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A special Note for Breeders
Star Gazers
By: Sandie Goldstein Copyright © 2001
I have had a group of Star Gazers/neck (7) going in the wrong direction or head held with the one eye to the Stars and the other eye to the ground, couldn't walk, couldn't perch, dropped on me sick and I have been working on new ideas to help these birds.
The birds were normal star gazers, not interested in food or eating, were not perching, and had a drunken gate. Now, I started off with the normal idea that it is something missing in the birds system. Vitamins and this is what everybody who has dealt with this problem has done.. Well, I
was talking with Susanna (nice Lady), well informed, forward thinker, and willing to try a new idea. And she mentioned that she had a baby that she was having
problems with, sick and she had tried using the yolk of a cockatiel (Tiel) egg, the baby did better. We talked about other things and that kept going through my head......lack of vitamins could go back to the egg sack and a problem and if I added the yolk of the Tiel egg to my group what would happen? I played with the idea a couple days, while I was trying out other Vitamins and nothing was happening. I was doing a box check and found a couple clear eggs, was getting ready to pitch them, and stopped. my group, what if? I had nothing to loose, it wouldn't hurt the baby to eat an egg! So I brought them in and at the next feeding, I added the egg yolk only to the normal food. RAW. Fed babies and
by the next feeding, I had birds on perches. And, next feeding I just feed normal food. Only had two eggs......Next day, I added the second egg to the food. After the second day these birds are looking at me....I'm looking at them. They are starting to eat, there necks are starting to do better,
not great but better.
I'm still looking for ideas....then Susanna Russo sends me this article below and the meat of that article is he used Nystatin in the water. My mouth fell open, would this work? Well, I'm up for anything new and will give it a try.
As of this date, I've been adding nystatin to their water, they are now all eating seeds, up and down on perches. In all they are all looking better. The above that the gentleman used was for a finch. Now these are cockatiels. I have give each Tiel the vets recommendation for a tiel with water added. Cockatiels can go without water or drinking for quite a while, so to insure that each one had some nystatin in there systems I included some in their food when I fed. At one feeding a day.
You would be hard pressed to see that these birds were star gazers. Only one in this group has not responded to this and he has other issues of illness. Let me point out all these babies are over a month old.
I want to give thanks to Susanna Russo for having the guts to try different things and saying......"I did this and it worked"...without her input, these babies would have been falling all over themselves and still sick.
I want to also note, on an ongoing basic, I do this. I pull the pan off the cage and place the cage in the grass. This to was done for these Tiel and they ate the grass. Underneath the cage. I believe that the combination of these three things helped these Teils to the road to recovery.
1. Cockatiel Yolk
2. Nystatin
3. Fresh greens or grass
I had one setback, I lost one of the babies, they had been doing so good, I offered them millet, and they were happily eating it. When I looked over and saw a baby in distress. Breathing heavy, I couldn't think what could have cause this. I isolated him, but before I could do anything he expired. I think in the case of this one bird, I should not have offered them something to eat at this stage, their necks were just starting to adjust to the new position forward and sometime would swing back. I feel that a seed got lodge in the air pipe because of this swinging. When I hand fed these babies I would have to hold their necks still. Forward, as to not aspire them. If I had not gotten so excited about how good they were doing. I feel I would not have lost this baby. I lost a second baby, from this group, which also had other problems not related to star gazing and wouldn't respond or gain weight.
Anybody with this problem please contact me. Anybody trying this, I would like to here how you have done. This is ongoing and I will be adding to this information as it becomes available.
This is the article that was sent to me. I've tried to contact Don Thorschmidt and get his permission to place this on my site, but at this time, have been unable to locate his email to ask question or get permission. There were other articles sent to me, about the use of Vitamins which I tried out with no success.
Successful Cure of Stargazing/Twirling
by Don Thorschmidt
(NFSS - Sept/Oct 1998)National Finch and Softbill Society Copyright © 2000
STAR GAZING/TWIRLING, sound familiar? In the 16 years plus I have been breeding finches, I have encountered this devastating symptom several times with my birds & with other persons'' birds. Where does it come from? Why does one bird in a cage of many develop this symptom & not the rest? I have asked others and myself these questions without coming to any conclusion.
Some writings state it comes from poor vitamin distribution. In particular vitamin B & B Complex were lacking from their diet. I administrated vitamin B & B Complex to the egg food without any improvement to the affected bird, as a matter of fact it seemed to progress into a more sorry state. So was there any logic to this? As time went on, even as much as two years, the ultimate result was a gradual wasting away and inability to perch. Even with the food & water placed on the floor of the cage, I kept hoping for the best, that the bird would get stronger & survive, but death was always the end result. Heartbreaking as it was, I felt that the birds misery had ended.
I do my own cultures on my birds & other breeders'' birds to see what if any bacteria the birds are carrying. If I see a weakness in a bird, I check it out & treat these common bacteria & yeast infections with the appropriate medication. Particularly regarding finches you don't have much time in turning the ill bird around.
I had a Gouldian with the stargazing/twirling symptoms. I did a stool culture, which revealed KLEBSIELLA PNEUMONIA. I treated the bird with CIPROFLOXACIN HCI, which is the drug of choice for Klebsiella infections. After the seven days of treatment it still had the exact symptoms as before. I then followed up with another culture revealing the Klebsiella was gone, YET the twirling was still present. After 62 days of isolation I had run out of cage space, I introduced another Gouldian, which had CANDIDA ALBICANS [A yeast infection], to the same cage with my twirler. I thought logically the twirler was clean now & the Gouldian with Candida had contracted the yeast infection after a heavy dose of antibiotics would not be a problem to each other.
So I treated the BIRDS with NYSTATIN 100,000 U SUSPENSION, 5 drops per 1 oz. water. Nystatin is usually administered directly into the
bird's beak at 1 drop twice daily, but I didn't want to stress out the bird by catching & handling him.
After two days on the first dose I went to change the medication for a new dose, I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw BOTH birds on the perch standing full up, not even crouching on their stomachs. I continued the medication for an additional 6 days & stopped. Both birds were now even singing. I thought, was this a fluke? Or did I really find something here?
Sometime later I had another bird, a Society finch hen with a slight twirling of the neck, Stargazing would be a more accurate term, & put her on the NYSTATIN suspension, sure enough another success.
I had taken another bird, a Blue Bodied Gouldian hen from a friend that he had with the twirling symptom. This bird would mercifully flounder around the bottom of the cage when you approached it. He had also tried different medications to cure the bird in isolation, but to no use. Another note was this bird had suffered for 7-8 months.
I took her home with me & placed her in isolation in a small cage without any heat source, just seed & water with NYSTATIN on the floor of the cage. My friend came over 30 hours after he gave me the bird to pick up some supplies I had gotten for him. We both went to the basement to check out his bird. Well, there she was PERCHING! He was as ecstatic & amazed, as I was excited. We talked about all the birds he & I & all our friends had lost through the many years from the twirling disease.
I thought what a find I had here. This symptom cannot be Genetic, or coming from a poor vitamin source, as believed by some writings, particularly when I was giving all 400 plus birds the same foods. The Twirling cause seems to come out from birds previously stressed in some way, where as different types of bacteria affect the bird first, then secondary after antibiotic treatment, or the possibility of a fungus infection, the twirling exists.
In any event, so far I have had an overwhelming success rate, with no apparent side affects.
As of Friday July 27, 2001: I am
releasing one of the Star Gazers back to the owners as cured, eating on it's own
and as I put her in with the other normal tiels, I could not tell the
difference, at one time this bird could barely stand up, was always falling on
it's face, neck was twisted in odd directions. Now it's eating on it's own and
has that little fat barrel look to her.
Two of the pearls in my group, are not responding as fast as I would like and I
am going to add another egg to their food today. I have continuing the nystatin.
But this alone doesn't seem to be doing anything. There are others star-gazers
these people have. I am giving them some nystatin to add to there food. To see
if just Nystatin will help. My personal feelings on this is that they need the 3
things in combination to effect the changes in older birds. But, as you can see
below, that is not the case in day one.
DAY ONE COCKATIEL: I had a day one baby born July 25, a
star gazer in one of my nests, this baby was very red (dehyrated), and stressed. I pulled, and fed it a small amount of watered nystatin and egg, then returned to nest, next day, I saw no visual red babies or any star gazer.
1/03 I now have discovered Milk Thistle by Nature's resource and Echinacea-Golden Seal by Spring Valley, I do believe I would use both of these if I have to do this again.
6/06 I haven't had a star gazier baby in three years, except for breeders that seemed to be stressed, which I have pulled added Vitm B complex, and nystatin to water, given them a drop of Vitm B complex and put them to rest. With-in days they have turned around, But I still leave them on a no breed program.
Also this year, when it gets hot my birds now get gatoraid. It seems to be working. Now when I mean hot it's 107-112. I use the dry orange product, so I can have it on hand. I tend to make it weaker then they recomend for people. We haven't hit the summer really hot time, but we had three weeks of really high heat. I also fed the babies the drink. The babies did fine. Look great.
1/2007 I get alot of questions about how to tell a female, look at the tail, in most cases there will be bars across the tail feathers except for pieds. With pieds DNA.
That's it guys, really easy. I do return mail when I get email address attached to mail, so folks remember to add your email address.
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