Bird Health Remedies and Avian Care

| Modified on Jun 14, 2023
Your pet birds can be very sensitive to diet and environment, and if you're noticing a change in your bird's behavior, weight, coloring, or feathering, it is possible your feathered friend is sick. Avian care - especially if you keep exotic birds - is critical, since many species of pet birds need proper heat, attention, and space. In some cases, your bird may not even need to be in contact with another sick bird to contract an illness.

Find Home Cures for Bird Health

On this page are a number of stories and suggestions on restoring and maintaining bird health. Give your pet bird the best natural care with these pet home remedies to treat bird illnesses and general conditions--from the Earth Clinic Community! Let us know what remedies you try from Earth Clinic to treat your bird. Know a home cure that's not listed here? Let us know about it.




Cataracts in Cockatiel

Posted by Damien (Los Angeles, US) on 11/17/2008

cataracts for cockatiel

Our bird of 24 yrs has a grey film on one eye and a grey dot(cataract) on the other eye. She also has arthritis in both feet and walk not as smoothly as before but can walk. here feathers at the tail get damaged and at the side of her wings looke bare. Also, the little pajama feathers at her legs are no more. Any idea how I can go about this starting with cataracts? Would vitb6 pyridoxine help? i have already been to the vet and surgery is not recommended. Also any vitamins to prevent further damage and to live another 25 yrs?

Thanks yall
Damien


Flax Seed Oil and Apple Cider Vinegar

1 User Review
5 star (1) 
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Posted by Sylence (Portage La Prairie, MB Canada) on 09/01/2006
★★★★★

I was given two budgies. One has no feathers under his wings, the other budgie has feathers and they are both in the same cage. Does anyone have a home remendy that would help this little budgie?

Replied by Ted
(Bangkok, Thailand)
391 posts

Dear Sylence: There are several causes either vitamins or metal poisoning. The bird may suffer from a vitamin B deficiency which relates to mostly pantothenic acid, inositol or choline barbitrate. If the skin is a problem that resulted in lost of feathers it might be niaicinamide. Usually bird seeds are quite nutritious, but exception does occur if the seed has been heated to a high temperature or overprocessed such that all vitamins are destroyed.

It is noted that the drinking container should be plastic and non metalic. The birds find metals quite toxic to their system. Certain birds might be sensitive to a vitamin deficiency differently so this may explain why one is o.k. and another is not. The other possibility is that one of the birds have been chewing on the cage and it is high in toxic metals. So the best way to deal with it is to let the bird stay in a cage free from metals and certain lead based or metal based paints.


Fracture Remedies

Posted by Eve (Sydney Australia ) on 06/14/2023 15 posts

Can someone please advise on a natural substance to heal a pigeon's broken leg? Is it safe to apply Comfrey ointment to it, as it's a wonderful bone healer for humans. Any other advice? Thank you.


Kakapo Parrot and Vitamin D

Posted by Michael (New Zealand) on 01/09/2017

Briefly the Parrot in question is the Kakapo. You may not have heard of our much loved Kakapo, which has endeared itself to us partly because it turns out it is quite a character. It is the largest parrot in the world and almost became extinct, mainly because any bird unable to fly around here suffers from a great deal of predation as you may imagine. The list of potential predators for this inoffensive bird is prodigious thanks largely to our introduced pests. It climbs trees quite well and can hop or glide from one branch to another or down to earth. In its quest to feed its young chick adequately, it will endeavour to give it 500 gms (roughly a pound) of berries each night which seems to be a huge amount for a chick, even if it is a big parrot's chick! What's going on here? Turns out that this quantity of these particular berries contain thirty times (not a misprint! ) of the Vitamin D required by your average adult human! It is as if this bird knows what is lacking in its diet and has trotted out to the local health food store to stock up on her / his supplements. Tricky getting enough Vitamin D if you only come out mainly at night of course. Seems like humans may be the only mammal that cannot synthesize its own Vitamin C so maybe this parrot has a similar problem with its Vitamin D? I wonder if there could be a way of assisting them with getting their share of Vit D by some easier means than switching to being diurnal or binging on berries? ! Is some other element lacking as a sort of co-factor possibly? Maybe some of the plants it used to have access to are no longer available in its environment? Is its present diet too restricted?

Quite a puzzle I know but somebody out there might have a clue?

Cheers, Michael

Replied by Theresa
(Mpls., Mn)
01/09/2017

Hey Michael,

I want a Kakapo! Gosh, what a handsome bird, and looks fun to know! My first thought was that this bird has a special diet, like the kaola or panda, and that happens to be the case. They love the rimu berries and most parts of the rimu bush. My second thought was that a specialized manufactured diet would help, and that seems like that is already in place.

So the only real way to help would be to continue to combat predators/non-native predator control, offer safe breeding grounds and chick rearing grounds, and offer supplemental feeding.

Fingers crossed the number of this magnificent creature can be increased!

Replied by Michael
(New Zealand)
01/10/2017

Thanks, Theresa. You may have summed it up quite nicely thank you.

Let us hope the experts know what they are doing. They would seem to be doing their best with whatever they have available. Could no doubt do with an extra sponsor or two though!

Cheers, Michael


Lavender Oil for Bird Mites

1 User Review
5 star (1) 
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Posted by Tonzzi (Bend, Oregon) on 08/03/2010
★★★★★

Bird mite remedy

I have three parakeets. I noticed a mite on one of their beaks, it won't be long and they could all die... So I thought this remedy will either kill them or cure them! This is what I did: In a 2 oz. Spray bottle, add 2 to 4 drops Lavender essential oil. Clean the bottom tray of your cage, then line w/ paper towels and spray paper towels w/ Lavender-water! Yea!! It cured my one parakeet and the others did not get mites! I've been doing this now for 2 years... Happy healthy birds! And it allows slack time between cage cleaning... No smelly cage! Hope this helps other bird lovers! Tonzzi


Worms in Budgies

Posted by Maxome (Perth, West Australia) on 10/27/2009

Hello I wonder if anyone has a natural cure for thin spaghetti type worms that my three budgies seem to have picked up somehow. I have treated them twice now with Lovitt's Whistler bird wormer 1ml to each 10ml of water and it seems to help but less than a week later I find the dried thin spaghetti looking worms at the bottom of the cage.

The budgies are given clean water and fresh seed each day as well as some greens a few times a week. Their cage is cleaned regularly of any droppings etc.

Many thanks.
Maxome

Replied by Jolly D
(England)
12/16/2015

The best natural wormer for budgies that I have found is food grade Diatamaceous Earth. I mix it into a small amount of water to get the consistancy of single cream. Then I paint it on some thing in their environment that they like to nibble on. It worms them really well with no trauma or bothersome chemicals.