Avian Vet Concerns

Hi guys,

I've recently been taking my older ringneck to see an Avian Vet as she hasn't been feeling well and I wanted to get her checked out. Now I just wanted to get your opinions on what whether or not these are standard practices.

So first a bit of a back story, I have a five year old female ringneck that started an egg laying process over a month ago and soon after she laid her last egg she basically lost all her energy, stopped saying anything, wasn't pooping and when she did it was only large abnormal droppings. So I did some research and took her to the best regarded avian vet (I live in Sydney by the way) here.

So upon her first checkup the vet did a couple of standard tests (Wet smear, gram stain & culture test) and then recommended an X-ray to see if there was anything stuck inside her stomach. After these tests he said it all seems okay except that she may have a slight yeast infection in her uterus and that her egg laying cycle has been disturbed as she's a bit malnourished. He recommended a range of supplements to put in her water and food to support her egg laying cycle.

So I followed the routine he designed for a week and after noticing no improvement in her behavior I took her back to the vet. This time he did a blood test to see whats going on inside her followed by the standard tests again.

When the blood test results came back he said it seems mostly fine except that she has low red blood cells and that she may have anemia, and that something isn't quite right in her stomach, he mentioned that it may be a yeast infection again.

So now he's called me in again to get another xray done, I forgot the exact name but it's a different kind of xray that will let him see the exact cause of the infection in the stomach. Once that's determined he'll either flush her stomach out or prescribe medicine to get it fixed up.

Now I've already spent over a $1000 in fees in my two visits with more to come, now I'm not too fussed about the money but I do want to make sure that the standard and correct procedures are being applied here as I don't want to be taken advantage of. There's nothing more valuable than good health so I just want to make sure that I'm on the right path here.

Sorry, I know it's a very long post but if you've managed to read through it all I'd love to hear your opinions!

Thank you

To me, it sounds like the vet has been going through tests logically. Eggs would be the first suspect in a laying female, fecal and standard X-ray since it seemed to be a stomach issue unrelated to eggs, and since the bird is still clearly sick but nothing showed up, then moving on to a blood test and more specialized non-standard testing. Unfortunately, our feathered friends cannot tell us whats wrong with them, what hurts ext... and do such a good job masking symptoms, it leaves a vet going through a process of elimination to figure out whats wrong sometimes. It sounds to me like your bird is under competent care. I hope she's diagnosed soon so you can get her treatment and back to being healthy!

Edit: If she does lay, I would consult whether the supplements should continue or if you should use dummy eggs to discourage laying if she's not breeding. Egg laying takes a lot out of the females, and they generally do need AV supervised supplementation

Thanks for that, makes sense.