How to gain weight

[Rikki1]

Unfortunately our beautiful Amazon appears to be suffering from Aspergiliosis as he has all of the symptons. The vet has put him on an intensive antibiotic course for the next few weeks, the side affects are that he is more picky and has gone down 30 grams in the past 6 weeks. He eats Harrisons pellets and we give him mixed seed after removing the sunflower seeds as these are a common source of Aspers spores, he also eats his fruit and veg but not as much as he used to. Is there anything we can tempt him with to help him gain weight?

 

[texsize]

Pasta .

if it works as well with birds as it does with humans....
and my amazons all love pasta.

 

[SailBoat]

Your Avian Professional has a full description of your Amazon and as a result can much better define what diet you should be provided. What has your Vet defined as a course of action regarding diet?

You state that your Amazon: "appears to be suffering from Aspergiliosis." If your Vet is providing an: "antibiotic course." I'm guessing that appropriate testing has been completed to define the treatment course.

As part of your visit, you should have received a copy of your Vet's findings and a defined list of what you need to be doing /providing.

* Testing for Aspergillosis includes a specific Blood Test and commonly an x-ray.

Avian Professional Support:

""It is one of the toughest avian diseases to diagnose and successfully treat," Vaughan said. "Since fungal organisms grow very slowly, usually by the time a bird has clinical symptoms, in most cases the disease is in an advanced stage, so you're working from a disadvantaged position."An aspergillosis infection can go for months to years without detection, and suddenly a bird will present with dyspnea, tachypnea and open-mouthed breathing."
In terms of recognising the infection they mention research and improvements in diagnostic techniques:

"In order to successfully treat aspergillosis, early diagnosis is essential, said avian researcher Robert Dahlhausen, DVM, M.S., owner of Veterinary Molecular Diagnostics in Milford, Ohio.This past year he and his colleagues developed two PCR tests for aspergillosis: a general DNA probe that picks up any species in the aspergillus genus, and a second test that is specific forAspergillus fumigatus—the species that accounts for the majority of Aspergillus infections in companion birds today.So far, "It appears these new tests are a big improvement over the tests that were available in the past, in that they are much more reliable at confirming positive infections," Dr. Dahlhausen said. "With the assays that we've had available to date, you could have birds infected and still get negative test results for them off the assays, and it was a challenge to confirm the diagnosis.""
With regard to treatment Dahlhausen recommends combionation therapy involving several antifungal drugs, some more obvious than others:

"Researchers have also been developing some new combination therapy protocols that have proved very successful in treating Aspergillus infections, Dahlhausen said. Traditionally, the drug of choice has been itraconazole, but many veterinarians are now using a combination of antifungals.In addition to itraconazole, the drug arsenal may include amphoteracin, terbinifine (Lamisil), diflucane and glucanozole, according to Dahlhausen."
Methods of application are also discussed:
"Often these drugs are administered by nebulization. Treatment may last anywhere from a few weeks to several months. "Exactly which drugs we use depends on the bird," Dahlhausen said. "African greys in particular tend to be very sensitive to itraconazole and can suffer from liver toxicity if they get too strong a dose."Lately, he said, he has been relying more on Lamisil for treatment. "In some very deep-seededAspergillus infections, Lamisil is often effective when other, more standard therapies aren't," Dahlhausen said."Lamisil has a very good absorption when given orally and is very good at penetrating these granulomas. Also, it's a fungicidal medication, so it actually kills the fungal organism, whereas some of these other drugs might not.""
Typical course of treatment:
"In his practice, Dahlhausen uses itraconazole initially for five to six days along with Lamisil and then continues with just the Lamisil for the rest of the treatment period."Lamisil is a very safe drug, so it's great for long-term therapy," Dahlhausen said."

 

[Rikki1]

Yes he has had x rays and blood tests, it is a difficult disease to diagnose and treat and the symptoms can appear to be other diseases also. We a fairly certain its Aspers, so use a nebuliser and we have to give him itraconazol and an antibiotic orally each day which he doesn’t really enjoy as we have to hold him and squirt it in his mouth with a syringe as the vet showed us. He is sitting on the top of my ipad as I write chattering and singing his favourite tune, the theme to ‘Skippy the bush kangeroo’ ! His breathing is slowly improving, we just need to fatten him up a bit as he is so thin now.

 

[Anita1250]

Try whatever he will eat readily. I find that pasta is a good start. Bananas are also pretty dense, as well as starchy veggies like peas and corn. Whole wheat bread can also help. Perhaps a little extra virgin olive oil on the bread. Good luck!

 

[SassiBird]

Have you mentioned the weight concerns to your vet. Our vet prescribed Emeraid to help our BCC gain weight. As an alternative they said we could supplemental feed hand feeding formula.

 

[Noahs_Birds]

You can buy commercial egg and biscuit mix, and mix that with a mashed boiled egg and that would be extremely helpful, and very good for them as I know personally

Just make sure to remove the mix before it goes bad in any hot weather

 

[Rikki1]

It is the vet who is checking his weight, we have now had the blood test results and the good news is its not Aspers, the bad news is its obviously something else. The vet feels that it is possibly scar tissue damage to his lungs that is giving him breathing difficulties, some days he is short of breath and doesn’t want to fly, other days he is his normal self. We discussed diet and she said definitely no egg at present. He is eating banana so we are getting something solid into him, besides his pellets and grapes.