HELP Please - sick friends bird, possible PBFD - Need advice asap

Hi everyone
My good friends have an Alexandrine and a cockateil.
I found the Alex in a park and after searching for the owner my friends adopted him, and they love him very much.
When he first arrived, he had minor plucking problem on his shoulderblades, but only very minor.
In the last few months my frieds mentioned he was plucking more and took him to 2 vets. unfortunately they live in a small town (no avian vet) who said there was nothing wrong with him.
I have since seen the bird, and there is quite obviously something seriously wrong. I have attached a photo of his feathers - they are brown, 'oily' or wet looking, and there are signs of deformity at the base. He has increased his plucking markedly.
Apart from this, his behaviour is normal.
I am angry at the vets they have visited who told them he was fine. They will be driving up to the city to see my avian vet as soon as they can.
Anyone with any experience i would really appreciate their advice, please have a look at the pic and let me know what you think.

I am also concerned for the teil but aside from looking a little scruffy he doesnt seem to be exhibiting symptoms. However i am pretty sure there was no quarantine, so maybe the alex picked it up from the teil?
Another possibility is that the alex escaped and was out for 24 hours in the wild before returning home.

Many thanks...

Ok I see alot of stress bands on the birds feathers, now this can be food related but it is also stress related so have them ask the avian vet about nerve seditives and diet supliments . Good luck hopping for the best

yes you are right the feathers are in terrible condition. when i first saw him i thought he had just got out of the bath and the water had turned them brown - but no, he hadnt been in the bath. his whole back feathers are brown and oily looking.
i cant believe the vet assured them he was fine!!

thank you!

I'd be super careful before going home to my flock.

bad thing is henpecked i had my ecelctus with me when i walked into the house. As soon as a saw him i took my bird straight out ( as the vets had apparently given him the allclear i didnt think too much of it), and now i am terrified that my bird will have picked it up.
what a stupid thing to do, now im worried both for stinky (the sick bird) and my boy

There's definitively a problem, however, the remaining feathers appear to be normal (out of the shaft as opposed to half still in the shaft and molted like seen in PBFD). I am no expert in the disease though and you didn't show us a molted/pulled feather to see deformity. He does need to be seen as the "oily, black" appearance is concern enough as well. Even when you live far away from an Avian Vet, nowadays, you can still test for diseases with Avian Biotech Lab. They send you collection kits and you can get results ASAP. Still doesn't replace seeing a vet, but would still help to rule out some potentially deadly and contagious diseases in the meantime.

Until you can get some answers, what I do when I've been around other birds. (This doesn't happen that often) I come home take my clothes to the washer and take a shower head to toe. Maybe I'm just paranoid but I prefer to be safe than sorry. I wish I could help, but I don't know anything about that. Hope you get answers soon. Good luck.

thanks echo unfortunately New Zealand is not quite as advanced in that regard. we only have 3-4avian vets in the country and no avian biotech lab resources

mrob said:

thanks echo unfortunately New Zealand is not quite as advanced in that regard. we only have 3-4avian vets in the country and no avian biotech lab resources

Click to expand...

Oops sorry, I neglected to see that!

While there is clearly something wrong, others are right in saying that the feathers in the picture you have provided do not look as bad as they would with fully developed PBFD, however pickle looked like this for almost a year and a half before he showed any truly deformed looking feathers and was finally tested by our vets who assurred us it was probably behavioural all that time.

Have you noticed anything weird about the beak or nails? (such as simply being overgrown despite appropriate perches or clipping, weird yellowy green colour, brittle or bruised..?)

I cannot tell as you haven't shown pulled or dropped feathers in pictures or anything, and even if you did, noone here could tell you for certain if it was PBFD, so if you are worried it would be best to get a feather tested by an avian vet, they should know where to send samples off to if you don't have the facilities there.

As for the cockatiel, they seem to have more of a resistance to it (kindof like lorikeets or budgies) even though they are closely related to cockies. They can still get it, and badly, but they have a higher statistic of simply becoming carriers, or showing the disease, moulting and spontaneously recovering...
So it is possible that the cockatiel is a carrier, but just as likely that it is not, and if the alex IS infected the cockatiel still might be fine even with exposure.

While the virus can be highly mobile in feather down, feathers, poop and other soiled surfaces, it doesnt seem to be as virulent as it could be. Most cases are caught from parents at a young age before an immune system is fully developed to fight it off, or caught from other birds if the victim already has a compromised immune system (is sick, stressed, poor nutrition etc). But a lot of adult birds who are exposed simply don't get it, assumedly because of their immune system killing it before it spreads too far.

If the alex does have it, of course you will want to get your ekkie tested, but if he is otherwise healthy, i don't think you need to be tearing your hair out with worry at this point until you know.