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young parrot has one eye closed possibly due to cold, what do we do for him?
Optional Information: Type of Animal: Parrot Gender: Female Age: 1 Name of Bird: Kermet Already Tried: Heat lamp
Hi, I am Dr M and I will try to assist you today. I see you are currently offline so I will try to cover some possibilities here. Please get back to me with as much information as possible, as well as any further questions you have so that I can try to help you here.
It is very hard for me to tell you what is wrong without an examination. Some possibilities here are:
- eye irritation (e.g. dust or foreign object in eye), leading to conjunctivitis.
- trauma and corneal ulceration. For some information about corneal ulceration, please check this LINK.
- infectious, some microorganisms like chlamydia can cause conjunctivitis.
- Completely unrelated to eye problem and be a sign of general sickness.
A complete eye examination may help determining the cause. Corneal ulcers can be serious without proper treatment. During an eye trauma, a wound over the cornea can occur. This is painful and pets would close the eye to help with the discomfort and protect the affected area. In these type of cases, topical antibiotics are needed.
If you could answer some of my questions, I will try to better assist you here:
- is this affecting one eye or both?
- How long has this been going on?
- How is her appetite and fecal output? Any changes in fecal consistency or color?
- Do you see any eye discharge?
- Do you see any other symptoms like sneezing, or scratching the affected area, etc.?
- Do you have any other pet? Have you got any new pet in the last few months?
- Have you done any recent change in her husbandry or care?
In the mean time, you should make sure she is strong and eating well. You should monitor fecal output and appearance by changing her cage daily. Plain paper in the bottom of the cage can assist you gaining some knowledge about the nature of her stools. Ideal diet in birds is about 50-75% pellets, < 25% vegetables and sprouts, <5% fruit, < 1% seeds. You should not do any changes in food or husbandry while she is sick now.
For an avian vet close to you, please check www.aav.org/search. Please let me know if I can be in any further help. I will try to help you more once you answer my questions.
Experience: I have been practicing for 10 years. I work with exotic pets, dogs, cats, small ruminants, camelids and pigs.
Thank you for the reply: I have only had the parrot 5 days and she is in a cage with only one cat in the room who has a heart condition. (We have a lot of pets and this is the safest room for her.)Only one eye is affected. SHe had two open and healthy eyes when I bought her.It is closed today. It was 1/2 open yesterday. There is no discharge and she is eating ok. I have tried some cantelope for her, but she did not eat it. I will try the other foods you suggest. This is my first parrot. I have a seed mixture with fruit seeds. There is no sneezing. Since it happened suddenly, do you think it could be something in the environment like hair (cat) or lint? We have a lot of both. AN allergy? Should I try to put an eye antibiotic in the eye? I have some I get for my cats. As I live in central Mexico, the link for bird vets will not help me. I have her covered with a space open and a 45 Watt light bulb heating the cage. ,
Thinking about what you said and reading the link, perhaps the toy we hung in the cage scratched her eye. It has rougth things in it including bamboo! I will take it out.She was eating on it.
I will look for a topical antibiotic for the eye which I have for cats. If you have any suggestions about what I have said, please reply. Thank you.
I think our replies came at the same time, please let me know if you have any question of my previous reply on eye wash? A hard toy can be a possibility. Any minor eye problem should resolve fast within 12 to 24 hours. If this is not the case, I think you should consider taking her to a veterinarian.
Hi Virginia,I'm just following up on our conversation about Kermet. How is everything going?allpetsdr