Looking for any help we can get to try and understand what's going on with our cherry head conure...
Brief history that is still a long read:
We acquired Wilily in April of 2022, his owner passed away and we have zero history on this lovely little parrot.
his feet are messed up, he is missing all the toes on one foot and the other foot has all the toes but the tips are all missing, so he has no claws. Two vets have said it looks like frostbite, one of the vets thought he may have actually been stuck to something. He has been able to get around and climb up and out of his cage since we got him, but in the last few months his feet have become inflamed and sore with visible signs of discomfort resulting in his mobility declining, so we decided to take him to a avian vet about his feet. (This is where things got expensive and declined quickly!!) Very little attention was given to his feet, basically he is a disabled bird, blood test and x-ray was suggested so we went ahead and had that done. The x-ray came back normal, no signs of arthritis or any internal inflammation they could see, blood work came back with dire results! Vet said his heterophils where 100% (not even sure what that means) she said in her whole career as a vet she had never seen a WBC with Heterophils that high, and she was surprised he was even alive. Antibiotics where prescribed and an appointment to recheck his blood ( I also want to mention that they put him under every time they take blood) We did the course of antibiotics and did another Blood test, results showed a small improvement, but she wanted to try a different antibiotic and retest. After the course of the second antibiotics and another test the results where not good, heterophils skyrocketed again. She suggested we could keep testing for many things that if where positive would probably be fatal so she basically told us we are at a soul searching moment and that he shouldn't even be alive. Now this is the thing.......he has no symptoms except for sore feet and bad feather quality, he eats lots, has been gaining weight, still acting like he did when we got him, his poop is normal , he interacts, he just can't maneuver because of his feet, which look horrible. So I don't know what could be going on, any insight or experiences would be helpful because we where basically told he is dying but he doesn't look like a dying bird. his WBC was unheard of and he is alive and fine at the moment.
Brief history that is still a long read:
We acquired Wilily in April of 2022, his owner passed away and we have zero history on this lovely little parrot.
his feet are messed up, he is missing all the toes on one foot and the other foot has all the toes but the tips are all missing, so he has no claws. Two vets have said it looks like frostbite, one of the vets thought he may have actually been stuck to something. He has been able to get around and climb up and out of his cage since we got him, but in the last few months his feet have become inflamed and sore with visible signs of discomfort resulting in his mobility declining, so we decided to take him to a avian vet about his feet. (This is where things got expensive and declined quickly!!) Very little attention was given to his feet, basically he is a disabled bird, blood test and x-ray was suggested so we went ahead and had that done. The x-ray came back normal, no signs of arthritis or any internal inflammation they could see, blood work came back with dire results! Vet said his heterophils where 100% (not even sure what that means) she said in her whole career as a vet she had never seen a WBC with Heterophils that high, and she was surprised he was even alive. Antibiotics where prescribed and an appointment to recheck his blood ( I also want to mention that they put him under every time they take blood) We did the course of antibiotics and did another Blood test, results showed a small improvement, but she wanted to try a different antibiotic and retest. After the course of the second antibiotics and another test the results where not good, heterophils skyrocketed again. She suggested we could keep testing for many things that if where positive would probably be fatal so she basically told us we are at a soul searching moment and that he shouldn't even be alive. Now this is the thing.......he has no symptoms except for sore feet and bad feather quality, he eats lots, has been gaining weight, still acting like he did when we got him, his poop is normal , he interacts, he just can't maneuver because of his feet, which look horrible. So I don't know what could be going on, any insight or experiences would be helpful because we where basically told he is dying but he doesn't look like a dying bird. his WBC was unheard of and he is alive and fine at the moment.