Common Diseases

Watch for sitting fluffed on the cage floor, tail bobbing with each breath, changes in dropping colour or consistency, reduced appetite, discharge from eyes or nostrils, and sleeping more during the day. Because parrots hide illness, a falling morning weight is often the earliest sign of all.

Daily if you can, or at least weekly, at the same time each morning before feeding, using a scale that reads in single grams. A sustained loss of more than about 5 per cent of body weight justifies a veterinary call even if the bird seems fine.

Psittacosis, caused by Chlamydia psittaci, can pass to humans and usually presents as a flu-like illness with fever, headache and cough. It is treatable with antibiotics. If your household develops such symptoms, tell your doctor that you keep birds.

Thirty to forty-five days in a genuinely separate airspace, not just a different corner of the same room. Care for your existing birds first and the newcomer last, use separate equipment, and arrange veterinary screening for PBFD and psittacosis during that period.

Vomiting, weight loss, marked thirst, greenish droppings, weakness and seizures. Lead comes from old paint, curtain weights and stained-glass solder; zinc from galvanised wire and cheap hardware. It is diagnosable and treatable with chelation if caught early.

Styptic powder for bleeding nails or blood feathers, sterile saline, gauze and vet wrap, blunt-nosed scissors and pliers, a towel for restraint, a heat source, a lined travel box, a gram scale, and your avian vet plus out-of-hours numbers written down.