone or pulverized in the mash.
Hoarseness
Symptoms: The bird coughs and sneezes from time to time while being sometimes healthy.
Causes: Cooling, climatic variations where nervous stress.
Prevention: Life and healthy eating.
Treatment: Installation of the cage (or bird) in a healthy place and at a constant temperature. Administration of an infusion with thyme or camomile honey.
Fracture of a paw
Symptoms: The bird no longer has its paw on the perch.
Causes: Cage or aviary whose bars or mesh are broken or just stupid due to an accident.
Prevention: Periodic and regular control of the habitat.
Treatment: It is necessary to immobilize the paw between two toothpicks which one maintains with a perforated dressing; or do a hitch with a piece of straw as one uses to drink the soda, split in two. After three weeks, remove the dressing, the paw should be healed.
Intestinal inflammation or enteritis
Symptoms: Apathy, drowsiness, diarrhea, unquenchable thirst, lack of appetite, dieback, mortality.
Causes: Unsuitable food, infections, parasites.
Prevention: Do not give spoiled or withered foods.
Treatment: Administration of antibiotics after examination of stool (droppings).
Inflammation of the cesspool
Symptoms: Disease more diffuse in females than in males. The abdomen swells and the cloaca is red. The bird also has difficulty in evacuating its droppings that remain stuck to the feathers under the tail.
Causes: Problems of feeding or adaptation for females, problems due to egg laying.
Prevention: Life and healthy eating.
Treatment: Cleansing the area around the cloaca, administering zinc oxide ointment and a healthy and varied diet.
Abnormal moulting
Symptoms: Falling of pinnae and feathers outside of summer.
Causes: Food errors, poor hygiene.
Prevention: Fresh and varied foods, hygiene of premises.
Treatment: Water with a vitamin complex.
External parasites, gray or red mites, lice
Symptoms: Nervousness of the bird, itching, loss of feathers.
Causes: Insufficient cleaning of the cage and accessories.
Prevention: meticulous hygiene of the premises, cages, accessories and especially perches.
Treatment: Regular sprays of suitable pest control products.
Pneumonia
Symptoms: Generalized discomfort, breathing difficulties, mucous discharge from the nostrils, open mouth breathing.
Causes: Air currents.
Prevention: Correct location of the cage.
Treatment: A lot of heat, antibiotics and vitamins.
Salmonellosis
Symptoms: Abundant diarrhea and generalized malaise, death, risk of contagion to humans.
Causes: Ingestion of contaminated food and water, contact with healthy carrier animals: rats, pigeons, flies ...
Prevention: meticulous cleanliness and no access to unwanted animals.
Treatment: After analysis of droppings, administer a broad-spectrum antibiotic, cleanliness, heat, rest.
Stomatitis and glossitis
Symptoms: Inflammation of the inside of the beak and the tongue that often force the bird to breathe open beak. Difficulties in feeding, purulent secretions in the nostrils, especially in complicated cases of pharyngitis.
Causes: Food too hard or poisoned (for example by insecticides), viral, bacterial or mycotic infections.
Prevention: General hygiene and healthy foods.
Treatments: Administration of soft foods with vitamin A intake and broad spectrum antibiotic.
Intestinal worms: Cestoids, Ascaris, Capillaries
Symptoms: Fatigue, drowsiness, slimming, small white fragments in droppings, death by intestinal obstruction.
Causes: Lack of hygiene.
Prevention: meticulous cleanliness of containers and habitat.
Treatment: Administration of a dewormer.
Diphtheria or Diphtheria-Smallpox
Symptoms: Dull, ruffled skins, severe diarrhea, breathing difficulties, saliva coming out of its beak, mortality.
Causes: Contact with infested food or animals, very contagious disease ...
Prevention: Clean and scrupulous disinfection.
Treatment: Complete isolation, call the veterinarian.
Acariosis of the legs
Symptoms: Rough and greyish crusts on the legs, deformation of the legs, death ...
Causes: Insufficient cleaning of the floor of the cage
Prevention: Cleaning and disinfection of the cage.
Treatment: Application of an acaricide ointment, administration of a vitamin complex.
Acariosis of plumage
Symptoms: The bird is nervous, it is continually scratching: its plumage is opaque and presents a white powder like dandruff.
Causes: External parasites such as the red mite, the gray mite and the louse that nest in the interstices of the cage and dirty accessories.
Prevention: Cleanliness and general hygiene.
Treatment: Disinfection of the cage, props and birds, with a suitable pest control product found in a pet store, bird store or pharmacy.
Lumps (follicular cyst)
Symptoms: Subcutaneous cyst on the back and wings, disease affecting mostly English breeds (not always !!!).
Causes: Heredity, repeated crossings between schimmel subjects.
Prevention: Pair intensive X schimmel or vice versa.
Treatment: Brush with iodine tincture in case of small cysts, otherwise you must enucleate them by contacting a specialist.
Mycosis or Proventriculitis
Symptoms: Rapid decline and significant atrophy of the pectoral muscles.
Causes: Dirty or dirty foods.
Prevention: Treatment with Amphotericin B, for breeding stock.
Treatment: Fungitec syrup for 12 days. During the first 5 days, combine with 3 grams of NF180 according to the dosage recommended by the veterinarian. Administer a vitamin complex.
Air vesicles
Symptoms: It is a disease that affects mostly chicks and that cause subcutaneous air bubbles.
Causes: Poor nutrition and hygiene.
Prevention: Environment and healthy eating.
Treatment: Solve problems with food and the environment. Pierce the bubbles with a sterilized needle (alcohol) to remove the air and pass a penicillin-based ointment.
The sick subject
The sick subject exhibits certain abnormal characteristic behaviors, here are some of them.
An observation of the amateur will soon realize that the bird is sick.
- Little liveliness and ruffled plumage.
- Inattentiveness or hunger continues.
- Continuous thirst.
- Plumage opaque, dull and pendulous wings.
- Noisy breathing with open beak.
- Eyes hungry and closed.
- Legs chipped and reddened.
- Leanness and irregular moult.
- Jerking of the tail and difficulty defecating (evacuation of droppings).
- Diarrhetic stools that dirty the tail.
- Difficulty flying.
- Belly swollen and reddened.
- Flow of mucus to the nostrils.
- Get into a ball.
The healthy subject
A healthy subject is recognized by the following signs:
- Plumage that adheres well to the body, shining (except during the moult where it will be opaque).
- Vivacity and regularity of movements.
- Normal appetite.
- Attentive eyes and head always moving.
- Legs clean and free of crusts.
- Normal evacuation (droppings).
- Closed nose and silent breathing.
- Chest well fleshy, we see that the bird is "very fleshy".