oil soaked budgie...help needed

[salma]

hi everyone,

I need some urgent help with a budgie. He's about 5 months old. He developed what i believe was probably a feather cyst which burst he was taken to a non-avian vet by his owners. The vet said he had never seen anything like it.
The owners contacted me and told me that Ronald had a wound the size of a pea I advised them to apply some hot oil to seal the wound.
To cut a.long story short he became covered in oil, so much so that when i touched him i got oliv oil on my hand. I gave him a rinse this got rid of some of the oil but he was still covered in oil which was preventing him keeping himself warm and so he's a little under the weather
The owbers have left him with me for a week or so, I bathed him with warm water and baby shampoo but he's still.the same. His droppings are also much larger than normal about the size of 3 or 4 droppings.

Any ideas on how to get rid of the oil? Anything else i can do for him.

He's eating Nd drinking fine but cant fly and just sits infront of the heater.

Will try and get Some photos when i get home

Thanks

Salma

[barrieshutt]

In the beginning Salma i would have used an antibiotic spray and not oil, this will take a lot of washes to remove the oil

Part of an article on cleaning oil of the birds fethers, i do know this refers to crude oil but it may help

Cleaning
Once stable, birds are given a bubble bath made from a solution of one percent Dawn soap and warm water. It's a two-person job. "Cleaning, of course, is stressful. This isn't something that happens to them day to day," Wamock says. As one person holds the bird, another washes its feathers vigorously. Toothbrushes and cotton swabs help remove caked oil from the bird's head and eyes, and a Waterpik removes oil exclusively around the eyes. When tub water gets dirty, rescuers move the bird to a second, third and fourth tub until the water remains clear. It can take up to 15 tubs until the bird gets clean; one pelican can require 300 gallons of water.


Rinse
Rinsing can be just as important as washing, according to the IBRRC. Trained volunteers, biologists and vets use a special spa nozzle, set to a specific water pressure, to rinse the detergent from the bird's feathers. When the suds are all gone, the birds sit under a pet drier (hairdryers hurt aquatic birds' skin) and preen their feathers. "Bird feathers are naturally waterproof but after washing, each feather must be aligned properly," writes IBRRC executive director Jay Holocomb on the organization's website. "Each feather is made up of microscopic barbs and barbules that hook together like Velcro. Once hooked together, they become a tight waterproof barrier. Each properly aligned feather overlaps another like shingles on a roof, creating a temperature-controlled barrier."

[salma]

thanks Barrie. I advised her to grab and apply the oil directly to the 'wound' which was near the vent but she wasn't confident with grabbing him so she tried squirting him with a syringe while he was out of the cage and i think this is how he became soaked in the oil.
I'll try washing him again tonight do you think using washing up liquid might be best?

[stace]

Salma, it seems it takes a lot of vigorous washing to get the oil off, not just a quick wash. From what i read, it's best to get all the repeat washing over and done with in one session, rather than dragging out a number of washes over time. One incident of stress is better than repeated stress incidents.

Dishwashing liquid may be better at cutting oil than shampoo.

[salma]

thanks, completely agree. I honestly didnt think it would take so much to get rid of the oil. hopefully one last wash tonight should get rid of it. He's hand tame so its not as bad but still stressful for him

[salma]

I posted about Ronald the oil soaked budgie a few days ago. I washed him with Fairy liquid as I said I would and this got rid of all the oil and Ronald seemed to be improving.

This morning I woke up to find him covered in blood all around his right leg, the blood had spread but I'm guessing this was due to him preening. Under all the feathers I managed to find where the blood was coming from - it is a fairly old wound, but is infected, so I'm guessing this is where the blood was coming from last week when he was with his owners. I've treated the area with an antiseptic cream and powder. It looks as though he's torn the skin where the leg joins the body - I imagine that he got himself stuck somewhere and pulled himself free, it looks really painful. He hasn't been wanting to jump down from perches and hasn't been flying at all - now I know why! I feel really bad as I've been trying to encourage him to fly.
I'm not too worried about this leg wound as it does look as though it's healing.

What I'm really worried about is a second wound I've found under his wing. The wound is of a circular shape and has a diameter of 0.75 to 1cm. It looks quite fresh, although, I can't tell as he was still bleeding from here, so my priority was to stop the blood. My dad says that this wound wasn't there when we washed the oil off him a few days ago, but I didn't really pay attention - it could have been a scab which has been picked, but I've not had a chance to look at the wound properly.

If this is a fresh wound (as my dad and sister believe), what can I do for him? Does any have any idea on what could have caused this? He's been in his cage and on the floor in my room, there is nothing that he could have hit himself on. I did put him on his perch in the cage last night, so I'm guessing the bleeding from his leg is because he jumped down from the perch in the morning, but there's nothing in the cage or in my room that he could have hurt himself on.

I've never seen anything like this before, the only thing I could liken it to is when my sister stood on our pet quail a few years ago, but there's no way that this could have happened at my house as I lock them away in my room when I'm not home so that noone disturbs them and I am the only one with the key.

Please help - what can i do for Ronald?

Thanks,

Salma

[barrieshutt]

a dab of vaseline will stop the bleed Salma ...............have you any other pets that might have caused the would which clearly sounds like a puncture wound ?

[salma]

yes it does look like a puncture wound, but no I don't have any other pets. I did have another budgie with him until this morning, but he's only a baby and I'm sure he wouldn't have been able to or even tried to do anything like that. The wound is under his wing on his body, not on his actual wing.
He's in a hagen vision cage, have felt around to see if there's any bars sticking out or anything, but there's nothing

[Hezz]

I would clean both wounds with a saline solution (8gms of table salt to 1 litre of water) and then apply the antiseptic cream and powder, and just moniter him. Is the wound under his wing deep or more of a surface wound? If it is a deep wound, the antiseptic cream/powder may not get right into the deep part of the wound.

[salma]

luckily, there's been no bleeding and it doesn't appear to be too deep, so that's a relief. He was on the mend before but is now looking a lot worse, he's sleeping a lot more than he was before.
The feathers around his face look quite odd. The skin around his beak was red and swollen when I first got him home, but after washing the oil off it seems to have dried and is looking quite crusty and dry....Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated







Thank you

[barrieshutt]

See PM Salma , no more washing now just let the feathers bloom naturally

[salma]

Thanks Barrie

[salma]

a much better looking Ronald taken 2 days ago - he's looking even better now and is being collected by his owners tomorrow :-)

[starling]

So glad he's ok.... I was getting really concerned as I read through that! I thought it could have been mites and maybe he's been scratching and making himself bleed? Whatever it was, he looks a lot happier now

[Hezz]

Well done, Salma. Ronald certainly looks much happier now, although he probably would be happy to stay with you! I am sure his owners love him though.