Urgent Urgent help! Need to make a decision on bird with possibly aspiration pneumonia

[BrightSong]

My bird started having difficulties breathing Friday night. Now it's Monday night. In the weekend I call all vet hospitals in the nearest city, but there weren't any exotic vets (avian) and they couldn't take her in. Saturday morning she was very pale, I think she had hypoxia. Friday night I started her on amoxicillin/clavulanate and itraconazole in the appropriate dose since I had the drugs at home from previous visits (for something totally unrelated) and know how to calculate the doses. I thought it couldn't wait. I talked to an exotics vet from the country's capital (I called an ER there to ask for advice even tho I live very far away) and she said it was ok to start the medication.

Since I started the medication she has improved and her skin recovered its color and she was more energetic. She has been eating and drinking a bit on her own the whole time even in the worse moments. And now she preens a bit and even gets angry at me.

Today tho even if relatively more energetic she was a bit paler but I'm not sure if it's because I reduced the heat I gave her from the heat lamp or it's something else and she's getting worse again.

The disease I assume is from the lower respiratory tract since she doesn't have any mucus, sneezing or watery eyes.
The only think I can think could happened is aspiration pneumonia in a moment without me watching.
Im pretty sure she's been getting sick for a week because she didn't lay any eggs 6 days prior to Friday. Which was very strange, even if she acted normal. Not laying eggs is a sign of disease, although there are other possible causes but in this case it's pretty clear that was it.

I also checked a smear of her glottis under the microscope and all I saw was a bit of bacteria. I have a decent microscope. So I think it's probably not aspergillosis but I'm not trained in this, just know the basics. I'm a scientist but not a microbiologist although I know a couple things.

I have an appointment tomorrow morning to see an exotic vet finally but I'm really scared if this is the right move or not. They probably will need to do an X ray, and I think that's ok on itself, but most likely they'll say they have to sedate her? I don't see her strong enough to go through that. I'm very scared I may kill her by taking her to the vet. The only two vet hospitals here have terrible reviews. A lot of neglect and dead pets. But it's all there is. I have been looking for alternatives but it's difficult to find an appointment on short notice.

I have never done test on my pet beside citology. I read anesthesia/sedation is extremely dangerous for birds. Specially those ill like mine.

I'm also worried the stress from the X ray is going to be way worse.

So here are my questions:

1.Have you ever dealt with aspiration pneumonia? What was the treatment?

2.Did you ever have to sedate your bird for X ray while sick? How was it?
Do you think they'd let me help hold her myself even if I remain there in the X ray room so they dont have to sedate her?

Also, I have barely slept anything in these whole 3 days and I was sick myself to begin with so now I'm very sick with a fever myself. I live alone and there's no one to take care of any of us.

I know this is a parrot forum, and my pet is a quail. But I haven't been able to find help anywhere else. There is no much help for poultry since farmers don't usually take animals to the vet or care so much about them. But it's my pet and I want to help her. I just want to do what's best for her.

I hope you guys can help by sharing your experiences. I'd appreciate it

 

[Pixiebeak]

What kind of parrot? How old? What are all the symptoms? How many eggs has she been laying? What is the diet ?

 

[Shezbug]

What kind of parrot? How old? What are all the symptoms? How many eggs has she been laying? What is the diet ?

It is a quail the post says.


@fashionfobie?

 

[Pixiebeak]

Guess I missed it , everything still so tiny in my phone.

I wouldn't say aspiration is high in the rule out list for an adult bird ... respiratory symptoms can involve all the airways even without any wet discharge. It's been so long since I did any quail flocks and I remember nothing about their health issues.

@AussieBird has quail , she might have ideas or resources

I do hope you keep us updated .

I hope there are quail clubs/fanciers you can reach out to

 

[fashionfobie]

It sounds like you have already taken tremendous efforts to help you quail. I don't have quail myself but my dear friend kept button quail. They do try to hide illness and when something is obvious to us it could mean it has been lingering longer than we know.

I hope there is a positive outcome. I wouldn't rule out fungal infection or a parasite.

In terms of the x-ray. It will be temporary. When my parrot gets his blood done they need to do it with him because he is very upset about body touch. They place a little cone over their beak and use gas. It isn't as ideal as not doing it. But it isn't as long term or intense as being fully sedated. It is only to help keep them still for the x-ray.

 

[BrightSong]

Guess I missed it , everything still so tiny in my phone.

I wouldn't say aspiration is high in the rule out list for an adult bird ... respiratory symptoms can involve all the airways even without any wet discharge. It's been so long since I did any quail flocks and I remember nothing about their health issues.

@AussieBird has quail , she might have ideas or resources

I do hope you keep us updated .

I hope there are quail clubs/fanciers you can reach out to

Thank you all for your comments.
The medication I gave her seemed to work and she's been getting better, right now she's recovered a good color in her skin and has a lot more energy. She's going to make 7 days of antibiotics/antifungals tonight and tomorrow I have an appointment to see the vet.

So you think aspiration is unlikely? Well that's good to hear. I was worried about aspiration pneumonia because occasionally (like 10 times in 16 months I've had her) she's shaken her beak and throw some liquid with food, like regurgitation. Just in some moments where I wasn't expecting it, or maybe when she was stressed. I don't know if this is normal or not. It's not like it was happening a lot, never saw any splatters on her cage or anything.

I got very sick myself with a fever from not sleeping taking care of her, and as a matter of fact I have barely slept in the whole week and I'm still doing pretty bad, but have recovered a bit. Since she was getting better with the medication I gave her, I was sick, and there were emergency exotic vets available at night for emergency during the week, I decided not to take her just yet and let us both rest. So I haven't taken her yet. And it was the right call. She's been getting better and had I taken her when she was so fragile I don't know what would've happened. Maybe she'll be no longer. It was a hard decision for sure because on one hand I'd feel terrible if I didn't take care and she got worse and died, but also the other way around.

I've been taken extreme care of her. Checking that she's warm, using a heat lamp and later an electric heater to heat up the room. Keeping her in a quiet dark room all the time. Getting up every few hours to give all the medications around the clock. Gave her some syringes with vitamins and some sugar water too the first days to give her some energy.

I ordered an oxygen concentrator machine from Amazon extremely expensive and crummy because it only gives 30% but it came in a day. I made a contraption with a silicon tube to use as a loose oxygen mask (not covering completely her face, but peak inside the tube) and I gave her a bit of oxygen therapy.

Right now if you pick her up she doesn't make any easily noticeable noises, and she's energetic. She even takes short baths in the shavings. She's eating more.

Tomorrow I'll visit the vet to check on her, listen to her breathing, revise her treatment, try to address possible causes if he's kind enough to do so, her diet, etc.

I don't know if an X Ray is still appropriate to do or not. If you have an opinion on that I'll highly appreciate it, although I don't know if you can tell. We'll see. But I'd prefer to avoid it if it's not quite necessary.

Oh man I have some serious health issues myself and I've really gone down on those really bad. I think I need to find a better way to handle this, but I don't know if there was any. I just saw her like that and all I cared about was her.

I have been thinking and I think I found out the most probably cause. She has a very rare skin infection caused by a yeast (totally unrelated, because it doesn't cause any respiratory infections and it's extremely rare to be pathogenic in the first place in the skin but it can happen out of bad luck). [Too much info about that other story to share now] And for the last two months I've been treating her with a spray of clotrimazol twice daily, that has alcohol in it. She has the fungus very spread and so I had to put it in her face, all her chest, all her legs. It's a lot. I didn't realise the alcohol vapours could be bad because I couldn't smell anything.
When she got sick with the respiratory problem I stopped that treatment not to stress her out by handling her and a couple days ago that she's getting better I decided to try apply it without disturbing her too much and that's when it came to mind. I did the test to put my nose where her beak is after giving it to her and it was bad. Like the fumes were quite disturbing. Bad for me that I'm so much bigger, I can't imagine for her. So I have stopped that all together.
It didn't occur to me or the vet that it could be a problem.

Here are some videos of her before and now:

http://imgur.com/a/QYS6N2I

Also a couple of pictures of my inventions
The first one I did when I had nothing, to blow some extra air to her pumping fast (tube is not closed around face, just mostly covered), idk if it did anything but it seemed to help a bit.
The second is the machine

 

[BrightSong]

What kind of parrot? How old? What are all the symptoms? How many eggs has she been laying? What is the diet ?

Here's a calendar. X marks when she didn't lay eggs. So I suspect she got sick the 8th. The respiratory symptoms started on Friday

Here's the feed. I dumped it in the translator

PARTRIDGE MAINTENANCE CLAIM ALTUBE

-Composition:
Wheat flakes (44%), alfalfa (25.3%), soybean meal (16%), barley flakes (5%), corn flakes (5%), sunflower oil (2%), calcium carbonate . (1%), vitamin-mineral premix (5%), dicalcium phosphate (0.5%), methionine (0.2%), lysine (0.2%), sodium chloride (0.2%) and bicarbonate . sodium (0.1%).

- Analytical composition:
Crude protein: 15.5%. Crude oils and fats: 3.5%. Gross fiber: 9.4%. Gross ash: 6.4%.
- Expiration date of 10 months.

I've also been giving her vitamins for the last 6 months in the appropriate dose. See picture


A note about the other comment

-In one of the videos you can see her sneezing a bit but that was an isolated incident, I haven't seen her sneeze any other time actually. Just to let you know

 

[fashionfobie]

We can not provide medical advice. You must go to a veterinarian for that. We can only help with immediate care and or questions related to helping you with your treatment plan.

I am super please to read you are so dedicated to her care. Note that egg laying can also be impacted by weather such a cloud cover and number of daylight hours. The eggs laying may or may not be related.

 

[Pixiebeak]

The vomiting or regurge can be another symptom of what's going on ..I didn't know she was vomiting, it's possible she could aspirate from that . Or it is a totally different respiratory infection. I do not like st all how she is labor breathing in the video... poor girl. Looks very serious. I hope you are able to get checked by vet

 

[Pixiebeak]

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www.unusualpetvets.com.au

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www.backyardchickens.com

 

[Pixiebeak]

Also , I'm not sure if gapeworms also can be found in quail, but I believe they can . Information & Blogs Chicken Health Gapeworm – Does my Gasping Chicken Have it?.

But knowing if you have parasite, viral , or bacterial ..we can't know, or at least I can't , will take a vet