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environmental problems of birds that can result in primary 
disease, or subject bird to stresses which allow other disease to take 
hold...

The Cage:

this is the environment the bird is in. the size 
should be as large as you can allow for. for two reasons: giving bird 
more room to move and to exercise, allowing bird to maintain normal 
stamina and weight (small cages promote decreased stamina and increased 
weight). ask owner to bring in cage so you can see how big it is (unless, 
I suppose, cage is a whole room or something). also, look at what is in 
the cage besides the bird. 

look at food, you don't want the person to 
clean the cage prior to bringing in the bird. you want to evaluate 
droppings, food, see what's going on in there. owner may think bird is 
eating well, when it's dropping stuff on the floor.

parakeet in cage 
16x16x20 that is full, literally littered with toys, and the more toys 
there are the more opportunity for injury esp with hanging toys from 
chains and such. often people have toys with bells in them - often a 
signal to parakeets in particular, budgies, that the bird is trying to 
*feed* the bell b/c it percieves it as a gaping mouth. some birds fixate 
on it, esp if there is a mirror near or on the bell, b/c they see an 
image with the bell...they have a physiological regurgitation response, 
and some birds get so wrapped up in parental care of the bell that they 
become severely emaciated, lose a lot of weight. so that's just one 
example of how a toy can make things go awry.

many toys sold for birds 
have lead on them, or zinc, and if the bird breaks the toy, can get 
exposed to toxic metals. this is frequent source of lead poisoning in 
birds. 

another thing we've seen for quite some time is that many cages 
are constructed using a galvanizing process involving a zinc coating. or, 
they are soldered with zinc solder. things that are very reflective like 
this - if they aren't wire brushed or acid treated correctly, they have 
excess zinc there and birds can chip away at the joints and get zinc 
poisoning. 

make sure the cage is brought to you in normal condition. 
you want to know what normal sanitation is like - do they change cage 
often, what do they line it with, are they eating the bedding, what's 
going on. 
could get bowel or gizzard or crop impaction.
are the water 
bowls clean? are there droppings in the bowl? if bird sheds bacteria in 
droppings and then multiple birds share water can spread infxn. many of 
these cages have food/water bowls set under another perch. you want to 
make sure bowl isn't right under a perch because it will rapidly be 
filled with droppings. 

check out the perches - are they the right size? 
birds won't perch if it is the wrong size, or they may break nails or 
crack feet. they used to sell these coverings for perches - sandpaper 
coverings, to wear the nails down. but that didn't really help wear the 
nails down and the birds didn't like it because it hurt their feet and 
set up a portal of entry for bacteria which caused pododermatitis which 
sometimes entered into joints and bones. so this is to be avoided. 


temp, humidity, photoperiod:

what temperature is the room the cage is 
in?
what's the humidity?
what's the photoperiod the bird is exposed to? 

these are important - temp and humidity affect feathering, how dry the 
feathers become. low humidity - dry, warm environment like in home in 
winter - has negative effect on feather quality, makes them dry, causes 
excessive preening, self-mutilating type of behavior, vicious cycle. 
birds often do not like to bathe, either. canaries, sure, but lots of 
psittacines do not like to splash around, so you want to keep humidity 
up, mist them with plant mister, let them play with water in sink or 
bathtub if they want to, stuff like that. 
nutrition and disease also can 
affect feathering.

photoperiod has more effect on hens than males. can 
trigger laying numerous eggs. more often in small psittacines as opposed 
to large ones. frequently in cockatiels. "students' birds disease" - when 
light is on too long. when october rolls around, students study more, in 
november, light stays on still more - now you have 12 hours of light a 
day, they think it's spring. they start to lay a lot of eggs - this isnt' 
the best thing to happen esp if borderline nutritional status - now she's 
mobilizing a lot of calcium - can get severely hypocalcemic and tetanic. 
so get light cycle stabilized, try to keep it similar to what's going on 
outside. 

people tend to take the eggs out after they are laid. some 
birds respond to that but some do not. most birds have a fixed # of eggs 
they will make per clutch. if you take one out, they will replace it. 
it's not going to work to take the egg out. leave the eggs with them and 
fix the light cycle - or, you can put an artificial egg in instead of the 
real egg if you want. some smooth white ovoid object will do. you can 
trick them into not making any more eggs that way. when they see that the 
eggs won't hatch, they won't stay on there too long past the normal hatch 
point. keep in the darkness of the season and that will shut this down. 
regarding hormonal injections, you should probably avoid it. we really 
don't understand enough about bird hormones to know if mammalian products 
are appropriate or what the dosage would be. 

feeding, nutrition: most 
of the stores you go into tend to fixate on seed for birds. for finches, 
other passerines - seeds do occupy a large part of their diet so its' 
reasonable to have good seed mixes for them. but for psittacines, it is 
different. seeds that get sold are high fat - peanuts, striped sunflower 
seeds, safflower seeds, millets - also low in calcium, high in 
phosphorus, deficient in many B vitamins. so be careful about this, don't 
let owners fixate on this all seed idea. over last 10 years, there has 
been much work toward making good pelleted diets for these birds. so 
they've tried to make nutritionally sound diets that are palatable and 
affordable. we do generally know the composition of the normal wild bird 
diet, how it fluctuates seasonally, etc. so we think we're able to make a 
diet that doesn't require owner preparation daily, that is consistent, 
etc. to switch from all seeds you have to get bird to recognize pellet as 
food - strange thing put into the parrot's cage will usually make him 
back off - so put it in with some of the regular food, first. or, let 
bird see other birds eating it. it can require a lot of willpower on the 
part of the owner, to get the bird to accept the new diet. and sure it is 
ok to give treats now and then of fresh fruit or veggie - up to about 
10-12% of the diet. owners have to make sure though that the food 
container is not moist, wet, opened, or mutilated. food needs to be 
fresh, not moldy.

exercise: we need to know there are times when birds 
can hurt themselves so you want the environment as safe as possible. 
though, it is better to allow bird out to fly now and then despite the 
risk, than to keep them caged all the time. large psittacines are more 
crawlers than flyers so they may be more prone to injury.

look at the 
issue of parasites:
for birds raised in this country, parasites aren't a 
huge issue for a bird in a household, purchased from aviary. problems are 
bigger in birds that have been imported from the wild or from large 
aviaries with lots of birds in one area.

parasite diagnosis:

antemortem 
exam: fecal exam (direct smear for motile protozoa, flotation, 
sedimentation for fluke eggs); blood smear (malaria, microfilaria, 
trypanosomes, other - but usually blood parasites aren't causing much 
damage to the bird, and tx can be worse for these); integumental exam; 
biopsy

postmortem exam: necropsy; fecal exam

when you see a bird with 
history: listless, ruffled feathers, occasional loose or discolored 
droppings, consider parasites. sure they are signs of other diseases too 
but parasitism is also possible. 

one thing to do when doing fecals is 
make sure to get fresh droppings, not something from the past week. dried 
droppings are not that helpful. to the extent that you can, remove as 
much urate material as possible from the formed fecal material. sometimes 
the urate crystals get in your way. be sure to look at sediment as well 
as float. to get fresh samples it may be necessary to put waxed paper in 
the cage. 

some GI parasites - coccidia are uncommon in single birds, 
more likely to be an aviary problem. eimeria and isospora are seen. 
coccidian spp tend to be pretty host specific - psittacine form not 
likely to be found in passerines or whatever. most are not pathogenic but 
if bird or flock is stressed, it may tip over into a disease state. signs 
are not unlike those seen in puppies/kittens - diarrhea, with mucus or 
blood, distended abdomen, emaciation with time, anorexia, vent staining. 
treatment is amprolium or some sulfonamide - in aviaries you would use it 
on the flock by putting it in water. tx individuals also by putting in 
water if bird is drinking. be careful about that though - you need to 
observe and ensure that the bird is drinking the water.

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availability of pelleted diets - somewhat erratic but better pet shops do 
carry them or at least will order them. 
there are still some sort of 
"snake oil" ideas about what to use in these diets, but some of them are 
fairly well worked out - KT products, Harrison's newer products, Missouri 
caged bird diets - purina product. 
Roddy Bush Maintenance Pellets

Zeigler parrot diets

so there are a number of these available. why don't 
you see more pet stores feeding these to birds? well, it's a time 
committment. it's sometimes hard to get the birds to switch so they just 
don't bother.

Moving on with parasitic diseases...
Giardia - your old 
friend. not a huge problem in many birds commonly maintained as pets, but 
in psittacines can be a problem. clinical signs as in mammals. watery 
stool, sometimes white stool, ruffled feathers, anorexia, crop 
distension, abdominal distension. can have variable mortality rate - 
5-10% in adults, but in nestlings much higher, if hen is infected and 
gives it to nestlings mortality will approach 100%. transmission is fecal 
oral via contaminated food/water. the one good thing is it doesn't *seem* 
to be zoonotic, the avian form doesn't seem to infect mammals. One spp we 
think of is the cockateil. that bird = while the GI problem may be 
minimal, or intermittent, there seems to be a problem with featherpicking 
in infected animals. clearing up giardia in these birds often makes 
featherpicking stop.
dx requires fresh droppings to find motile trophs. 
tx metronidazole. 

another protozoal - trichomonas. trichomoniasis 
happens more in pigeons, other columbiformes, and with raptors, but 
psittacines and gallinaceous birds can also get it. the organism can 
colonize various parts of the GI tract from mouth to cloaca. different 
species prefer different areas. one notable thing is birds with 
oral-pharyngeal lesion - caseous looking oral cavity. the diagnosis is 
again made via direct swab - can swab the oral cavity, look for organism 
with undulating membrane. metronidazole is tx of choice.

cryptosporidia 
- recognized more often as cause of dz in passerines (finches, canaries), 
psittacines, gallinaceous birds, and anseriformes. most often in mynahs, 
starlings. the problem is it is impossible to tx, there is no drug. for 
the most part it is subclinical. 

for nematodes - certainly, ascarids 
remain the most common nematode. Ivermectin is the drug of choice. 
fenbendazole etc may also be used. egg similar to the kind you find in 
dog/cat feces. heavy burdens can cause GI obtruction. 

spiral nematodes

can burrow into glandular portion of true stomach and get into lining of 
ventriculus and cause ulceration
few clinical signs, fairly refractory to 
tx. mebendazole, fenbendazole.

capillaria - occasionally encountered, as 
common or uncommon as ascarids may be. two groups - one found in upper GI 
and other in lower GI. they burrow into epithelium, they are thin, 
threadlike. their eggs have the characteristic barrel shape with the 
polar plugs at both ends. ivermectin seems to be the drug of choice with 
the -azoles being other possibilities. 

there is a cerebrospinal 
nematode - somethingascaris, a roundworm of the raccoon. oh, 
baylorascaris or something? "baylascaris" ? anyway, when it gets into 
birds it can get into CNS. no known tx. most often seen in outdoor 
aviaries in the south where trees overhang aviary and raccoons in trees 
defecate and feces falls into aviary.

African greys that have been 
imported seem to have their fair share of cestodes - can be found 
incidentally without causing any signs, or can be many segments being 
passed, causing problems - drontal is potential tx. 

Cockatoos seem to 
have some problems with trematodes. the cockatoo that's imported and wild 
caught may have liver flukes, cystic changes in liver that may or may not 
cause any clinical concerns. most are incidental findings on routine 
fecal. 

respiratory parasites: 
air sac and tracheal mite - most often 
seen in passerines, small finches, canaries, etc - cause a stertorious 
sound, a squeaking sound when breathing. when a bird comes in with 
respiratory problems, resp distress, you can sometimes transilluminate 
the trachea with bright light and see the mites moving up and down in 
their. also could be in air sac and then hard to see unless it is 
necropsy. ivermectin = tx of choice. remember though if heavy infestation 
killing all at once could compromise airway so may have to aspirate.


gapeworms, syngamus trachei - passerines like crows, robins, starlings, 
etc in rehab situations.

although there are a lot of skin parasites to 
talk about truthfully few are seen in practice, the commercially 
available pet birds do not have them, thankfully. feather mites, quill 
mites, chewing lice, etc. the only one that isn't too uncommon to find 
now is a sarcoptic mite called knemidocoptes, which causes scaly face or 
scaly leg or tassel foot. this mite penetrates skin and prefers 
featherless areas, so you see it right near the cere and under the lower 
bill in psittacines where that indentation is with no feathers, and on 
the shanks of the legs, and around the cloaca where there are few 
feathers. parakeets probably are most common ones with this, can also be 
seen in other psittacines. if you see it early enough, you see a sort of 
chalky whiteness to margin of skin/cere. as it progresses, mite gets into 
bill and it can appear spongiform, porous. white, soapy, chalky look to 
surface. fairly easy to dx this using some oil to lubricate the affected 
area and then taking a scraping of chalky material and looking under 
microscope. you usually see a whole village of sarcoptic mites. tx can be 
straightforward with ivermectin if beak is not distorted yet (early) but 
if late, when beak is now deformed or damaged, beak may remain deformed, 
there may be malocclusion requiring constant beak trims, the beak may 
flatten out into more of a bill than a beak. beak can become brittle and 
fracture when bird tries to eat. then you have to wait for it to grow 
out. in extreme states, birds may not be able to prehend seeds properly 
and become malnourished. 

it's thought that the knemidocoptic mite is a 
normal fauna of the bird. 

blood parasites - hemoproteus, babesia, 
trypanosomes, leukocytozooan, other. whole bunch of them, generally of 
little clinical relevance.

atoxoplasma in psittacines? more in 
passerines - mynahs. jury is out on how serious this may be. big issue is 
finding a test for atoxo vs toxo, b/c these are easily confused. 




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