I need help to find out if my conure’s feet has problems

[ChristaNL]

Oh, you are going for it....way to go
Glad you are finding your bird help!

(and great for caring and sharing here)


Let us know what happens next?

 

[EllenD]

I'm so glad you're taking her to a Vet...

If I can offer you some advice...Don't let them prescribe ANYTHING until they take a culture/swab of her feet and send it out to diagnose what microbe/bug is causing the infection. They may be able to look at it under their microscope in the office and do a Gram-Stain in the office and diagnose it right there, or they might have to send it out to another lab and wait a day or two to find out. Either way, DO NOT let them tell you it's not necessary and just prescribe you an Antibiotic without doing the culture/Gram-Staining to find out exactly what is causing the infection...A lot of "Exotics" Vets will do this, they just look at the bird and say "It's a bacterial infection, here's some Baytril"...And then the bird takes the antibiotic for a week or two and gets much, much worse or dies in the meantime because it's either the wrong antibiotic for the bacteria causing the infection, or it's not a bacterial infection at all, but rather a Fungal infection and the antibiotic he's been taking for a week just made it much worse, or it's a parasite and it just gets worse and worse...So don't let the Vet be lazy at all, and you sometimes will have to DEMAND that they do testing to figure out what exactly is causing the infection, but you're paying for the testing, not them, and if you just accept medication like an antibiotic or an anti-fungal without doing testing and it's not the right medication to treat what the actual cause is, then not only will your bird just get much, much worse, or die, but you'll also end-up spending a ton more money in the end anyway because you'll have to bring him back for the testing anyway and pay for the right medication anyway...So DEMAND that they take a culture/swab and either send it out to a laboratory for a "Culture and Sensitivity", or that they take a culture/swab and do basic microscopy and a Gram-Stain right there in their office. They can tell whether there is bacteria, fungi, protozoa, or a parasite just by looking at a swab of his feet/legs right under the microscope, and a Gram-Stain of the culture on a slide under the microscope will tell them exactly what bacteria it is, IF it is a bacteria... Also, I'd absolutely ask them for some anti-inflammatory medication to give your bird for the pain and swelling in his feet, because it looks horribly painful...Metacam is the one used the most, it's safe and works well...If they happen to mention anything about it possibly being "Kidney Failure" or "Gout" related to your bird's Uric Acid levels, this is why you need to first have the culture/swab done to rule-out a simply infection due to Bumblefoot or just an infection that spread from an open wound he had...If they do a culture/swab and it comes back negative for any microbial infections, then the next step would be basic blood-work to test his Kidney function/levels, as that would be the next most-common condition that causes this...

***Here's another question for you...Are the BOTTOM of his feet also effected? Are there any scabs, open wounds, pustules, etc. on the bottom of both of his feet too? If so, then it's probably something called "Bumblefoot", which is extremely hard to get rid or, but if it is Bumblefoot in your bird, it has advanced into a secondary infection that has spread throughout his entire feet/toes/legs, and that isn't typical Bumblefoot and has to be treated BEFORE you even try to deal with the Bumblefoot.

Bumblefoot is very common in birds and rodents. It's caused when the bird only has regular dowel-rod type of perches that are the same diameter around the whole way down their length, and the bird doesn't have enough toys/foraging activities to do inside of their cage,and they don't get enough out-of-cage-time every day...The Bumblefoot develops because the bird is bored basically, and they sit on a perch all day long in the same spot, not moving, and this puts pressure on their feet in exactly the same spots every single day, and this develops lesions on the bottoms of their feet. These can get infected if they open-up with bacteria, fungi, or both, and then spread to the tops/sides of their feet, toes, legs, and eventually can kill them by making them septic...

The only way to prevent Bumblefoot in birds is to first get rid of ALL of the perches in their cage that are plain old "dow-rod" perches, either wood or plastic, like the ones that usually come with the cage when you buy it new, and replace them all with natural tree-branch perches, cement perches, any type of perches that aren't perfectly round and the same diameter the whole way down...They need to be standing on perches that put pressure on different areas on their feet all the time, like natural branches do.

The reason it's very difficult to cure Bumblefoot once it starts and gets bad is because the only way to cure it is to keep pressure off the bottom of their feet for a good couple of months, which is nearly impossible to do since they have to stand on their feet 24/7...Removing all perches and putting down soft towels/blankets and making the stand on that can help, but the only thing that I've actually seen cure it is having the owner take the bird in to the Vet's office once daily for a couple of weeks for treatment with a medical-grade laser...It's not expensive treatment and each treatment only takes 10 minutes or so, so it's not as big a deal as it sounds, and it's really the ONLY thing that works, because the medical-grade laser increases the blood-flow to the area they use it on 100-fold, and speeds the healing process to a matter of weeks..The problem usually is finding a Vet office that actually has and uses a medical-grade laser...They are small, portable laser units (they aren't some big huge radiation laser or anything, they look like a little jump-box you use to jump-start your car with, lol)...Lots of Vets use them daily, many times daily; they actually are starting to use them on any and all wounds on all animals, new surgical incisions, etc.

See what the Vet says, what the culture/swab shows, and we'll go from there to try to help you...

 

[noodles123]

It's like a bed sore of the avian variety...never realized that parallel until just now.

 

[EllenD]

It's like a bed sore of the avian variety...never realized that parallel until just now.

That's a really great way of describing Bumblefoot! I've never thought of it in those terms either, but that's exactly what it is! Good call!