Is this good for liver disease?

Aloe Herbal Detox Formula | Lily of the DesertLily of the Desert I was going to give Cookie some aloe detox to help with her liver but I don't know if this is safe to use.

After Pecker, I am a "True Believer" in this product.

Carolyn Swicegood turned me onto this. She is also a true believer. She had a favorite eckie hen, that was diagnosed with fatal liver disease. She was told to take the bird home and give it comfort measures. Instead, she took it home and gave the bird as much aloe detox as she could get into the bird.

The bird made a complete recovery.

When I got Pecker, she was diagnosed with fatty liver disease. Her liver values were so high, that my vet told me it was a wonder she wasn't dead already. "She should be dead." Her odds of recovery were at best 50/50. We gave her Vitamin A shots, and completely modified her diet. AND I got as much aloe detox as I could into her.

TWO MONTHS LATER her liver values were within normal limits!!!

Other people have said don't use it for a sustained period of time.

So I don't know. I personally considered the results nothing short of miraculous... how much of it was diet, how much of it was this stuff I don't know.

http://www.landofvos.com/articles/wingtips/aloe.html

I am generally pretty skeptical of this stuff. Carolyn's not a nutball, and she's not trying to "push product." I had the same sort of results she did. It is not toxic.

What should I be feeding Cookie as well as giving her the aloe detox?

She already gets Harrison's High Potency fine pellets, fruit and vegetables. I found Roudybush Formula AL Liver Care, would that be better than the Harrison's?

What is the diet like now, and what are the liver problems?

Pellets. Fresh foods, preferably veggies high in vitamin A, potatoes usually work. Half a red potato cut into quarters would do. Veggies.

What I did with pecker was mixed the aloe detox in with apple juice (or other fruit juice your bird loves) around 40/60 (aloe/juice) and gave it to her that way several times a day. All I could get her to drink.

It's a great product for liver problems, it's primarily the milk thistle extract that does the trick. What's going on with Cookie?

She gets: apples, oranges, bananas, pomegranates, mangoes, melons, kiwis, blueberries, grapes, peas, carrots, sweetcorn, kale, bell peppers, celery and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting. She also gets Nutri-Berries sometimes and I have just started giving her sprouted seeds. I'm going to stop giving her seed completely though, apart from sprouted seeds.

She has many symptoms of liver disease and she has always had the problems since I got her. She is four years old and I have had her since she was about five months old.

Her symptoms are: oily feathers (not an infected oil gland), feather bronzing, feather chewing, white and yellow feathers, nails and beak growing very fast, she smells horrible (maybe because of the amount of oil she is producing), she seems less vocal than she was a year ago and when I put her on her back sometimes her feet shake randomly. I read tremors were a symptom of liver disease.

She looks different than she did a year ago, but she has always had white and yellow feathers and she has brighter orange and red colours on her chest than other Green Cheeks. When I put her on pellets she grew normal coloured feathers for awhile, but eventually they started growing back strange colours, and now she has very oily feathers, which she didn't have before.

I will post some photos of what she used to look like, and what she looks like now.

I'm so sorry to hear that. Has she been to the vet for a liver panel? I know my conure is molting right now, so she may look a little worse for wear during this time. But smelly oily feathers? I've never come across that. It has to be very distressing

Kalidasa said:

I'm so sorry to hear that. Has she been to the vet for a liver panel? I know my conure is molting right now, so she may look a little worse for wear during this time. But smelly oily feathers? I've never come across that. It has to be very distressing

Click to expand...

No, sadly, she hasn't gotten a liver panel.


She isn't molting right now. I was hoping she would molt her clipped flight feathers so she could fly again. I think being able to fly would help her somewhat, but she hasn't molted yet.

I know. Her feathers are disgusting. I've had her four years so I would hate to lose her now.

These are some old molted feathers. These are not recently molted, but she does have a few strange coloured feathers like these still.

Most of these should be either completely blue or completely green. They have mixes of white, yellow and orange and they feel dry and fragile.

For moulted feathers they don't so raggedy, but I'm not sure about the color variations. A liver panel lab is not expensive at all, you may want to consider having actual labs to find out what exactly is wrong ( or not wrong). Treating for something they don't have can be much more harmful than good. There are more than a few disorders that look like liver disease, but aren't. If you're suspecting anything off you might want to start off with labs because that is concrete evidence of liver (or other) disorder. Guesswork is invalid when it comes to birds' health. Please keep updates on her.

Healthy sun conures can have the same feather discoloration. Some suns may not have any discoloration or minor discoloration, but as they get older, the feathres turn more white or yellow with each molt.

It's not necessarily a sign of something wrong.



Here's a pied sun conure. You can tell the bird has "faded" tail and flight feathers.

http://parrotfacts.net/wp-content/uploads/sun-conure-parrot-facts-8.jpg

MonicaMc said:

Healthy sun conures can have the same feather discoloration. Some suns may not have any discoloration or minor discoloration, but as they get older, the feathres turn more white or yellow with each molt.

It's not necessarily a sign of something wrong.



Here's a pied sun conure. You can tell the bird has "faded" tail and flight feathers.

http://parrotfacts.net/wp-content/uploads/sun-conure-parrot-facts-8.jpg

Click to expand...

I don't think it is a mutation or just colouring because when I gave Cookie pellets her feathers grew back normal colours, but eventually they turned strange colours again.

Here are some old photos of Cookie from 2012 when she was still on seed.


The room was a mess so I edited the photo. You can really see how bad her feathers looked here.




And these are some random photos of her also in 2012.

First and foremost is that vet visit to ensure she's healthy.


I have seen feathers like that before, and it was called "progressive pied", but there was hardly any information about it.

May 2013 photos. This is when I started giving her Harrison's pellets. She looked great in these photos.

I just took these photos.



Oily feathers and feather bronzing.











Her wings are chewed, have feather bronzing (mostly because of her chewing them) and she has some strange white feathers too.

Chewed tail.



Two more.

That could also be due to a vitamin A deficiency, over-preening, hard play, hormones, or something else entirely.


Hence going to the vet and getting blood work done to see if anything is in fact wrong, and if so, the a-vet can tell you how to correct whatever the issue is.



I realize it's not helpful to keep repeating that over and over again, but it's the best answer anyone can give you!

MonicaMc said:

That could also be due to a vitamin A deficiency, over-preening, hard play, hormones, or something else entirely.


Hence going to the vet and getting blood work done to see if anything is in fact wrong, and if so, the a-vet can tell you how to correct whatever the issue is.



I realize it's not helpful to keep repeating that over and over again, but it's the best answer anyone can give you!

Click to expand...

She has a good varied diet so I don't think it is a deficiency, she doesn't really play much (and she never plays on her back), she is never hormonal (apart from regurgitating for my hand in the spring and summer sometimes, but rarely) she does over-preen, but that doesn't explain the nails and beak growing fast, very oily feathers and the various orange, white and yellow feathers.

I'm not saying it isn't something other than liver disease or I disagree with you though, I just thought with all of the strange symptoms she has, liver disease seems to match the symptoms most. I appreciate all the help.

I am going to take her to an Avian vet very soon.

I have ordered the aloe detox. Hopefully when that arrives it will help her somewhat until I can get her to a vet.

Just because she's eating a varied diet doesn't mean that her body is assimilating all the nutrients it requires out of her diet.

I actually recall a story of two african greys that ate the same exact diet! However, one ended up having a calcium deficiency and needed extra calcium and vitamin D to return those levels back to normal. If on the same diet, why would one bird have a deficiency and the other not? It's just our bodies, and how we extract those nutrients out of our diet.


I don't know why she's having *any* of those issues, and I don't want to say that it is in fact *this illness* when it could potentially be something else as well.

MonicaMc said:

Just because she's eating a varied diet doesn't mean that her body is assimilating all the nutrients it requires out of her diet.

I actually recall a story of two african greys that ate the same exact diet! However, one ended up having a calcium deficiency and needed extra calcium and vitamin D to return those levels back to normal. If on the same diet, why would one bird have a deficiency and the other not? It's just our bodies, and how we extract those nutrients out of our diet.


I don't know why she's having *any* of those issues, and I don't want to say that it is in fact *this illness* when it could potentially be something else as well.

Click to expand...

That makes sense then.


I understand. No one could be able to tell me what's exactly wrong with her on a forum. That's why I need to take her to an Avian vet to have tests done. It would probably cost a lot of money to have lots of tests done though, but I will try to find a good vet and take her as soon as I can.