The majority of problems that one encounters with budgerigars are usually associated either with breeding or what are termed "metabolic disorders". Metabolism means simply the utilisation of food and its effects within the body. Actual infections are few and far between.
You have to remember, that what we as breeders have done to the budgerigar is not at all commendable. We have taken a nice little bird from the wild, transferred it to a whole range of different countries, confined it into small areas and then we have stamped our authority on it. As we have tried to "improve" upon the original, we have created problems within them which are of our own making. They have been produced because we have selected for specific features which are visually satisfying to us.
At the same time we have unwittingly selected other matters which we cannot see. Many of the problems we now encounter in our aviaries today are the result of the unknown quantities that we keep pushing into our studs. If these birds were out in the wild, they would select their own mates and it would be a case of the "survival of the fittest". Today we fuss over them and those which would normally have died in the wild, survive to perpetuate more problems.
Much of our medical knowledge about bird diseases has been obtained from studies of poultry problems. In the budgerigar hobby we are remarkably ignorant, particularly concerning the area of budgerigar nutrition. I find it quite remarkable that when one consider the budgerigar has been in the United Kingdom since 1840 and there has been a Society in existence for the best part of this century that we still do not really know the correct nutritional requirements for this species.
Commencing first of all with the digestive system or alimentary tract, as it is termed, from the beak to the vent, it will be obvious that no teeth exist as such. From the beak, the main tube down to the crop is called the oesophagus, the crop being the first holding region for any swallowed food or liquid. Budgerigars do in fact have two stomachs of which the first part is known as the proventriculous. The proventriculous of the budgerigar produces what is known as crop milk for use by the hen when rearing her young.
Crop milk is not produced by the cock. When a cock bird is feeding young it is only processing semi digested seed. The gizzard, or muscular stomach in seed eaters, is a highly developed muscular organ, possessing a horny tough lining. Within this structure, the budgerigar retains a quantity of soluble and insoluble grits which grind up the undigested food for absorption later in the process. The grit, as it becomes ineffective for this process is expelled, to be replaced by more efficient particles. Without grit a budgerigar cannot assimilate its food properly.
After the gizzard is a bend in this system called the duodenum. Various ducts drain into this section which transfer secretions from an organ known as the pancreas. These pancreatic juices are capable of digesting the three main food constituents, carbohydrates, proteins and fats. It is the pancreas which produces the important hormone, insulin. Our canal now continues as the second part of the small intestine the ileum, in most birds, but not in budgerigars and some other parrots. Behind this comes the large intestine where a semi fluid from the kidneys and various other solids are collected prior to excretion.
The difference between a male and female bird when it is dead, plucked and opened up, is easy to determine because the sex organs are totally different. The male possesses two testes which are roughly the same size and whitish. From these lead the sperm ducts which in turn open to the exterior, via the cloaca. The control of the sperm is made by one of the ductless glands, the pituitary gland, which itself secretes hormones. The output of this gland is controlled by the bird's age, its nutrition and the number of hours of daylight. In the wild, rainfall stimulates the onset of the breeding cycle followed by the increase of light hours.
In the females, there are two ovaries, though it is usual for the left ovary to be the active one. When a hen begins to lay an egg there are a large number of grape like clusters called ova which, in turn, drop into a funnel-like structure at the top of a tube called the oviduct. The ova, or yolk, as we know it more commonly now slides down the oviduct and gathers, as it does so, layers and layers of albumen, the "white" of the egg. The egg in this form now reaches another area in the oviduct called the shell gland. At this point calcium, magnesium and various phosphates are withdrawn from the bones, to lay down the shell around the egg. Following this process, the egg is passed to the outside, the cycle being repeated on alternate days.
This gland is one of the glands which form the endocrine system or the ductless glands as they are commonly known. The thyroid glands in budgerigars produce a hormone called thyroxine. They cannot produce this hormone if the bird is deficient of iodine and should this happen they enlarge and eventually the bird dies. If your birds are fed cod liver oil or spinach you have no need to worry about iodine deficiency. Iodine deficiency is a metabolic illness and used to be very common in pet budgerigars at one time. It was not unusual to go into an aviary and hear an odd clicking sound from a bird as it was breathing. This was almost certainly a sign that they thyroid glands were enlarged and they were pressing on either side of the wind pipe. Excessive thyroxine incidentally causes excessive moulting, a high state of nervousness and the incomplete growth of feathers. The condition, when applied to mammals, is known as goitre.
Birds fed on a diet of seed alone will result in a calcium deficiency. This in turn affects the ratio regulation between calcium and phosphorous which is delicately balanced. This is one of the reasons why we feed cuttlefish bone. Calcium deficient birds sometimes faint or throw fits from which they may not recover. What happens is there is a lowering of the calcium within the blood stream, the bird faints and while it is in that condition everything slows down. Sometimes the calcium level returns to normal, the bird wakes up and returns to the perch. Milk incidentally is a good source of calcium.
This is a general fanciers term which covers a number of diseases, but there is one major cause in my opinion. Always the birds lose condition over a long period. They never appear to eat properly. They peck about in the seed dishes and whenever you examine the dishes they always appear empty and full of ground dust. When you perform a post mortem the flesh appears to have a 'dried out' appearance because the individual is dehydrated. Some birds contract a gizzard ailment. A normal gizzard is a nice pink colour and is composed of well toned muscle both externally and internally. There should be grit inside as well as seed.
An abnormal gizzard is flabby. Inside, while there is sometimes some food, there is a complete absence of grit. The horny lining can be peeled away from the outer gizzard muscles very easily and there are often signs of ulceration. Birds with this problem do not shuck seed properly. If you have birds like this, isolate them and watch what they do with the seed pot. With this type of disease you will find lots of broken seed grains and dust. The bird is breaking up the seed into fragments so that it can get it down through the gizzard without too much trouble and hopefully absorb some goodness from it.
You can cure them. At least I have cured them, although it may take several weeks depending on how bad the condition is. You must get them on to soft food of some kind. It doesn't matter what it is as long as they eat a lot of it. You'll know they are improving when they go to the seed pots and start shucking the seed in the proper way again instead of turning it to dust. You will also see them taking grit again. I was actually given 19 birds with this condition, I killed one to find out what was the problem and six weeks later returned 18 back to the owner fully recovered. As to what the primary cause is, I don't really know. The soft food I used was a dog rearing food which I mixed with hot water into a crumbly consistency. Sick birds will nearly always east soft food of some kind.
The gizzard is an organ designed by nature to grind up seed with the aid of grit. It works like a cement mixer and as I mentioned earlier is the equivalent of our teeth. Having said that there has to be two types both soluble and insoluble. The former breaks down easily and is usually from the limestone group such as oyster shells, cuttlefish fragments and tiny sea shells found in many mixed grits. There was an article written by an American in which he said he hadn't given his bird grits for eighteen months and yet he said on the same page if he opened up his birds he found no grit in the gizzards! However, a budgerigar can find grit especially if there are concrete floors in an aviary. As to the correct size of grits budgerigars used to be very fit when one supplied them with birdsand on the cage floors. The gizzards in those days, when you examined them, looked reddish yellow inside as opposed to grey which are the present mineralised grits. A lot of the mineralised grits contain granite and I am not sure that it is entirely beneficial for them.
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