treatment for bugs in avairy birds

[Vanessa Sandoval]

I just noticed some very tiny light black bugs on the tailfeathers of my lutino cockatiel. She is in an aviary with about 33 other birds, so I'm worried about what these bugs could be. I won't be able to take her into the vet until Friday so I was wondering if anyone has advice. "Ruth" seems fine, but I'm sure that having bugs is not good.

[iggysbirds]

Just at first thought this sounds like mites and yes this would be something to worry about and something that would affect all the birds. When taking your bird to the vet make sure that he/she knows it is in an aviary situation. If it is mites you will need to treat the entire aviary both the birds, cage and any items in the cage.

[Vanessa Sandoval]

I was thinking that it might be something other than mites as these bugs are easily visible. Are mites really tiny? These appear to have wings and have a very skinny long body. They look kind of like a this: -

but with tiny wings and legs. I was able to kind of wash them off of her tail, but they held on pretty tight.

I will have to sanitize everything I'm sure. As it is I wash everything with a bleach solution - water dishes daily, cages everyother week. I change cage liners everyday. I also have birds that are just free flying in the aviary and I have to hose out the floor daily. I don't know how else to keep these bugs out as they appear to just fly in. I'm hoping the vet will give me some kind of spray that is safe. I hope its not going to be something that I have to give the birds orally as I have a lot of birds flying around - some tame, some not so tame. It would not be fun to medicate them everyday, but you gotta do what you gotta do I guess.

[BigBird]

Probably mites, check under its wings they like to gather under there.

[Buteo]

If you see them again, try to take a sample of them before you wash them off.

The easiest way I've found for collecting tiny insects is:
Get a hold of the bird (preferably toweled since you don't want the little creepies transferring to you)....
Wrap a bit of clear tape around your finger with the sticky side out, then lightly pinch a spot on an infested feather. The bugs will be stuck fast to the tape & you can show them to your AV so they can stick them under a scope & make a positive ID.

You'll probably be able to collect some from the towel after you release the bird, but doing it that way has a tendency to gather fibers & thread particles from the towel too...
Feather pinching may grab some dust or birdie dander as well, but is usually a "cleaner" method of collection.

[Vanessa Sandoval]

thank you for the tape idea - its one of those "now why didn't I think of that??" moments.

I was reading in another thread about washing birds with dawn soap and I ended up using some of that on my birds tail and the bugs have not come back. Since she is lutino the bugs are easy to see. There were no bugs under her wings, so I am in hopes that it isn't mites. Maybe just some passing bugs. I will still take her into the vet to see if everything is ok, and find out if these bugs are common to the area I live in. So far I can't find any bugs on any of my other birds. I'm hoping its just one of those things that the birds can take care of with preening and bathing. Ruth is actually the only bird in my aviary that I have to spritz with the water bottle. All of my other guys love to bathe. Hopefully thats why only she has the bugs.

[Vanessa Sandoval]

just an update...

it turned out to be feather lice. I am now treating the one bird I saw them on - secluded in a cage in my house away from the avairy, but I am also treating the aviary - might as well be proactive. I haven't seen any on any of the other birds, but you can't be to careful. I've sanitized "Ruth's" cage and I'm just going down the line of all the birds and sanitizing everything. Not a bad idea to move everything and clean all the cracks anyway. But, feather lice was the final word... pretty much like having mites I suppose. The treatment that I have actually treats both things, and I my vet told me to just treat the whole aviary every 6 weeks as a precation since I house my birds outside.

But, other than that everyone looks good - and I have had three cockatiels hatch this week. It was a 100% hatch rate so I'm really happy - the parents are a whiteface pearl (hen) and a pied papa. They have turned out to be VERY good parents. I was worried with the treating of the lice with my new babies, but the vet said what he gave me is actually safe on newly hatched birds and can be put on the birds that are sitting on eggs as well.

PS - the tape idea worked out well!

[tielmama]

I'm glad you've got everything under control. Congrats on the babies!