[Animist]

I have three parakeets, and I am hoping to find help. I live in Illinois, and I just moved here from Texas. I can't find a good avian vet here. The only vet I've found is not actually an avian vet, but said she would treat my birds anyway. A few months ago, one of my birds died in her care because she was treating an advanced respiratory infection with tetracycline in the water.

I was reading about parakeets yesterday and learned that they have a tendency to develop tumors on their chests around five years of age. I have no idea how old Sunshine is since she was a mature adult when she was abandoned at a pet store in Dallas, TX about two years ago, but when I was looking at her today, I noticed that she was a lot fatter in the chest area than my two new parakeets that were abandoned at a store here in Rockford a few days ago. I don't trust that particular vet to tell me if my bird has a problem or not, so how do I find out if my bird has a tumor?

Sunshine has been eating Ecotrition brand seed mix and fortified egg food since I've had her. The two new babies, Chipper and Nipper (also adults), have been on a diet of Zupreem pellets and millet since they were weened from hand feeding, according to their previous owner. I'm trying to ween Sunshine onto Zupreem as well, but she isn't taking to the pellets very well. Could she just be fat? Sometimes she appears to breath a little laborously: her tail bobs more than Chipper's and Nipper's do. She's just come off of tetracycline shots every three days for a month to treat a RI, and she gets Bene-Bac regularly. Any suggestions or comments?