:confused: Hey everyone!I'm dealing with a serious situation. I have two parakeets, a girl and a boy. However I never raised parakeets before and I'm concerned because not only have my birds been fighting every five seconds but my girl parakeet turned black the other day and then green again. Also she's been having diarrhea and her features are falling off. Everyone is telling me she has lead poisoning because she is always using her beak to pick the paint off the wall when I let her get her 10 minute fly. I'm confused because the boy does the same thing and nothing happens to him. Ever since hearing that I didn't let them fly that often, maybe once a week, and when they do fly I watch and make sure they don't start picking at the paint on the wall. My mother said we'll go see a vet but we should just wait and see. I am really concerned and I don't know what to do... Your advice would be really helpful. Thank you!:confused:

How old is your house? Unless it goes back to the30's, chances are it doesn't have enough lead in the wall paint to hurt anything. Get the bird to a vet and find out the real problem.

Sounds like a case of vitamin deficiency and moult

Can I ask how old the birds are and what sort of parrakeet they are as the info supplied doesn't help much,
As it is the female it is happening to then maybe she wants to breed, there is always a change in the birds when getting ready for the breeding period, for the feathers to go dark I would say vitamin deficency although I'm not exactly sure what sort of deficiency so maybe worth going and buying some multivits for them, these can be put into the water and most local petshops will sell them or order them in for you...
The diorriah in the female could be because she wants to breed (how long as the diorriah been going on for? Is it mainly all white or all green ? As they are kept indoors theirs not much danger of mites or worms but you can worm and spray them for mites if they do have access to outside during part of the year..

Also do you provide regular baths? The darkness to her feathering could be exess grease,
Try giving her a bath with a mild baby shampoo, add it to a spray bottle very diluted (must be baby shampoo no more tears formula so it doesn't burn their eyes, then after you have drenched them with this clean out the bottle until no more bubbles appear when it is shook with water in and spray completely with warm waTer let her dry and then spray her again to ensure al the shampoo is rinsed off her... you may see a difference in her feathering then ;)

As some of her feathers are coming out this may indicate a moult , in which case nothing to worry about, the moult may last as long as 4 months and will replace all her feathers to nice new ones...

As labman says the chances of lead poisoning now are very very slim, most paints made in the last 20-30 years do not contain any form of lead, and if it was lead poisoning as the male does the same he would also be like the female and would show the same conditions,
If all else fails take her to the vet,
You can also buy a product from the petstores made by johnsons which helps them with their pooping that will help thicken it back up again and sometimes just like us they can get diorriah for no reason so please don't panic,

Hope some of this helps you and doesn't confuse you, if you have any problems with what I have wrote let me know and I will try to explain a little better,
Good luck with your bird s

Katie

This Morning around 3.00 my bird made these weird chirping noises. So I went to see what was wrong and I grabed her and tried to make her stand up but she coulden't it was like she was paralyzed. And so I just picked her up again and then she stopped making these weird noises and she just got comterble and died.

So this morning I went to look at my other bird and she was dead. So I just decited to take them to the vet and I said do you think they could have lead poison? And she sayed it could be a posibility and she cheacked them and they did so then she sayed is your house very old and I sayed yes so she sayed have they been chewing on any window sills and I sayed I think they were but I'm not sure. So they died from lead poison. So if any of your birds start making these noises the vet said rush them to a vet and they would give them a antybiotic.


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