My Gouldian just died suddenly today, any insight?

Is your finch sick or not well? Find out why.
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lancerguy
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We have a mixed indoor aviary with a few varieties of finches and a canary. One of my 4 Gouldian finches passed away today. He was fine when he got up at 7AM, eating and alert, flying around. About 10AM he tucked his head in his wing. About 1PM he moved down to the food dish. About 2PM he fell to the ground not moving. I picked him up and put him in a hospital cage, used a dropper to feed him some electrolyte and water mix but he was barely alive. He couldn't sit up at all, his breathing was very hard and by 3PM he was gone. After he passed I inspected him, he had some diarrhea (brownish) on his bottom, not very much but it was smeared so he definitely wasn't pooping good today but other than that he looked completely normal.

I reviewed the past week of camera footage and he was completely fine until Thursday. On Thursday, I noticed he started to favor one particular perch and he slept (head tucked) on Thursday and Friday from about 12PM to 4PM in addition to sleeping at night. Saturday (today) is the day he passed. The other birds all appear fine, but I am very worried since this came on so suddenly and there was very little warning at all from his behavior. Is there any way to tell what happened or can someone possibly give me a little insight?
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Shane Gowland
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In the wild, a visibly sick bird is going to be the first one targeted by predators or other birds lower in the pecking order. Birds have solved this problem by not showing any signs of illness for as long as possible, so by the time you can tell something is wrong they're practically at death's door.

A wet vent is often a sign of a bacterial infection or infection from protozoa like coccidiosis.

The former can be treated with antibiotics, the latter with a coccidiocide like Baycox.

Be sure to the check your other birds to make sure their vents are dry. If not, some intervention may be needed.
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lancerguy
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Thanks Shane, we found in his sleeping quarters he had diarrhea and was throwing up for the 3 days before he passed and I completely missed these red flags. I feel so awful that I completely missed his signs of sickness and allowed him to die.

After research I suspect Coccidia or another protozoal infection. I suspect Trichomona (sp?) aka Canker but in his liver rather than his crop since his face was clean. We recently (2 weeks ago) introduced 2 new birds: a forbes and a blue face parrotfinch and I've read other exotic finches can be carriers of this protozoa. They are both healthy but I feel like the timing matches up.

I've inspected my other birds droppings which all appear to be healthy. I have noticed some slowdown in the aviary, the others are not tucking their heads but they do look a little tired, they don't jump around much mostly sit in place and a little yawning here and there.

I am looking at starting them on Ronex today for a general protozoa infection, rather than on cocci-care or S76. What do you guys think? I've attached a picture of his droppings prior to his passing. You can see it progressively got worse over the 3 days (unclear which day is which, but the urate only day was the day he passed).
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lancerguy
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Just an update for anyone stumbling across this. We just got a new vet who looks at birds in town (she just got her license may2021!!!). We’ve never had a vet to take our birds to so this was really good news.

In the days since Mike passed we noticed the canary and other finches seem very tired. Our canary really started to look sick he tucked his head and was not alert so I pulled him out, gave him some vitalize and thrive (vitamins) and warmth in a hospital cage. I gave ALL the birds Ronex after reading about the different Protozoa infections but that didn’t seem to help overnight.

So we took him to this new vet and she was able to inspect his poop under microscope and found coccidia sporo something. So we have a diagnosis and I think the rest of my birds will be saved which is good. I’m just so sad we were not able to catch this in time to save Mike. The vet says they have coccidia in their systems but the stress makes it flare up and causes sickness.
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finchbreeder
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Great that you have a vet who is interested in birds. Many are not. We have 3 Vet practices where I live, and only 1 is into birds. Sorry it was too late for your bird. But excellent that the others now have a good vet.
LML
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