Amazon parrot with suspected Aspergillosis (experiences from others in terms of recovery)

[Ayarea1]

Heya all!

Sorry this is my first post here and I will try to make it as cohesive as possible (I'm native Dutch so apologies if I spell things wrong).

My bird Lorrito (at least 32+, he was a wild capture so we don't know his age, we suspect he's in his 40's), who lives with my mom together with Django (8, our African Grey), was a bit sick last week (noticed it Friday and it was better on Saturday again). He didn't eat as great as usual, was bopping a bit and seemed a bit breathy on Saturday/ Sunday - this was the 30th of August.
Since I live in German, 4 hours away, there was no way for me to get there fast enough and bring him to the vet. Sidenote, I am the only one who can handle him without getting bitten. My mom overcame her fear and caught him and brought him to the vet on Sunday.

He was put in an oxygen tank right away. Where they gave him antibiotic through injection. In March he had a full health check where he was deemed healthy (by a specialized bird vet), including normal lung sounds. They also made a photo and he had severe pneumonia in both lungs. They then consulted the bird vet (who is retired) who saw him in March as well as another bird vet (I don't know how good she is). Where they discussed aspergillosis as a potentional. So they started anti fungal was well.

Over the days he started making a little bit more sounds, and he was really tired after doing so. He did eat a little bit here and there but they kept forcefeeding him since he went from 350 in March to 300 now. On the third they made another picture with no visible changes. The lungsacks were clear I believe, but it was still bad. On that day where they made a picture he was the worst out of all days and we thought he was going to die. Genuinely looked really bad .

Thankfully the next hours/ day he improved slowly again. However, despite seeing visible changes in his behaviour/ eating, the vets keep saying he's stable, there's no real improvement. Mind you he went from out of breathe all the time, to out of breathe only when handled and has been off the oxygen twice now and did really well (only when they catch him for forcefeeding/ medicating him is when he's short of breath). I also opted the idea of what if it's coming from his heart instead, since it's common in Amazones. But the 2nd bird vet suspects it might be a chronic lung disease, they can send him to Utrecht and swap him but he might not even survive that + there's nothing they would be able to do for him if it is.

He is making more and more sounds and is eating much better than before. My mom has been going there every day and I have him on the phone talking to him and you can visible see him look up and trying to make noises (I try not to engage too much with my usually hype voice as I don't want to exert him into becoming tired.).

So considering the vets opinion, I'd like to hear others who had a bird with aspergillosis and a double pneumonia. We are just over him being there for a week. I would think double pneumonia, if its fungal related will take longer than one week to become seemingly better, especially since it's such a severe infection.

How long did it take for your bird to recover/ show improvements to the vet themselves. Again there's visible improvements, but the vets don't seem to think the same due to his out of breath when being handled.

Sorry for the long text, thank you for reading and hope to see some other experiences. I still think this all is promising so far.

I will be traveling home probably this weekend (unless he has to stay longer) so I can help medicate him (hopefully) once he's back home again.

 

[AMD48]

Welcome to the forum. So sorry that you are going thru all of this. I have not had to expereince what you are going thru, but I send you cyber hugs and prayers. Hoping someone who has been thru this can give advice. Good Luck

 

[Zilga24]

Our pionus Olive was diagnosed with aspergillosis in 2025. The journey has not been short, but I will try to summarize.

One day, she was acting more cuddly than usual towards my husband (I was out of town), so he took her into our avian vet. Initial suspicion was a respiratory infection, so she sent them home with antibiotics. She seemed to be getting better for a week or so, then was not, symptoms were not resolving. The vet did imaging and more testing (edit: electrophoresis and galactomannan were the tests they used to confirm) and determined aspergillosis. Her lungs were a MESS, and our vet was not optimistic about her chances. She started her on itraconazole orally and we nebulized her with clotrimazole twice a day starting around mid March. During this time, she was in a hospital cage with a heating pad, very limited space, and floor padding to keep her warm. We also bought an oxygen concentrator just in case, which the vet was somewhat skeptical about us using at home. Unfortunately, the itraconazole TANKED her appetite; she went from 265 grams to 238 grams from mid March to the end of the month. At some point, the vet added reglan to help stimulate her appetite, which helped some at low doses but made her too sleepy when we used more of it. During this time, our vet was in contact with specialist colleagues around the country, and they decided to add terbinafine in an attempt to dial back the itraconazole enough to help her appetite. (Personally, I think the terbinafine ended up doing a lot of the heavy lifting to get her better.) We tried syringe feeding, which she was EXTREMELY resistant to, and we ended up having the vet crop feed her twice a day for a couple of weeks and once a day after that for a couple of weeks - almost a month in total. It did, however, get her weight up about 10 grams, enough to get her a little more stable. She started eating again but her appetite still was not great. We were buying stores near us out of pomegranate seeds (the only thing she would reliably eat), and my husband (who luckily works from home), was offering high-value treat food throughout the day - the vet's advice was to give her literally anything with calories that she would eat and was remotely bird-safe. We also ended up using the oxygen concentrator a couple of times when she seemed to be particularly struggling. Her breathing sounds changed in May and by early June started to sound better to the vet and actually asking for food.

At the end of June, we started letting her out of her hospital cage and out and about throughout the day. She had a minor setback with the increase in activity but was doing better by early July, and by late July she had a marked decrease in symptoms. In August, we upped the regalin a little, and she started going after toys again. By early September, she was doing more normal vocalizations, and she tried flying again in mid-September. Mid-September was also when her labs started looking more normal again (the vet had been trying to balance not stressing her too much with keeping an eye on her labs, so I'd have to look for the exact frequency of testing). In early October, we stopped the nebulizer treatment, and we dialed back the itraconazole and kept the terbinafine going. In early November, she flew across the room. Her breathing sounds kept getting better, and we kept going on just the oral meds for months. I'd have to look for when we stopped the itraconazole, but she had her last dose of terbinafine in March 2026. It hasn't come back yet, but we know she's susceptible, so we are trying to be careful - after it happened, we tested the air in our home to see if we had a mold issue, and the only place that tested positive was a room with a bunch of plants (not where she spends time), so we got rid of all our house plants just in case, and it was negative after that. We aren't sure where it came from; even before this, we had air purifiers in almost every room.

The vet has mentioned several times that she is still shocked that Olive made it. Without my husband's CONSTANT attention, she almost certainly would not have. I felt really bad for her; the nebulizer meds meant her feathers were just a mess, she actually lost feathers from her head for a while, and she looked like a drowned rat for months. She still has occasional squeaky breathing in certain positions because she almost certainly has a lot of scarring, and she has lower endurance than Fig even now, but she's able to fly around the house normally and is mostly fine.


Edit: Adding a TLDR: Our pionus with aspergillosis was on meds for close to a year, and it probably took 8 or 9 months until she could fly again, so your story of a slow recovery is consistent with our experience.

Here she is eating a banana a month or so ago: