cockatiels and anemia

[Marissa]

Hi everyone,

I hope you and your feathered friends are doing well! I have some sad news to report. My cockatiel Cloudy better known as Mrs. O because she ran around like an olympic runner passed on Wednesday morning after visiting the avian vet on Tuesday afternoon. The vet a wonderful man named Dr. Sills said that Cloudy had severe anemia. At first he thought it was a stroke, but then he ran some blood tests and said it was anemia. He thought she had been poisoned and suspected lead. We brought her in because she wasn't keeping her balance and appeared lethargic. She had a check up last spring and everything looked fine. I watched her closely for signs and symptoms. I know birds are tricky because they hide their illnesses. My question is what could be done to prevent this? My baby was only 8 years old. I've read their life span is between 8 to 15 years, and I've also 15 to 20 years. Which one is correct? Have any of you had this happen to you? She was never unsupervised, never chewed on anything. She was either in her cage, on my shoulder, or on top of the cage with me standing right there to supervise. We think it had something to do with her diet, but we're not sure. I'm trying to figure this out to prevent it from happening to our other birds. The only toys she had in there was her little bell, and a ball. The cage is powder coaded and there are no breaks in the cage surface. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for any information you can provide.

Sincerely,
Marissa

[Flight]

First off, I'm sorry for your loss I don't know much about cockatiel illnesses, but clean water and food is very important. I'm sure you kept up the water and food to the cleanlyness it should be. For the life span part, I've heard 20-25 years. my grammy's cockatiel is about 23 years old right now.

[Adam420]

A healthy cockatiels life span is between 15-25 years. Though they can usually die of sudden illness. Although the worlds oldest cockatiel lived to be 37. Its extremely rare for them to live past 30.

[I love my jenday Gabby]

Hi Miss,
Do you like my new username? Wow, I didn't know that cockatiels can live past 20. My aunt has one and she's 13 or 14. I thought they only lived to about 14. Thanks for the info

[nightlady]

I'm so sorry to hear about Cloudy

I have struggled with anemia all of my life, i don't know if it's the same in cockatiels but anemia in people comes from a lack of iron.

The only thing i can think of is that Zinc poisoning lowers your iron levels which ultimately leads to anemia.

In people, we often correct and prevent anemia with diet and vitamins. (I never did like my dark green veggies ) But i was always warned about how dangerous zinc poisoning would be for someone like me, that is almost always anemic.

Perhaps Cloudy got into something with zinc... you mentioned her sitting on your shoulders, perhaps your jewelry - earrings, necklaces? Or perhaps, like people, it can happen just with diet. That would seem unsual to me, maybe it was just a rare and unfortunate thing with Cloudy.

Did your vet help with any explanations? I'd be really interested to find out if this is common, it would serve as a good warning to the rest of us Tiel parents.


Edit- Interestingly enough i just read another member's post (1EyedTiel) in the cockatiel food forums and she said that she heard human cereal has a high zinc vitamin content. Were you feeding cloudy human foods? Maybe some human foods are too high in zinc for them, supressing their iron and causing them to be anemic. Very interesting, and something i'm definitely going to be checking more carefully!

[Estie]

I'm so sorry for your loss! How horrible not to know what has caused it...

I'd really like to know what your vet suggested the cause could be. It seems that you did all the right things, and that - at first glance - she did not get into contact with obvious potential dangerous items.

If you get any more info, please pass it on to us.

It's a very interesting thought about the human cereal -- have to look into that...