Word of Caution for Seagrass

Karlys

New member
Apr 11, 2018
62
0
Hello everyone,

About a month ago, our cockatiel Skye started to have something going on in the corner of her mouth. In the beginning, it looked like her Harrison's pellets and we would just wipe it off, thinking that it was food. I noticed that it was always the one side though and that couldn't be a coincidence and, so, off to the vet we went. The vet swabbed the area and she was diagnosed with a little skin infection.

She was prescribed antibiotics and it started to look better for the first five days. Then, the scabby crusty thing started growing back! The vet said to wait until the antibiotics were complete before coming back in. About a week and a half into the two week treatment, it started to happen on the other side too!

The two weeks were over and it hadn't healed but we're having some money troubles and another $200 vet visit was scary. My SO and I wracked our brains on what it could possibly be and we realized maybe the seagrass mat we had in her cage that she very much loved to destroy (she'd shredded a good 25-30% of it and would spend a good amount of time every day doing it) was hurting her mouth. We felt the areas she was chewing and they were pretty sharp and pointy.

So, we removed the mat and, within 3-4 days, she was healing better than she had in the previous two weeks! She's now completely healed. :)

So, at least in our case, it's not a good idea to let her have unsupervised total access to seagrass. I would think it would be similar for all small birds but our situation could be a fluke. Thought I'd share my experience in case it helps someone else though.
 

MonicaMc

Well-known member
Sep 12, 2012
7,960
Media
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Parrots
Mitred Conure - Charlie 1994;
Cockatiel - Casey 2001;
Wild Caught ARN - Sylphie 2013
It's a good reminder that toys that we often think are safe for our birds may not always be safe! Some bird will figure out a way to make a safe toy dangerous!
 

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