this is why it's important to go to a certified avian vet

[Owlet]

I work at a petstore, one of my coworkers is currently finishing up school to be a vet tech. Another one of my coworkers has been deadset on one of the birds being sick. She will say he'd be puffed up and "breathing weird". I made a point to check on the birds every ~1hr whenever I was at work to make sure everything was good. They kept tacking on symptoms but I was literally not seeing anything and everything they described sounded like normal bird behavior like standing on one leg. I would always see the bird in question flying about, singing, eating, etc. I never saw anything that made me think he was sick. Last night they're spamming my manager with texts saying hes acting up again "he's puffed up, standing on one foot, blinking weird, and mouth breathing" and aside from the mouth breathing it just sounded like a tired bird. Thankfully they decided to take a video finally! You know what this bird was doing? BEAK GRINDING. "weird blinking" was just the slow blinking they do when they're winding down to sleep. The bird was just cozy and getting ready to sleep. But now since my coworker has gotten this vet tech in training involved and our other manager involved who knows nothing about animals period. Now we HAVE to take him to the vet which normally I'm not against but these guys aren't hand tame. This is just a ton of stress on the small birds and knowing this vet they're likely gonna still put him on antibiotics even though nothing is wrong and then we will be forced to manhandle the bird and force unnecessary meds into his system and I'm so frustrated. All of this is so unnecessary and is just going to stress out the poor little thing just because a vet tech in training, who's experience is probably solely with poultry since as far as I'm aware that's how it is with vet tech training, all because she thinks she knows parrots. How do you confused beak grinding with mouth breathing??

 

[Owlet]

I guess I jinxed myself here. day after posting this / yesterday, I was doing my rounds checking on the animals and the budgie was in distress. He was frantically rubbing at one of his eyes to the point he had rubbed some of the feathers away and was flying about very distressed and even threw up a little. I think he got something in his eye so I had a coworker helped me flush his eye with lukewarm water and set him up in ISO. He improved greatly after flushing his eye and this morning he seemed entirely better. My manager is looking to get the bird seen by the vet I use for my birds so that's wonderful. He has to get it approved though since it's not one of the pre-approved vets...

I think he may have gotten a bit of bell pepper juice in his eye as we give them fresh veggies daily on a kabob and he likes to hang upside down while he eats.

 

[Owlet]

Update! We were able to take him to the Avian vet I take my birds to and they completely cleared him. He is perfectly healthy.

Of course though the visit was very stressful for him so we are keeping him in ISO for a little longer just so he can relax without people walking by every minute.

 

[Vampiric_Conure]

Update! We were able to take him to the Avian vet I take my birds to and they completely cleared him. He is perfectly healthy.

Of course though the visit was very stressful for him so we are keeping him in ISO for a little longer just so he can relax without people walking by every minute.

So glad the little fella is doing well!