Breathing Problem?

[DarkMeloch]

Just wanted a piece of mind so I thought I would ask in this forum about my sun conure and possible breathing problems:

Honestly I think he is OK but every time I hold him he bobs up and down all the time and ruffles out his feathers and even closes his eyes. He looks happy and it looks like love gestures to me because sometime he will even nibble on your ear or nose but this guy does nothing but bob up and down with his head all the time and I was hoping that it wasn't because he is trying to breath better.

He is also flapping his wings more but that is because when I got him 6 months ago his wings were clipped and now they are growing so he is trying them out.

There is no discharge and no sneezing. I try to listen to him breath and it sounds normal. He eats, drinks and poops OK. Screeching normal just as he always does.

His nostrils are more black-ish than I remember but like I said it is not a discharge and when I look at pics of sun conures online I see the black-ish nostrils.

Do any of your conures bob all the time? He seems like a very happy bird I just want to make sure its not some breathing problem I am not aware of.

I know everyone will say, "if you are worried, just take him to the vet" but seriously, there are things to take them and spend hundreds for and things not to spend hundreds on. If I took my dogs, cats and bird to the vet every time they farted wrong I would be there every day. Plus I feel as though any vet normally doesn't understand birds at all even if they say they specialize in it. Would rather see experiences as long as he is doing OK!

 

[antoinette]

Difficult to say if he is breathing normal.
Everything else seems on par, his eating, poops, no discharge or sneezing.
I hear what you are saying about talking your pets to a vet each and every time something "seems"not right and it can be very costly.

Please be aware that....
Birds are excellent in disguising their illnesses, extremely hard for us to detect that something is not right.
Ultimately the vet would be the experienced one to diagnose if there is a breathing problem, perhaps detecting something completely different.

 

[BoomBoom]

My conure bobs his head several times as a response to things, for example:

- When he is pleased about something
- To greet me
- Right before a regurgitation. This type of bobbing is more rapid


You said yours does it constantly. Does he eat a lot or have access to food all the time? Does he also bob his tail? Are his feathers ruffled out all the time?

 

[weco]

Dark, I have to agree with you and since nobody on this fine forum has translated parroteese yet, we are caught between the rock & the hard place, damned if we do and damned if we don't.....

I saw a member's post elsewhere, about taking one of his birds to the vet a number of times because he thought there may have been something wrong with the bird's breathing, only to find out that the bird had been imitating someone else's labored breathing.....nothing wrong with the bird.....

I've got a re-homed sun tha does a real good wolf whistle & hello when anybody enters or leaves the house, but I noticed several weeks back that what I thought was a raspiness was actually both a very low toned 'thank you' and a very low toned 'I love you' that she would say as you walked away from changing her water, food & putting her back in her cage...if she hadn't gone there on her own.....

 

[DarkMeloch]

Well, it sounds like to me he is OK. He has plenty of access to food and like I said he is eating, drinking and pooping fine. I have just never had a sun conure before and I am learning things just as I learned stuff about dogs and cats when I first got them.

Don't get me wrong, if I could tell something was way wrong I would take him in to the vet because I have before when he was throwing up when I first got him. Spending money on pets sucks but it is something I do. I have a 12 year old Yorkie with a heart condition, pancreatitis, bladder stones, allergies and Cushin's. Plus two other dogs and four cats. But at the same time have to learn when something is urgent and needs to go to the vet or something that can go away. Birds are different than cats and dogs, thus why I ask in the forum just as you might ask a friend of yours questions about something your kid has because they have kids too.

Thanks for the replies!

 

[MonicaMc]

Sounds like baby conure behavior... conures do bob, but they can bob for various reasons.

My mitred conure is ~19 years old (not sure which month he was born in) and he loves to bob his head! He doesn't bob all the time, but he does bob! Younger conures seem to bob more than adults.