Sick BG continued

[mrogan]

SOrry oops I hit enter on accident.
since I had only fed one baby before I didn't have much of a reference point so I have been tryiong to read online and have bought books, to see what my bird should look like at what age and make sure that he/she is progressing the way that he/she should. BUT I got the bird home on Friday evening, and by saturday morning I knew that something wasn't right. I spoke to the breeder various times throught the whole weekend, yet I still had an unsettling feeling the baby's crop was very slow to empty.
I took the bird to an only avian vet on Monday morning and she was horrified!!!!! my bird looked like a 6 six day old bird ( she showed me in a text book) yet he was 5 1/2 weeks old. I will give the list of things the vet noticed immediately.

The bird was missing MANY parts of his/her toes.
the beak was growing incorrectly
the scabs (the eyes were not open yet, and still aren't) were up too high
severely under weight. supposed to weigh 686 grams, weighed 83 grams. Yes i did type 83 grams. she did a culture and gave me three meds.
Reglan to start his digestive system and help with crop emptying, diflucan an antifungal, and baytril an antibiotic. Let me say she hesitantly treated this bird, after condsideration and much discussion she agreed. she thought I should bring him back immediately, however I thought that if this bird was neglected bringing him back would be a death sentence. So i decided to commit to getting this bird healthy.
the reglan for crop emptying helped almost immediatly. i was able to feed the bird the proper amount every three hours and I did so for four days, we went back today for a checkup, and to my dismay my baby LOST weight. how can this be???????

the vet now thinks it MAY be cryptosporidium and she gave me three additional injectables and the bird is now on all six meds. SHe explained that there is a test for this but we haven't got the time to wait for results we would see difference in one day on the meds for crypto if it was that anyway. so that is where we are currently. I just gave her, her night meds and injectables, and I am now praying that I can help pull this baby out of it. Is there anything that anyone can think of that the vet has maybe overlooked, I have really bonded with this baby and I love it immensly and i have fully commited to getting her healthy. I forgot to mention above that the results of the culture were heavy Eccoli growth.
Thank you for anyone who takes the time to read this ridiculously long post. I just wanted to give all of the info that I could to see if anyone can help.
thanks
mrogan

[kensbuns]

You have posted this time and time again and again I say find a professional to wean out this baby before it dies. No one should by an unweaned baby bird. And breeders should not sell them.

[MaryG1959]

I agree totally w/Kensbuns.

This is life or death.

[Sashagirl]

I agree with everyone you should never buy an unweaned baby bird especially
if your not an experienced handfeeder.You could asperate the baby and then it could get pneumonia and die.With what the avian vet told you I would of taken it back to the breeder because it sounds like you are damned if you do damned if you don't.I hope that this story has a happy ending.

[mrogan]

Wow, I thought that I would actually get Help or advice here not someones overinflated egos and opinions. I stated that I knew now that I am not fully experienced however, this bird is obviously better off with me, than the person who did this to him. to the person who wrote about aspirating this baby, thats the least of my worries, I obviously know how to NOT do that, and the vet told me that she felt bad that I thought I bought a Healthy bird in good faith and this was far from it, she also said that I needed to think about if I wanted to take on a sick bird that will at the very least have tremendous vet bills. she didn't want me to take him back because she thought I couldn't handle it . As a matter of fact I just spoke to her an hour ago and she said to keep up the great work we might actually be getting him out of the woods. I am sorry for only thing, that I thought from reading your web site most of you were very knowledgable and very helpful I guess I thought wrong. My question was is there any disease or anything that I should ask the vet to test for or that she may have overlooked? I didn't ask if I should be doing this? Thanks anyway though.

[mrogan]

Yes I have thank you for being so intelligent that you can count how many times I have posted duh!!! you just wasted another five monutes of my precious time reading your nonsense. That should tell you how much I care because I didn't know if every member reads all parts or if I would get more responses from different areas. thanks though you did great adding ken.

[wildirish]

My question was is there any disease or anything that I should ask the vet to test for or that she may have overlooked? I didn't ask if I should be doing this?

Did the vet run a full panel blood work up? Claymidia tests? Piticosis(sp)? PBFD?

As to the finding a professional to wean this baby out. It may be a good idea to locate a good breeder to help you out, since you stated you haven't had much experience in hand feeding. You might want to ask your vet if it would be ok to use something like avigain mixed with the macaw hand feeding formula. Not sure if it should or could be done?! With a macaw that underweight, she needs to put weight on fast or her organs could shut down too. If you can find a reputable breeder they could give you help on how to help this baby!

Please don't get upset at Barb, we have just seen a lot of people buying unweaned babies and things like this happen, though it sounds like it happened before you bought the bird, so the breeder is really to blame, besides being unscrupulous in selling an unweaned bird, she sold a sick one!

I hope that everything works out and that this baby survives this ordeal! Make sure you set up some kind of incubator (large aquarium with a heating pad under half of it) to keep her warm, I doubt her body has the strength to do that, which could also be a problem digesting food, make sure the formula is about 105ish and no hot spots in it.

If you search on here you will find other threads that may help you with this too! It happens more often than it should.

I just caught the thread with the pictures on it, like WV asked, did the breeder tell you that the macaw was 5 weeks, because even if stunted from improper diet, sure seems alot younger than that! Just curious!

Keep us posted!

[mrogan]

Yeah I originally called him around March 1st and he said he just had a macaw hatch around the 19-21st. And we spoke two or three more times until I then asked when should I pick the bird up and he then told me March 23rd. But I have asked the breeder many times "are you sure this bird was born on that date?" and the answer is always yes.

[Cindy215]

Originally Posted by mrogan

Yeah I originally called him around March 1st and he said he just had a macaw hatch around the 19-21st. And we spoke two or three more times until I then asked when should I pick the bird up and he then told me March 23rd. But I have asked the breeder many times "are you sure this bird was born on that date?" and the answer is always yes.

You cant believe anything anyone tells you like that. People BUY EGGS, babies and flip them like houses and cars. Even THEY dont know what they have they're just trying to make money.

Stick to your other thread there's more info there.

[kensbuns]

Originally Posted by mrogan

Yes I have thank you for being so intelligent that you can count how many times I have posted duh!!! you just wasted another five monutes of my precious time reading your nonsense. That should tell you how much I care because I didn't know if every member reads all parts or if I would get more responses from different areas. thanks though you did great adding ken.

Forget it, its just not worth the arguement to me. You should have never taken that baby from the breeder!!