Hi,
I have a 26 year old double yellow headed amazon. She has developed
a soft tissue tumor right above her rectum. It doesnt seem to hurt her. She has never layed an egg. Is anyone familiar with this?

Welcome to the community...I'm sorry to hear about your Amazon, but it doesn't necessarily mean anything life-threatening...

Have you had this growth checked by either a Certified Avian Vet or an Avian Specialist Vet, and had it biopsied? This is always going to be the first step, because very often soft growths on their bodies end-up being either some type of cyst that needs to be drained or left alone and watched to see if it continues to grow and start to cause issue,
OR they are often Fatty Tumors, which are usually benign and harmless and also just need to be watched for continued growth/changes, OR they are also often Abscesses from a localized infection, such as in a pore, a feather follicle, etc., and if this is the case they must be drained and Antibiotics given to clear the infection up. The 4th possibility is it being another type of tumor, which may or may not be malignant, but typically that's not the case...HOWEVER, you'll not know until you get your bird to a CAV or Avian Specialist for a diagnosis, which is going to be critical, AND THE SOONER THE BETTER WITH ANY TYPE OF GROWTH, BECAUSE IF IT IS ANYTHING "BAD", IT NEEDS TO BE CAUGHT EARLY...

***Typically, and very, very common to Amazons, is that these soft tumors that develop on their bodies are called "Lipomas", which are simply tumors made of fat, and that are typically growing right beneath the skin, and do not have any organ involvement and are typically benign. Amazon's are very prone to them, and they are usually harmless in the sense that they are no cancerous...

****Lipomas, however, are a sign of a serious and life-threatening disease called Fatty Liver Disease, so they are not actually "harmless", and once the Lipoma develops,
soon many others start to form all over the body. Lipomas are typically caused by a regular, daily diet high in fat, usually from an all-seed diet that includes sunflower seeds, safflower seeds, corn, and nuts, such as peanuts. Parrots that do not eat pellets as their "staple" diet, but rather a seed-mix that contains sunflower seeds, peanuts and other nuts, corn, etc. So once a Lipoma develops on your bird and it is diagnosed as being a Lipoma by a CAV, typically they'll also take blood and run routine blood-work to test their liver functions, and usually they get a diagnosis of having Fatty Liver Disease....And when this diagnosis is confirmed, the most important thing you need to do is to change the bird's diet from the unhealthy seed-mixes to hopefully a staple of pellets, with only a small supplementation of a HEALTHY SEED-MIX that does not contain sunflower seeds, no peanuts, no nuts at all, no corn, etc. And then also the incorporation of fresh veggies every single day, and a very small amount of fresh fruit only a couple of times a week, as all fruit contains a ton of sugar, which is turned into fat and stored in the liver as well...

What is your bird's daily diet?

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"Dance Like Nobody's Watching".

Welcome to you and your DYA. Hopefully the tumor is benign, but Ellen's advice is helpful and ought be comforting. First step of course is to visit a certified avian vet.

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Any update on how your bird is doing? I forgot to ask you yesterday whether or not you have checked the rest of her body over very, very carefully for any other soft lumps, even very small ones??? The reason I ask you this is because if they are Lipomas, then typically once one shows up, many more will follow, and if you can find any other of these soft lumps anywhere on her body, then that is almost a sure sign that they are in-fact Lipomas...

****It's important to note that even though I have explained about how common Lipomas are and how likely it is that that's what this growth is, you need to remember that I also told you that you need to take your Amazon to a Certified Avian Vet or Avian Specialist Vet immediately, ASAP while it's still early and it's only one growth, because it may very well be any of the other types of growths that I also mentioned, including a malignant tumor. And once again, just as with people, it's VITAL that you get any growths on your birds as early as possible, because the longer you let a cancerous growth grow, the more likely the cancer will spread to other parts of the body, AND the longer you let a growth go without getting a proper diagnosis, the more complicated that growth will become to remove if necessary to remove it!

The longer that any type of cyst, tumor, abscess, etc. grows, the larger chance that it will develop it's own blood-supply, because vascularization will start to occur, and then it becomes more and more difficult to remove, if able to be removed at all (depends on it's location, for example, if it's on the abdomen/belly, chest, neck, head, face, vent area, then it can grow into vital organs, or latch onto the blood supply that normally feeds a vital organ or body structure, robbing blood from that organ, causing very serious and sometimes fatal complications, and making it totally inoperable).

So please, get your bird to either a CAV or an Avian Specialist as soon as possible for an exam/biopsy...If you need help finding the closest Certified Avian Vet or Avian Specialist Vet to you, we can help you with that! In this type of situation, you definitely do NOT want to take your Amazon to an Exotic's vet that has no specialized education or training in Avian medicine.

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"Dance Like Nobody's Watching".

Here are some links to vets...

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.


I'm glad you're reaching out on behalf of your bird!

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