Hi,
I’m very sorry for your loss. One problem I read here is the fact that you were still handfeeding him at a year old. You said baby food, but hopefully you meant a parrot handfeeding formula. This is way too old for a conure to be eating formula. Formula has nutrients that are not intended for an adult bird, so they could cause issues. A bird that age is fully active and as you mentioned, flying. These behaviors are dangerous for a bird that is handfeeding because he can aspirate just with normal play, and this can cause illness or even kill a bird quickly. Bacterial infections are also common with birds on formula. While birds should be allowed to wean at their own pace, there is still an age where the bird should not be getting a mainly liquid diet. If his diet was mostly pellets, greens, veggies, with a very small amount of handfeeding at bedtime, this isn’t too bad, but again, not ideal. I’m not saying this led to his death, but you need to keep this is mind if you get another bird. Usually a conure will reject formula by 4 months of age at the latest, and won’t accept it no matter how hard you try. He may have had an underlying issue that caused him not to develop normally and still want to be handfed.
Sometimes a death seems sudden, but the bird has been hiding signs of being sick. Again, it was not normal for him to still be accepting baby formula, so this leads me to think something was wrong with him from the beginning. Otherwise, sudden death is usually caused be an airborne toxin. Almost anything with a strong fragrance or fumes is toxic for a bird. This can be cleaning supplies, candles, air freshener sprays or plug ins, bug sprays, cookware and more. They have a very complicated respiratory system and things that do not bother people or other pets might kill a bird. You can Google airborne toxins for pet birds and find several lists of possibilities.
This doesn’t change your grief and again, I am very sorry this happened. It’s never easy to lose a pet at any age.
Take care,
Brenda
