Ask Lafeber

My new parakeet died suddenly

Hello, I brought home a parakeet recently. I had roudybush mini pellets and kaytee seeds in her food dish, and when I was able to confirm she was eating the pellets I took the seeds out completely and fed them to her daily by hand, as well as millet for training purposes. After 5 days of handling, she was the sweetest bird ever. Cuddly, I could kiss her wings, walk across the room and pick her up gently with no aggression or anything. She was an angel after only 5 days of handling. Come day 7 I came home on my lunch break and found her dead… I was devastated. Any idea what could have caused this? I was cleaning her water dish daily, the bottom of her cage was changed every other day, and her perches/toys were all new and bird safe materials… I’m very anxious to bring home another bird now.

Hi,

I’m sorry for your loss. There is no way to know why she died without a Vet doing a necropsy. There may have been something wrong with her when you got her. Sometimes when a new bird seems too sweet, it is actually sick and doesn’t have the energy to try to get away from you. If you get another bird, first you need to give it time to settle in and not try to handle or train it right away. Even if it is already tame, it needs some time to adjust. This might be a few days for a tame bird, or two weeks or more for one that isn’t tame. I would recommend reading through our website since we provide a lot of information about pet birds. To begin with, please check out our training and behavior pages. This will help you to recognize what the bird’s behavior means and how you should handle it.

Teaching Your Bird

Pet Bird and Parrot Behavior

Your Bird’s Health

Thank you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda