Can’t fly, any advice?

[jamesdean1]

Hello everyone, before anyone asks or tells me YES I have an appointment with the vet.

In the meantime I’m curious what people’s thoughts are on this. My budgie is 13 years old she has lived a relatively active life flying pretty much daily. Diet has mostly been seeds she’s always been very picky but we’ve always gotten the best seeds we can find and recently have been able to get her to eat more herbs.

She is 100% normal, active, happy go lucky, eating etc. there has been no abnormal behaviors BUT when she goes to fly she drops straight to the ground. She has been molting but what seems different from other molts is she is missing a lot of feathers on her wings and seems to be holding some of them up at an awkward angle.
(This has been going on for about a month)

I’ve checked all the forums looked around alot online and can’t seem to find anything exactly like this it’s always a different situation. I’d really appreciate it if anyone has any insight I’ll leave photos below.

First photo is an example of what I mean by fanning up the wings at an angle. imgur.com/a/f4bskos

[ffiscool]

Hi. I’m sorry I don’t know, but others on here will be on later or the morning and hopefully have advice

[Hezz]

How is she with being held? If you can, hold onto her and check out her wings, and all feathers on top and underneath. Regarding how she is holding her wings it is possible that there is a pin feather sticking into her when the wing sits flat. Take notice of what is happening when she preens herself.

At 13yo she is getting on in life. Is she overweight, can you feel her keel easily? If she is overweight, the loss of some primary wing feathers could be causing her to drop where normally a bird would be able to handle a few missing feathers. Must say that she doesn’t seem to have lost too many on the wing that can be seen. Some more photos could be helpful.

A vet may simply put it down to being an age issue. How much time does she spend out of her cage every day normally?

[jamesdean1]

Mar 9, 2023 0:47:16 GMT Hezz said:

How is she with being held? If you can, hold onto her and check out her wings, and all feathers on top and underneath. Regarding how she is holding her wings it is possible that there is a pin feather sticking into her when the wing sits flat. Take notice of what is happening when she preens herself.

At 13yo she is getting on in life. Is she overweight, can you feel her keel easily? If she is overweight, the loss of some primary wing feathers could be causing her to drop where normally a bird would be able to handle a few missing feathers. Must say that she doesn’t seem to have lost too many on the wing that can be seen. Some more photos could be helpful.

A vet may simply put it down to being an age issue. How much time does she spend out of her cage every day normally?

I’ll link some videos below if that helps.

imgur.com/a/CVoq8JE

I can’t tell about the weight I mean she does eat alot but is often eating slowly and shifting around for her favorite seeds rather than constantly devouring as much as possible. She seems to be about the same size as always.

She used to be out most of the day time, relaxing on the window flying back and forth etc, but over the last couple years she’s been less and less active and more relaxed. (We leave the cage open 24/7 so the majority of her life she would be hanging out somewhere around the room) I understand this is obviously old age but she’s still always spent a decent amount of time outside the cage and flying. But since she can’t fly she hasn’t really be doing much outside the cage other than playing around on the top of her cage for like 30min a day. She does still sit on the top of her door alot watching what I’m doing.

I mean to be honest holding her and touching her in anyway is next to impossible. She has very strict boundaries, she’ll fly onto my arm walk around on me play with me but if you ever try to pet her or touch her she gets very frustrated. We have grabbed her maybe half a dozen times over the years in the event we needed to look closer at something like this but she will fight for her life to get free.

[Ira]

One of mine has just broken the outer two flight feathers on one wing and can no longer gain height so keeps ending up on the floor. He's a good weight for his size now, so that isn't affecting him. His lack of confidence can be seen in how he's moving around even less than normally (and he's my least active bird already). So if she's lost a fair few flights I wouldn't be surprised (haven't looked at the pictures yet). If that's the case though you might just have to wait until they grow back.

[Marianne Marlow]

Wondering if she has lost some muscle mass due to her age and can't fly for that reason.

Will be very interested to see what the vet says.

[Hezz]

My thoughts are that it is probably a bit of both - old age leading to muscle tone loss, and the loss of a few primary flights, Ira and Marianne Marlow. There does seem to be a fairly common thread that comes up now and then where an older bird has a heavy moult and even after the feathers grow back in the bird does not return to previous flying capacity. Exercise becomes more important as we get older, not less. (Don’t) ask me how I know.

jamesdean1, will she sit on a perch easily where you want her to be? I suggest you try to find a way to weigh her. From the history you have given, I’d be surprised if she isn’t overweight, given that her diet has been primarily seed.

[jamesdean1]

Update:

Going to the vet tomorrow morning. In the meantime it seems like her feathers have been coming in and look more full. She also hasn’t been holding them up at that weird angle since the wing feathers have been more full. She still falls to the ground but overall has been her normal self.

I think it’s a mix of molting and old age, maybe overweight but I don’t think so.

I don’t think there’s anything seriously wrong with her nor could the vet do much about it, but regardless it’s been awhile and she’s getting old so we might aswell see what they say and get an overall checkup.

[Hezz]

Good idea to get another opinion. An overweight bird doesn’t necessarily look fat. Feeling or weighing them is usually required.

[jamesdean1]

Update from vet:

Considering her age she shockingly has a clean bill of health! She is normal weight, said her feathers look good, normal soft belly no bumps. Everything is entirely normal.

Vet suspects is likely she just had an abnormally heavy molt and now that she’s done molting combine with her old age it might take some time to regain flight. We didn’t do bloodwork considering overall she has been healthy and normal, yes due to the age there can be underlying organ issues but we decided to hold off on the bloodwork for now.

Again it’s just shocking to me being 13 years old, primarily eating seeds she’s still healthy and has never been sick or injured.

[jamesdean1]

Lol I’m sorry but F Reddit. I posted to r/budgies asking the same advice a few weeks ago and they removed the post immediately with the moderator saying he doesn’t look good at all, is missing “ALOT” of feathers and needs to go to a vet immediately.

It’s crazy because people on there pose graphic images of injured budgies and that doesn’t get removed, so removing my post felt like i was being accused of animal abuse despite him being healthy and us caring for him tremendously throughout his life.

Thanks to everyone who commented I really appreciate it! Calmed my nerves and was good to have outside options.

[Marianne Marlow]

I have seen the reddit page you mentioned. A lot of those people seem very alarmist.

[Hezz]

That’s very good news. Wonderful that she isn’t overweight (I wish I could say the same for all of mine!)

No need for anything invasive if she is considered fit and healthy, and fingers crossed for her return to the air once she is fully feathered again.