Accepted Answer

Hi,

Thanks for your question and I'm so sorry to hear about your bird. It must be very hard to see him go through this!


If there is a chance that he did chew on something metal then I would want him treated for this. Yes, the best thing to do is to take a blood test to measure the levels. If the ingestion was fairly recently, then the metal still might be visible on a x-ray. Metal shows up very bright on a x-ray. They could take a quick x-ray of him just standing on the x-ray plate. It won't be diagnostic for anything else, but is easy to do. If he is deteriorating, you vet may just want to trial treat him with medicine for metal poisoning.

The other thing I would be worried about would be a viral disease called "proventricular dilatation syndrome" or aka macaw wasting, PDD, PDS etc. This is caused by a virus that causes severe inflammation of the nerves that innervate the gi tract. This causes the gi tract to not function well and the bird eats but loses weight. It seems that younger birds are more likely to have clinical signs because their immune system is still developing. If you feed him seed, you may see whole seeds passing through his gi tract and in his stool.   There is no cure for this but sometimes giving them anti-inflammatory medicine will help.

If his PCV is at 8, then he really does need a blood transfusion to really give him a chance.   I'd also want to know if it looks like his body is trying to regenerate the blood (your vet would know about this).

It sounds like you are doing everything you can at home. Again, I'd talk to your vet about trying chelation treatment for metal, anti-inflammatory medicine to say you tried everything.

Please let me know what else you need.

Dr. G

Expert:	Dr. G
Pos. Feedback:	100.0 %
Accepts:	301
Answered:	5/13/2009

Bird Veterinarian

ABVP Avian Diplomate (inactive status), bird/exotic animal practice 15 years