Noise she makes while breathing

[kodzor]

Hi everyone,

Approximately 4 days ago my 5 years old budgie started doing this noise while flying and when she reaches her lower tummy during cleaning. She's in her moulting season for winter and even now she's still very energetic. She eats and drinks normally, her droppings and tail bobbing are normal too.

I read some stuff online and saw that it could be upper respiratory infection? Few hours ago I visited 2 different regular veterinarians, both of them told me it's unlikely to be respiratory infection because if she had that she would have throw up seeds, puke and sneeze? I don't know how true is this but 2 different veterinarians told me this. I can answer if you ask anything I don't know more about what symptoms they show.

Update: As I'm typing this, one day after upper text, she also started making this noise while breathing. She's still cheerful and her mood is great but I'm really getting anxious at the moment. I also uploaded a boosted audio record if you found video volume to be too low.

2.5 years ago I noticed a mass on her abdomen size of a chickpea and took her to the emergency avian vet (It moves, not fixed). They did an ultrasound and examined her with hand. They told me it was a harmless tumour, which is not that rare among birds. They didn't want to do a biopsy or blood test, but they were confident explaining the situation to me. They prescribed an antibiotic just to be sure but it didn't work after a week. It grew just a tiny bit to this date. Like 1/4 of a chickpea, it does not seem to bother her at all so I quit stressing about it. That was the only vet journey of her.

I made an appointment with an avian vet for next Wednesday but I wanted to get your opinions. Thank you all very much in advance.

[tweetiepiesmom]

One of my two budgies makes a noise when he flies, its like a little squeal. He makes the same noise when
I give him a treat or seeds to eat. I think of it as a sound that expresses his pleasure. He doesn't make the noise when breathing.

Does she make the same noise when flying, preening and breathing or is the breathing noise different? I would be concerned about the noise when breathing. Have you noticed her tail bobbing recently while she's at rest?

[kodzor]

Oct 15, 2022 19:03:47 GMT tweetiepiesmom said:

One of my two budgies makes a noise when he flies, its like a little squeal. He makes the same noise when
I give him a treat or seeds to eat. I think of it as a sound that expresses his pleasure. He doesn't make the noise when breathing.

Does she make the same noise when flying, preening and breathing or is the breathing noise different? I would be concerned about the noise when breathing. Have you noticed her tail bobbing recently while she's at rest?

Thank you very much for you reply.

I'm just concerned because she's 5 years old and she only started doing it few days ago. She does the noise while preening and flying. The noise -she started to make today- while breathing also in this post, but I think they are clickable but not visible like blue text. Click this for gdrive link.

Her tail is fine, bobbing is extremely minimal compared to videos I saw with serious illnesses.

I'm more anxious now because she started making that noise while flying and today, the breathing sound. I'll go see 2 more regular vets tomorrow and ask for an opinion. The breathing noise is top priority to me at the moment.

[Hezz]

Does she have, and use, an iodine block? It is possible that she has an iodine deficiency, very common with budgies on an all-seed diet, not aware that yours is, just that it is a possibility. It is very easily treated if you wanted to rule that possibility out - a iodine tincture, concentration 25mg/ml available from chemist/pharmacy, adding three (3) drops into 100mls of drinking water for a week. If she stops making the noise in that time you know that’s the cause and you can then add just a drop into her water once a week to make sure her iodine levels stay healthy. If this isn’t the cause, the extra iodine for that short amount of time is not going to harm her.
The lack of iodine in the thyroid gland causes it to swell slightly which in turn leads to the clicking sound. It can also lead to a change in the bird’s voice.

[kodzor]

Oct 16, 2022 1:26:10 GMT Hezz said:

Does she have, and use, an iodine block? It is possible that she has an iodine deficiency, very common with budgies on an all-seed diet, not aware that yours is, just that it is a possibility. It is very easily treated if you wanted to rule that possibility out - a iodine tincture, concentration 25mg/ml available from chemist/pharmacy, adding three (3) drops into 100mls of drinking water for a week. If she stops making the noise in that time you know that’s the cause and you can then add just a drop into her water once a week to make sure her iodine levels stay healthy. If this isn’t the cause, the extra iodine for that short amount of time is not going to harm her.
The lack of iodine in the thyroid gland causes it to swell slightly which in turn leads to the clicking sound. It can also lead to a change in the bird’s voice.

I bought her an iodine block years ago but she never used it. I will ask this to vet and I'll use it weekly after or as a treatment. Thank you.

Also she started sneezing a lot since last night.

[kodzor]

So an update,

I went to the regular vet who knows more about birds than other regular vets and he examined her by hand and I showed him the video I took. He diagnosed her with upper respiratory infection and gave me antibiotics. I asked if it is baytril or not (since I have experience with it) and he said it's not baytril but could give me it instead of what he proposed, and I said give me what you think best for her. So he gave me a yellow powder, I don't know it's full name but it was starting with T. I'll mix it with her water daily and use this for five days. I was using baytril directly to her mouth through syringe but this time I'm mixing the powder with her water. It's a little bit annoying since I'd know she was getting the medicine through syringe now I can just hope he drinks her water, but we'll see what will happen. I'll still go to the Wednesday appointment though. I'll post more detailed update after that.

Edit: This is the powder they gave to me.

[Loz]

As much as I hate syringing meds into a bird's mouth, I'd prefer that to mixing it in their water. How on Earth do you know what dosage they're getting that way?

[Marianne Marlow]

I hope the antibiotic that you have been given works.

Regarding what Hezz was saying about iodine, the block wouldn't help very much as it doesn't have much iodine in it. You'd need the liquid made up as Hezz advised.

But as you have a diagnosis I'd stick to what the vet has given you.

[kodzor]

So here is an update,

I called my avian vet and told her she was getting better with antibiotics and she told me then let’s finish that medicine and let’s see what happens. I was on 3rd day of that medicine and kept using it for 2 more days. She got better and noise reduced. This lasted 3 days then she started doing this noise again.

I went to the avian vet this Monday and we took X-Ray of her. We saw her liver got bigger and pressing her air sacs. The thing is I mentioned you earlier about her first vet visit because of the mass on her chest, we already knew that during that visit 2 years ago. We changed her diet and that mass did not get bigger since then (Also if it got bigger in inside is it possible for her to start making that noise overnight? Like one day she was okay next morning she has breathing difficulty).

Now the avian vet did not took blood, or swab from mouth/crop, just X-Ray. I was given supplement for respiratory system, vitamin and Baytril to use for 1 week. I just gave her the 4th days dose and so far I see no improvement.

I’m guessing because of antibiotics she started closing her eyes a lot yesterday. I let her fly for 20 mins and when she left her cage and came to my finger she immediately closed her eyes I was gonna scratch her head but she didn’t see my hand coming and got scared for a second. She’s not puffing up her feathers or tired but I don’t know why she started doing that.
Edit: I forgot to mention her tail started bobbing a lot more than usual.

I also kept searching and I saw similar cases like mine. A lot of them turned out their budgies had Aspergillosis from the start. I’m wondering how they diagnose it also I heard it’s hard and takes a lot of time to recover. I’m kinda worried if this antibiotic makes more harm than good because if she has something else, it kills useful bacterias to fight it. Does Aspergillosis show up on X-Ray? I don’t know what to look, I’ll try to share it with you in this thread.

Thank you all for the replies.

ibb.co/HrKc0cF image of xray.

[Hezz]

Aspergillosis is a fungus, so to answer a couple of your questions…
I doubt it would show up on xray unless as a shadow similar to TB in lungs, but that is an educated guess. I am not really sure.
Being a fungus, antibiotics are not going to do much, except as you say, reduce the proportion of good bacteria in the digestive tract, which can be off-set by giving a probiotic. Human probiotics can be given if you can’t find avian, and even a small amount of naturally produced, unsweetened Greek-style yoghurt can help if she will eat it.
The point of not noticing your hand coming may be something or nothing. By not being well, she will not be as alert as she would normally be, but try to check her and see if you can catch her out again. Is it her eyesight, or was she just caught out in a tired moment?

[kodzor]

Update:
Finished using Baytril for 10 days (Initially it was for 7 days but vet decided to extend the period) and we did not see any progress about the difficult breathing. I took my budgie to same vet on this Thursday and after an X-Ray we saw her lungs got a lot better, also her liver shrinked little bit because we changed her seed and she just ate it to stay alive for 2 days (she eats it now), but yeah symptoms did not reduce.

They gave us Enrofloksasin. I’m mixing this with water then 10 drops into her mouth with syringe every 12 hours. I don’t want to jinx it but I’m seeing positive results so far.

I also asked the vet about aspergillosis and they don’t think she has it at all. There is almost no way to be certain about it since it’s very hard to test. According to them the patient of this disease always show vomiting, and puffing up the feathers, mine does neither of them. Also most of the time they see yellowness around the tongue and bad breath.
I’ll post an update again in a week!

[kodzor]

Update:
We used the Enrofloxacin for 10 days and I said we were seeing positive results. She almost went back to normal symptoms were barely noticeable at the end of that 10-day period. When the medicine is done we were told to wait 3 days and not to bring her if she doesn't get worse because weather is getting colder.

After 4 or 5 days she started showing the symptoms again. This time I went back to vet alone to talk about it and they said she might have developed asthma or the respiratory issue may become chronic, and we are going to test the Enrofloxacin one more time because it worked good last time and they also gave me different respiratory supplement.

Fast forward after 8 days. I have 2 days of dosages left and I'm not seeing any positive results. This time the noise she makes while breathing is little bit more frequent and she also does it when she's sleeping with her head back on her wings, she never did that since the start of this. I can hear it when I'm sitting other side of the room. She also does this movement (@0:20-0:25) (looks like she's adjusting her crop) more frequently. The vets still don't think it's fungus or parasite by the way.

Her mood is good, she's energetic and chirping. Eating normally, no loss of appetite. Droppings are normal, not watery and good color. Tail is not bobbing. She's not sleepy, and I always keep her warm. She's not throwing up seeds. No bad breath or yellowness around mouth.

We will visit the vet again on Monday.

Thank you everyone.

[kodzor]

Update:

During that remaining 2.5 days I saw a lot of improvement. Squeaking while flying is gone, less sneezing, easier breathing and she's more energetic. The thing is this is exactly what happened before. We used the Enrofloxacin for 10 days, saw a lot of improvement and quit the medicine. After 4~ days she started showing the symptoms again.

I'm afraid this is gonna happen again. I was supposed to go to vet today but I wanted to call first and let them know. They told me let's extend Enrofloxacin to 13-14 days and after that watch her closely, last time the 10 days may not have been enough. If she starts showing the symptoms again after a week, they will do a blood test and swabs to see if she has fungal disease.

My question is, is it possible that Enrofloxacin could suppress the symptoms of a fungal disease?

Thank you all in advance.

[Hezz]

Very possible as it is an antibacterial antibiotic, which are not recommended for fungal infections. If it is a fungal infection you need antifungal antibiotics such as nystatin. An antibacterial may knock the fungi around and reduce the symptoms but will not kill off the fungus which is why you are seeing a recurrence when the AB’s are stopped.

[kodzor]

Another update:

The exact same thing happened. She started showing symptoms yesterday again. We use Enrofloxacin for 10 days and she gets better the last 2 days of medicine then 3-4 days later she starts showing symptoms again. It's really frustrating.

This is the current state of her, took this video few hours ago (She does that crop adjustment movement I marked with an arrow way often compared to before).

I'll call the vet tomorrow afternoon and take her to them on Sunday. I think we will start some antifungal medication because that's what they said they will do if it repeats. I'll ask for a blood test and crop swab.

Thank you everyone.

Edit: Called the vet. They are still saying it's not a serious issue and come to us if she shows sleepiness or diarrhea. I'll still take her to them tomorrow because compared to a month ago the difficult breathing got a lot more frequent and more severe.