HELP!!! My budgie!!

So my budgie banana developed a bump on the base of his foot. We took him to the vet and it showed signs of cancer but he was given antibiotics and some other medication and sent home. Now this bump was drained but it had originally developed in only a day and just kept getting bigger. Now he is getting many small bumps on his foot but only the foot that had the original bump and he has developed a large bump on his wing. This has all happened in the past 2 days. The bumps are filled with fluid and I'm really worried.


Some background to his diet age etc
Banana is an 11 year old budgie and I got him about 2 months ago. He was in bad condition being fed a seed only diet and for the past at least 2 years he has been completely and uderly neglected living in his own filth. He still isn't eating pellets or veggies but I have been giving him vitamin supplements in his water. He also lives with my other budgie nimbus a one year old healthy sweet budgie.

I understand that he must still go to the vet but my veterinarian doesn't know what it is and its too late to call any other veterinarians right now

Sorry you are going through this. Can you post pictures? It sounds like a rapid spread of infection. But I'm not sure s time frame might help. If it's cancer and it has been some time since the first bump cancer does spread... But if this happened in a few days I would think infection.. the vitamin in water can also lead to yeast overgrowth. If you said all these bumps cane up in two days than it is an infection. I hope you can get to the avian vet in the morning. Is he eating candy drinking?

If you can afford it, I would recommend a blood panel and X-Rays....

I hope Banana's vet is certified avian or equivalent. These situations require expert intervention and possibly specialized equipment or meds.

Good luck, please keep us updated. Pictures may be helpful for members to give helpful advice.

First, separate the bird from the other one. From what I’m reading it sounds like infection. I would be worried about sepsis considering how fast the bumps are spreading and if they are large abcesses. What is the fluid in them like? Is it white and viscous, yellow and runny, bloody? If the bird is not drinking, vitamin water is good and I would add a tiny amount of sugar to keep it drinking. If the bird starts becoming unresponsive, keep it warm unless it already has a fever which you can tell by panting. If the birds feathers are constantly ruffled it may be cold. Tonight I would keep a close eye on your budgie and making sure to properly hydrate it throughout the night until you can get to a vet. Best of luck to you and I will be active on here for another hour if you have any questions. I am no vet but I have minor vet training so I will help you the best I can

Bumble foot

You said you are giving vitamins, I would stop them ASAP!

I don't know where you are, but here are some links. I only have USA info...
Certified Avian Vets
https://abvp.com/animal-owners/find-an-abvp-specialist/
If none are near you...
Avian Veterinarians
http://www.aav.org/search/custom.asp?id=1803
In my opinion, any of the vets listed here should be better than a regular vet.

The first thing you need to do is put him in his own cage, and relocate him in his own cage into a totally separate room from your other two birds. Any time you bring home a new bird, regardless of where it comes from or how old it is, you absolutely must do a 30-Day Quarantine where the new bird is kept in it's own cage by itself, and the cage must be kept in a room by itself, away from all other birds already living in the house, and behind a closed door if possible. However, in this particular case, this Budgie came from an extremely neglectful, dirty, unhealthy environment, and he's exhibiting/displaying active signs of severe infection/disease, that is very possibly contagious to your other birds. So if you haven't already done so, you MUST put him in his own cage in an entirely different room from your other birds, behind a closed door if possible, and then you're also going to have to keep a very close eye on your other birds now for the next few months to make sure that they too don't start developing any infections, illnesses, or have any parasites such as Feather-Mites that it's very possible that this guy has due to his prior filthy home.

Now as far as the bumps on his foot and wing, can you please take some photos (close-ups of the bumps) and post them for us to see? And can you please explain what you meant by "The bumps at first showed signs of cancer"...Did the Vet you took him to tell you that the bumps showed signs of cancer? And if so, what was this Vet basing this on? Did the Vet take a culture/scraping of the bumps and look at them under a microscope? Did the Vet at least look at the fluid they drained from the bumps under a microscope? Send it out for a Culture? Also, as far as the "fluid" that the Vet has drained from this bump/bumps, was the fluid clear? Bloody? Or was it white/tan/brown and thick?

Typically cancerous growths don't just pop-up over night like this, nor do they fill with "fluid", nor do they fill back-up with fluid after they are drained. This doesn't at all sound like cancerous growths, but rather a severe bacterial infection of some kind that is causing Abscesses to form under the bird's skin. Abscesses develop rapidly, they fill-up with fluid that is usually a mix of mostly white blood-cells/bacteria (PUS) and maybe a little blood, maybe not. (This is why I asked if the Vet looked at the fluid they drained from the bumps under a microscope, as they should easily be able to see whether or not the fluid contains white blood-cells, bacteria, blood, etc., as well as what type of bacteria it is. This would instantly (or should have) tell the Vet that the bump/bumps are Abscesses due to an infection, and that the fluid is Pus, and should have indicated to the Vet that they needed to send-out a Culture of the fluid to the lab they use to determine exactly what strain of bacteria is causing the infection, and then exactly what Antibiotic will treat that specific bacterial. It may also be a Fungi that is causing the infection, which is identified the same way, by taking a culture of the fluid, looking at it under a microscope in the office initially, so that the vet at least knows whether it's a bacterial or fungal infection so that they can start the bird on a broad-spectrum antibiotic or anti-fungal medication, and then they send the culture out to a lab so they can specifically identify the strain of bacteria or fungi and the medication that should be used, and then the Vet can change the Antibiotic or Anti-Fungal the bird is on to the correct one that will treat the infection, if they didn't choose the correct one at the office appointment...A culture should only take 2-3 days to get results back from...Did the Vet do this?

Did the vet do a blood-draw from the bird's neck to run routine blood work, such as a Complete Blood Count and liver/kidney function tests? This is simple to do, and will tell the vet if the bird has any type of infection, how bad the infection is, and whether or not it's effecting his organ functions...

It sounds to me like unfortunately the vet you took the bird to has no idea what they are doing...I'm going to assume this was either a General Vet or an Exotic's Vet, and not a Certified Avian Vet or an Avian Specialist, correct? Can you tell us exactly what medications they put the bird on? Each of them?

My best recommendation is that you find the closest Certified Avian Vet or Avian Specialist Vet to you (if you have to drive a few hours one-way then that's what you have to do, because this is probably extremely urgent at this point), we can help you find the closest to you if you let us know what town/city and state you live in, and you get him there immediately. It sounds to me like he has a very serious, systemic infection at this point, that probably started in his foot (he may have had a cut/wound on his foot, or it may have entered through a toenail), due to his filthy, unsanitary prior conditions, then his foot got infected, he got no treatment at all for the infection in his foot, and now the infection has taken over his foot and will continue to spread up his leg and eventually it will become systemic...Now the fact that he also has the same kind of "bump" on his wing all of a sudden too tells me that the infection may already be systemic, or he just has several local infections all over his body, which is not uncommon for a bird living in the conditions that you describe. There's not a lot that we can help you with, but if you post some photos of both the bumps on his foot and the one on his wing, and any other ones you see, we might have a better idea as to whether they are local abscesses due to infection or not...

Did the Vet tell you to treat the actual bumps with a topical disinfectant and an antibiotic cream?

****Also, please stop putting any type of vitamin-drops, supplements, or any medications in the bird's drinking water!!! This instantly contaminates his drinking water with bacteria, fungi, etc., and in addition those cheap vitamin drops are not beneficial but rather harmful, as you have no idea how much he is getting of each vitamin/mineral because it depends on how much he drinks and how much is in his water, etc. So all this is going to do is make him worse-off. He needs to have a lot of fresh, clean drinking water at all times, and let him get all of the nutrition/vitamins/minerals he needs from his diet.

***Please tell me that the Vet didn't give you medications, such as the antibiotic that you're giving him, that you are supposed to put in his drinking water, did they? If so, then this is horrible and will not do a bit of good, and will only make him worse....For future reference with any of your birds, don't ever agree to put anything at all in their drinking water, no vitamins, no supplements, and especially no medications. All medications that your birds get should be given orally in liquid form, either directly into their mouths/beak from a syringe without a needle, or by you putting the liquid medication in a very small bit of a treat or food for them to eat, but never in their drinking water....

Make sure you get bloodwork now and ask for immediate results. That sounds like an infection and the bird needs antibiotics fast! It might even need a starter injection then oral meds to stop its spread. Make sure that bird is quarantined if you have others! Infections spread between birds easily, especially by perch!

After y'all survive this and if you're not already, get familiar with bumble foot. Read and ask questions. It's a serious and too often a disabling problem.

I really wish people would stop the "put the medicine in het drinking water"-nonsense.


As Ellen and a lot of other parrotowners will tell you:
you put the medication where it belongs: IN the bird,
otherwise you might just as wel place the bottle of medication next to the cage and expect the bird to get better "because of the superhealthy aura the medicine spreads around itself".

No use poluting pure water.





Not sure if it is really bumblefoot, but since it spreads so fast it sounds nasty (something like the avipoxvirus)


... how are you guys doing now?

I agree, it doesn't sound like Bumblefoot at all; the fact that the Vet was able to draw-out syringes of fluid from the "bumps" and then they returned is a classic sign of Abscesses due to bacterial infection, and with the rapidity of the way these Abscesses both initially developed and spread, it's a progressive bacterial infection that most-likely started locally in the birds foot and is now spreading, if not already systemic (not surprising from the description of what the bird was living in/standing in, it would only take a small open wound exposed to filth/droppings/rotting food for this to develop)...

I don't know if the Vet prescribed the antibiotic and "other medications" (whatever they are, they didn't say) in a powdered or liquid form that is meant to be put in the drinking water or not, I don't know, but since the Vet recommended "vitamin-drops" to be put in the drinking water, I was having nightmarish visions of a bird's "fresh" drinking water full of both a nasty, brown vitamin-drop with a powdered antibiotic mixed into it as well...And usually the antibiotics that are "powdered" and supposed to be put in the drinking water are from the penicillin-family and are totally ineffective, even if given properly by-mouth...More than likely this bird needs a Cephz type of antibiotic, such as Keflex or similar, as they are very effective against topical infections of the skin...