Liver Disease in Pet Birds

[criswell]

I thought the vets answer about taking blood for liver tests from a budgie was interesting., due to risk of a clotting disorder. If she sees a budgie with a long beak she will treat it for liver disease initially rather than taking blood due to the risk that the budgie may have a clotting disorder. She said she may take blood at a later date when the budgies health has improved.

[Loz]

Sorry you're feeling unwell ariella. I hope you manage to find some relief from the heat.

[tweetiepiesmom]

Yes, criswell I also found that interesting! She must be very skillful to take blood from a budgie. Many vets won't attempt it. That was me who asked the first question about whether we should just give our budgies milk thistle as a preventative.

[Marianne Marlow]

Thanks for posting these, I must watch them at some point!

They look very interesting and I have had more than one bird with liver disease.

[tweetiepiesmom]

After watching the webinar, I wonder if my Tweetie Pie has a bit of a liver issue? He seems to fit some of the symptoms. I got some milk thistle (no alcohol) and will start putting it in their water. If you watch the video, I asked the first question - should we give our budgies milk thistle as a preventative? In a nutshell, her answer was that there has been no study on that but many do give them milk thistle. She did say that budgies are particularly prone to liver disease so its not surprising you've had budgies with liver issues.

[tweetiepiesmom]

I watched the webinar on Bornavirus - missed the first hour but did get the second hour. It was a 2-hour question/answer session with 2 expert vets on the subject. During the time I was listening, they didn't talk about budgies. Both agree that the medication of choice is Celebrex (an anti-inflammatory, don't know the tradename outside the US). They said the birds should be kept off sugary foods. They recommend ginger, turmeric and devil's claw for natural supplements. For pain, they recommend Gabapentin which targets neurologic pain.

Interesting, someone asked a question about constipation in birds. They said that is not normal in birds and usually points to an infection of some sort. Old birds may get constipation as a result of their GI tract slowing down.

I almost always come away from these webinars with a couple interesting tidbits.

[ladybird]

Oh no!  I forgot it was on and I really needed to be involved with that….

[criswell]

I forgot about it too ladybird.

tweetiepiesmom I thought it might be you that asked the first question in the liver disease webinar.

[tweetiepiesmom]

Here's the link:

[ladybird]

Wow! Well I managed to listen to most of it, and  what I could understand was very interesting.  They didn’t talk about budgies, but parallels where mentioned a bit….   I understand more now what the Avain vet that saw Charlie was talking about, and why getting a diagnosis was so difficult..false positives etc….  Also she said birds can be born with it…..but most would never develop any symptoms.
     I am not convinced that Charlie has it, but not convinced he hasn’t either…..I am never going to know.   But anyway I am glad I listened to it, I found it interesting.

[tweetiepiesmom]

I always get ideas from these webinars about how to best support my boys health and what to look out for, ladybird. Although birds don't get rid of the virus, they can still live long good lives with it. I heard that AGY is similar in that many budgies have the yeast but never show symptoms until something major stresses them and they get sick with it.