Seizure!

[spanna]

bought a sick diamond firetail inside this morning after finding him fluffed up. he flew away at first and landed very awkwardly. went back to catch him and did so with my bare hands... now he's inside and appears to be having seizures of some sort... never seen it before. am about to rush him off to the vet if i can... but dont hold much hope. might just be for an autopsy in the end

anyone experienced anything like this before? all my birds were treated 4 days ago with moxidectin plus, but there have been no other changes or new birds in any aviary.

[finchbreeder]

Do you take your sick birds to Murdoch? Or do you have a good local vet? Murdoch has a good reputaion from what I hear.
LML

[spanna]

i took them to wattle grove vet. specialises in birds. he passed away on the way in. got them to do an autopsy though. will let you know of results.

[VR1Ton]

I've got a hen Scaley- Breasted Lorikeet that will have a 'fit' every time I catch it with a net. She goes rigid, pupils dilate & covulses like she is haveng a gran mal, the first time I paniced & put her inside in a cage I use for hand-rearing, she stopped after a couple of minutes and returned to normal. I kept an eye on her for a couple of days, and shes' been back outside since then. Now if she has one(I don't catch her unless I have to) I just leaver quiet for a couple of minutes, keep an eye on her and she returns to normal after a couple of minutes.

[Diane]

Sorry about your Diamond

[spanna]

Got the results of the post mortom just now. no obvious reason that the bird (which turned out to be a hen with EXTRAORDINARY bright red rump and velvet black tail feathers, even the vet was surprised) passed away. the vet checked absolutely everything that could have caused seizures and death, as well as all the usual killers of finches. no evidence of head trauma from attack by other birds or hitting any hard objects, no evidence of worms, normal bacterial activity in faecal analysis. cant remember everything he checked for but im very impressed with his thoroughness (recomend for others around Perth). only strange things were abnormally high muscle stress on the pectorials, so much so they had started to liquify, but this was probably due to the 4 or 5 intense seizures. also strange was that the gizzard had not broken down any seed... the entire digestive tract was full of unprocessed seed. the vet checked for any and all known causes of this and found nothing.

SO, after all that, there is no clear reason as to why the bird died, but it IS clear that it is nothing contagious, which was my main concern. losing one bird in such a way was a horrible experience, but to lose a whole aviray would be devastating.

[fincher]

sorry for ur loss. and yes i also reccomend the wattlegrove vets specially Tim Oldfield hes very knowledgeable in avian vets

[spanna]

thanks fincher. yeah tim was the one who did the autopsy in the end. very impressed with his thorough investigation. glad to know its not going to effect any other birds. Diamond firetail: $50. Autopsy: $80. Peace of mind: Priceless.

[fincher]

yeh tims the best even writes in the Talken birds newspaper. Yeh $80 is nothen compared to loosen all your stock for 1 autopsy. but they have gone up since i had 1 done which was $55 for it but i alsogot the piece nd mind aswell but that was couple years ago

[finchbreeder]

Sorry about your loss, but yes peace of mind is priceless. There are some birds out there that get "stage fright" at being caught. My mother has a couple of budgies like that, when they are caught to be put into the breeding cages she holds them and talks to them for a bit before putting them into the boxs and they settle down to business, but unfortunately do not seem to be as fertile.
LML