What causes birds to get sick?

bill_e

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I guess I'm really talking about illnesses like an upper respiratory kind of thing (a cold or flu in humans), not about fatty liver or the like. Is it stress, diet, air conditioning, drafts, over sanitization?

In the 42 years I've owned parrots I'm not had one get sick. I've lived in two houses during that tine, a 3 bedroom split and an ancient farmhouse. My house has temperature swings from 58° - 66° in the winter and in the warmer months it's basically the same temp as outside. We don't have AC.

My OWA was on a seed diet for her whole life, Nike is on Harrisons.

Are birds like people, you know the ones who ignore the 5 second rule and never get sick as opposed to the ones constantly using anti-bacterial soap who seem to be ill all the time?

Is it cookware or scented candles, my house has both?

I'm leaning more towards stress as the biggest contributor to a weak immune system.

What are your thoughts?
 

GaleriaGila

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Oooooooh... allergies, teflon, candles, incense, air fresheners, any heavy scents, chipping or eroding lead paint... I'm afraid of all these, and just about everything and anything, admittedly!

YESSSS, stress, bad nutrition, poor breeding, no exercise...

And yeah, there are some birds who seem to weather everything, and some who suffer at the slightest challenge.

I betcha it's a mysterious combination of everything!
 

ChristaNL

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I am not a fan of 'laboratory conditions'

- just like human children who grow up in an almost sterile environment will devellop weird allergies etc. because their immunesystem 'gets bored' or 'does not get enough exercise'.
The trend here now is to send young city-kids to play-farms once a week to let them get nice and dirty and expose them to the outside, animals and all their muck.

Of course: stress is still thought of as killer number one in birds especially,

and I still get the advice "keep bird away from drafts" (though no-one ever has any evidence why it is suposedly so bad for them ... treetops tend to be rather windy imho).
I think it is more a 'sudden decrease in temperature thing than anything wind-related' but who knows...
(and yes temperature variation can be a stressor ;) )

So, I do not know; birds will probably also get sick from other birds, just like we humans pass diseases round. But does that imply that isolation is the better option?

(I always get angry when I see people on youtube take their pet to birdmarkets -> you did your best to have a diseasefree animal and now you are putting that bird amongst heaps of untested, stressed out relatives ...)

... there must be a middle way, right?
 

TiredOldMan

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I am not a fan of 'laboratory conditions'

- just like human children who grow up in an almost sterile environment will devellop weird allergies etc. because their immunesystem 'gets bored' or 'does not get enough exercise'.
The trend here now is to send young city-kids to play-farms once a week to let them get nice and dirty and expose them to the outside, animals and all their muck.

Of course: stress is still thought of as killer number one in birds especially,

and I still get the advice "keep bird away from drafts" (though no-one ever has any evidence why it is suposedly so bad for them ... treetops tend to be rather windy imho).
I think it is more a 'sudden decrease in temperature thing than anything wind-related' but who knows...
(and yes temperature variation can be a stressor ;) )

So, I do not know; birds will probably also get sick from other birds, just like we humans pass diseases round. But does that imply that isolation is the better option?

(I always get angry when I see people on youtube take their pet to birdmarkets -> you did your best to have a diseasefree animal and now you are putting that bird amongst heaps of untested, stressed out relatives ...)

... there must be a middle way, right?

RANT ON

Agree with all said!

I have been preaching this for YEARS.

i have seen the results in poultry and game birds, and yes most notably in human offspring.

I know this may seem gross to most of you but it wasn't unusual for me to be working livestock and end with a mouthful of excrement on a daily basis.

My generation played in and hence ate dirt. I never heard of most of these food allergy's until fairly recently.

Any kid in my generation with this allergy apparently died without anyone knowing what caused it.

RANT OFF

Sorry
 

Sandy19

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Mar 22, 2017
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I have friends that are germaphobes. They're the ones that bathe in hand sanitizer, the ones that wipe down their grocery carts with those sanitizer wipes that the store provides and then throw them in the cart with no regard to who has to remove them, the ones that never miss their flu shots, and of course the ones who are always sick. I imagine if they had birds their birds would be sick too lol.
 

Sandy19

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Mar 22, 2017
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Also I live in Florida so I can't live without AC. Peanut spends most of her time on my screened porch since I work from home and can allow her to roam free out there while keeping an eye on her. My feeling is that if the temperature on the porch is tolerable to me than it's tolerable to her. Most of the time it's shady, but I'll bring her in if the sun is too much or during the winter when we have a really cold day. There is a temperature change when I bring her in the house during the summer, however. It's warm outside and cool inside with the AC running of course, but it's never caused a problem and I doubt it will.
 

SailBoat

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We have long worked with end-of-life Amazons. The vast majority come to us abused, sick, broken, etc... What got them that way is a wide cross-section of poor care by Humans.

The combination of screwed DNA from Parrot Mills combined with improper weaning will be the major leader in the near future. But today, it is commonly a weak immune system that opens them to any number of illnesses. The sources vary (well covered above) but the end result are Parrots that die far too early.

Basics for Healthy Long Lived Parrots:
- Good Parents (Good DNA, Healthy themselves, the care they provide the chicks).
- Solid healthy, natural, Fresh Diet support by a wide spectrum of healthy dry foods including Pellets. Diet Adjusted to the specific needs of that species.
- Allowed to first learn early how to fly and an active life style, Allowed to be fully Fledged.
- Not exposed to Abuse, which is far more common than we will admit too!

Reality of Drafts! It is the repeated, quick, rapid change in temperature that effects them. A single hit does not cause the problem it is effect of repeated hits that stress them as they attempt to adjust to the rapid change. Compare the effect of a strobe light to a light left on all the time and ones ability to sleep.

The reality is, like us, they are exposed to a laundry list of illness everyday and as long as their immune system is strong, it will fend-off the majority of them. The danger of saying that is it can turn-on a green light for the less caring to provide even less than basic care.

Always remember the unintended results of what knowing /caring Parrot Staff /Owners say as part of a 'short-hand' discussion and those that are far less knowledgeable and understandings of the basics required to assure a strong healthy immune system over-hearing or reading what we say.
 
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Scott

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Agree with all of the above! The microscopic world is a fact of life, that we cannot see the critters is probably beneficial to our psyches!

I tend to be a fan of boosting the immune system and accepting there are some realities we cannot conquer. I have a germaphobe aunt, and it is amusing to watch her antics. She lives alone and seems to be doing multiple loads of laundry several times weekly! So careful, but she eats in restaurants frequently. Bwahahahaha!
 

EllenD

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I agree, there is no advantage at all to living like a "Germaphobe", not for people, not for pets...It's been well-known for a long, long time that living creatures build-up immunity to Bacteria, Fungi, Viruses, etc. by simply being exposed to them. And it's also been know for a long, long time that over-exposing a living creature to the same Antibiotic over and over again makes them useless when they actually might need them...I don't believe that there is any documented evidence, not that I've ever read or heard of, that keeping pet birds in a "sterile" type of environment gives them any advantage as far as not contracting illnesses. That's just not how it works...

I'm 38, I got my first pet bird at the age of 6, and have owned my own pet birds as well as breeders since I was 16. And with the exception of my Quaker developing a bacterial Upper Respiratory Infection about a month after I brought her home from her breeder (which means she most-likely contracted the infection while she was at her breeder's home and while with her siblings and the breeder's other birds), none of my birds have ever been ill either...They've been injured due to accidents before, but none of them have contracted any type of infection, at least not one that I was aware of and that their bodies didn't fight-off on their own...

And that a really good point, the fact that our pet birds, just like any of our pets and just like us, probably do at times contract illnesses/infections, but because their are in good-health and have strong immune systems, their bodies fight-off the illnesses/infections without us ever knowing about them.

While it's easy to identify the causes of illnesses in birds that are very specific in-nature, such as heavy metal poisoning, or death from the fumes of Teflon, or Fatty Liver Disease due to a fatty diet (though we also have to account for other things like genetics when trying to figure out why one bird on an all-seed diet gets FLD and another one on the same diet doesn't), what is nearly impossible to know are the causes of sudden infections, such as an Upper Respiratory Infection, which is usually caused by either a Bacteria, a Fungi, or both...It's one thing if the bird is immuno-compromised and then develops a URI, but when a perfectly healthy bird develops a URI, no matter what the microbe is that has caused it, usually it's impossible to identify the cause (unless the bird was exposed to another sick bird, of course)...It could be anything, just like it is with us...What we do know is that birds don't get infections (not Bacterial, Fungal, or Viral) just from being out in the cold, neither do we, that's an old myth passed down throughout the years...Yes, if a bird is left out in the cold or is wet and cold for a long period of time, just like a person, they are going to get sick, but not initially from an infection. Birds in that situation only develop infections after their immune systems and their bodies in-general are weakened by the exposure/hypothermia, drop in body-temperature, frost-bite, etc. So any bacterial, fungal, or viral infections that develop in a bird, reptile, or a person who has been out in the cold, wet weather for a long time develops "secondary" to the exposure to the cold/wet weather...

The bottom-line is that for any living creature to develop a bacterial, fungal, or viral infection, or any type of illness caused by some kind of contagion, they must be exposed to that specific contagion in some way. That's it, period. However, why does one bird exposed to a certain contagion become ill while another bird exposed to the same contagion is not effected by it at all? Genetics, strength of their immune system, one having built-up an immunity to that specific contagion while the other has not, one on a healthy diet with a stronger immune system as a result, etc.
 

noodles123

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Jul 11, 2018
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Umbrella Cockatoo- 15? years old..I think?
Everything...
Drafts, stress, teflon (PTFE)---(in curling irons, heat-lamps, space-heaters, drip trays, turkey roasters, microwave popcorn bag etc--ANYTHING that heats should illicit a phone-call to the company to check for PTFE), nail polish, hairspray, aerosol, any cleaner that isn't avian safe, candles, fabreeze, carpet shampoo, bbq grills, gas, burning food, dirty environment, lack if sleep, perfume, essential oils, exposure to other birds (who may or may not be symptomatic-- see ABV), diet lacking in nutrients or too high in fats/salt/sugar/preservatives, poisonous foods...
Basically, all of these things can cause stress and/or kill the bird. From there, environmental toxins, such as mold (literally everywhere), can take hold and do the rest.
 

Sandy19

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Mar 22, 2017
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I don't know, I think just using some common sense will keep a bird the healthiest.

Obviously you shouldn't spray aerosols all around them or leave their living environment filthy or feed them large amounts of unhealthy food, but I've never heard of a bird dying from a summer breeze, eating a piece of a Cheezit or using your hair dryer in the bathroom. If that's the case you and the bird should just move out to a tree in the forest.
 

noodles123

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Jul 11, 2018
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Umbrella Cockatoo- 15? years old..I think?
True- now that my rehomed bird is healthy, I am less concerned, but when I got her, she had a liver condition and that brought a ton of issues into play..Hated being so paranoid, but once health starts to fade, it can be a bit of a chain reaction.
 

BoomBoom

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Great topic and responses. I was thinking about this just the other night. My coworker's in-laws have a blue and gold Macaw named Blue who I believe is at least 30 to 40 years old. Sadly, I don't think he gets the best care (i.e., primarily seedmix diet, kept in a cage in their backyard summer or winter (South CA weather), cage that is not regularly cleaned, hates humans, probably gets little attention). I only met him once. I've been trying to educate my coworker ever since. She did try for a while but eventually she moved out of the in-laws' house. I'd adopt Blue if I had the room but I don't and I doubt the in-laws would give him up anyway.

Anyway, Blue from what I know, has never been sick and is quite fit. This has always baffled me. Only thing I can think of is he may be taken from the wild and therefore has strong genetics or the constant exposure to the outside (dust, wind, sun) is doing wonders for his immune system.

In contrast, There are some extremely well taken care of and pampered birds who seem to fall ill. I'm generalizing of course, but yeah. Gets me thinking.
 
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bill_e

bill_e

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When I asked this question I was thinking stress as the main cause for sickly birds (again, not talking about diseases or poisoning) but the more I think about it genetics is moving higher on my list.
 

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