Ask Lafeber

Mystery Disease

Hello, I am a passionate animal lover and bird enthusiast, I have 6 birds of my own, including a dutch blue peach-faced lovebird, pineapple green cheek conure, 3 society finches (1 is special needs), and a spice finch. 2 of my society finches as well as my spice finch all live together in a very large cage and are free to fly around our living room.

As some backstory, we recently lost an other finch that was also a society. His name was Chip and he was extremely healthy and happy. I got him and one of my other societies, Cheerio from the same place, and I had had both of them for a few months. All of the sudden, out of nowhere, Chip is lethargic, puffed up, barely wants to move, is foaming at the mouth some, and is having convulsions and discombobulation. This mystery sickness came out of nowhere but developed and got progressively worse over the span of several weeks. As soon as I saw the beginnings of symptoms, we took him to our avian vet who diagnosed it as a bacterial infection. We gave him medicine for weeks consistently, but he didn’t improve and eventually passed away.

It has been a month or so since he passed, and the same thing, all of the sudden, Cheerio has started being lethargic, barely wants to move, fluffed up, and looks unkempt. He is also foaming at the mouth a little and seems to be having a little bit of difficulty swallowing. We immediately took him to the vet, who said it was either mites, a bacterial infection, or a microbial infection. His vent was dirty with sticky droppings and a wet mouth. We are quarantining him, and have been instructed to give him an oral dose of antibacterial medicine every day for a while. I just want to see if anyone has ever seen similar symptoms in their finches and what it turned out to be.

The main thing that is strange to me, is that it is obviously not contagious, and stays dormant for a while, but when it flares up, can be deadly in a short period of time. The guy that we got them from is just a hobby breeder that has a lot of birds and keeps them in a greenhouse and doesn’t take the best care of them. My theory is that whatever this disease is originated there, because all of my other finches and parrots have never had any issues, and are extremely healthy.

I’ll provide a list of the symptoms so that it is easy to compare them.
– Lethargic
-Puffed up
-Unkempt feathers
-Discombobulation
-Convulsions
-Foaming at the mouth / wet mouth
-Dirty vent
-Not contagious
-Can stay dormant for months
-Gets progressively worse

Please let me know if anyone else has dealt with something like this, and if they know what it is and how to deal with it. I am just looking for another opinion.
Thanks,
Gabrielle Pesackis

Hi Gabrielle,

I’m sorry to hear about your situation. A lot of the symptoms sound like air sac mites, but that generally does not include intestinal issues. It’s possible that the intestinal issues are secondary. You can’t assume that this is not contagious or transmittable. There are a number of illnesses that birds can carry without exhibiting symptoms, but they can shed the disease and infect others intermittently. This is generally a virus but not always. Air sac mites are somewhat of a mystery, but they can be passed to other birds, including to your conure and lovebird, although infection in parrots is less common.  A bacterial infection is generally not something a finch can suffer from for weeks – in most cases the bird would succumb within a day to a few days if left untreated. Again, perhaps the bacterial infection was secondary to the initial illness, which I would still highly suspect as air sac mites. It’s possible that the original environment has some sort of contamination if it was originally used as a greenhouse, but then it seems that successful breeding within the structure would be unlikely. The only definitive answer would be from a necropsy of a deceased bird, with tissue and blood samples sent to a lab. This is assuming the Vet ran tests on the sick birds to begin with, and didn’t get any answers in those results. If tests have not been run on the sick birds, this is the first step. Otherwise, any medication is just being administered on a guess. If the Vet is not a specialist in birds, you might want to seek a second opinion from a board certified Avian Vet. I wish I had answers for you, but lab tests on samples of any affected birds – dead or alive – are the best way to determine what is going on.

Take care,

Brenda