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Post by aaron on Jan 11, 2016 17:14:24 GMT -5
Wow, that's surprising! I would have thought if anything, Harrisons would be the safest food to give. It sounds like you are likely to be right, though. Interested to hear what the vet says.
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Post by wsteinhoff on Jan 11, 2016 18:28:57 GMT -5
After checking all the ingredients on all his food and treat bags very carefully I found that barley, chia seed, montmorillonite clay, and Dl-alpha tocopheryl acetate is in Harrisson foods and not the others. I had to google the last two I listed. Montmorillonite clay has long been a health food and it is used in pet foods to prevent caking. Dl-alpha tocopheryl acetate is a synthetic vitamin E.
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Post by wsteinhoff on Jan 12, 2016 10:07:19 GMT -5
I had to reschedule for Thursday. Right when we were about to get in the car and go the snow changed from light flurries to a blizzard and then my dad called who works up near where the vet is and said it's really bad up there. So now hopefully Thursday works out.
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Post by aaron on Jan 12, 2016 10:44:24 GMT -5
Eek, well at least you didn't get stuck in a blizzard! I'm sure Bishop wouldn't have been a fan of that scenario (nor you!).
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Post by wsteinhoff on Jan 12, 2016 11:27:47 GMT -5
Eek, well at least you didn't get stuck in a blizzard! I'm sure Bishop wouldn't have been a fan of that scenario (nor you!). That's why we rescheduled. It's cold, it's windy, and it's snowing so if we got stuck and had to walk to find a warm place to get out of the weather he being a parrot from South America may not have been able to handle it. My dad said that one of the people he works with lives half an hour away but took 2 hours to get to work. If it took that long for someone 30 minutes away then we would've never made it to the appointment anyways being 3x that distance. |
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Post by aaron on Jan 12, 2016 11:46:19 GMT -5
Yeah, sounds like the right call. Especially for a parrot who may already be fighting some form of illness, exposure to cold of that degree is probably a bad thing.
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Post by Caseysmom on Jan 12, 2016 18:36:39 GMT -5
Snowing up here too, hope the weather gets better for your drive. Harrison's has peanuts near the top of the ingredient list maybe they are too rich for him. Sounds like something in that bag is bothering him. Hope he feels better again now that you've switched back.
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Post by wsteinhoff on Jan 12, 2016 18:57:10 GMT -5
Snowing up here too, hope the weather gets better for your drive. Harrison's has peanuts near the top of the ingredient list maybe they are too rich for him. Sounds like something in that bag is bothering him. Hope he feels better again now that you've switched back. He currently gets Higgins Intune pellets mixed with Hagen Tropimix for more variety and the tropimix contains peanuts and before I knew peanuts weren't that great for them he would get them as a snack more often than I'm proud to admit. I'm pretty sure the peanuts are not the issue. |
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Post by Caseysmom on Jan 12, 2016 19:15:52 GMT -5
Well then it is baffling. I have a peanut allergy so I avoid things with them in, Casey hasn't had any.... But if your old food was working that is a good sign Bishop is healthy hopefully and just bothered by something in that bag.
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Post by wsteinhoff on Jan 12, 2016 19:25:01 GMT -5
Well then it is baffling. I have a peanut allergy so I avoid things with them in, Casey hasn't had any.... But if your old food was working that is a good sign Bishop is healthy hopefully and just bothered by something in that bag. The old food is working but I'd like to get him off of it. I was wanting him off of all the pellets containing dyes that our pet stores around here carry. When I was comparing the ingredients of his foods because of the Harisson I noticed sugar is up near the top of the Higgins ingredient list which makes me want him off them even more now. |
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Post by wsteinhoff on Jan 13, 2016 16:02:28 GMT -5
I'm wondering if Bishop is allergic to the food but is also sick. We'll find out for sure when he goes to the vet tomorrow. He seems to suddenly get sick shortly after being given it and is fine later but Skye now is having respiratory problems that can't just be a coincidence. Both their cages are close together so something could've spread. She only tried the pellets that Friday and refused them after so it can't be the food with her. I have some tetracycline left that I found today so I'll try that because I have experience using it on pigeons and know the dosage but I won't give anything to Bishop until the vet tomorrow since I haven't treated parrots for anything before.
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Post by aaron on Jan 13, 2016 16:36:10 GMT -5
Here's to hoping that both of them have a speedy recovery! Eager to hear how the vet visit goes tomorrow.
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Post by wsteinhoff on Jan 14, 2016 15:58:28 GMT -5
Bishop is healthy according to the vet. He did a blood cell count and a gram stain that both came back positive and his oral and nasal cavities are clean. His beak is good but he's small in size and weight. He said Bishop is probably halfway through his lifespan and will live to be somewhere around 15-16. The vet recommended that Bishop go back in 6 months for a checkup and other tests to make sure everything else is fine. He said we should wait on the other tests for now. Bishop was stressed enough with just the two tests and getting his nails trimmed he may not have been able to handle any more and the other tests would've quadrupled the vet bill. He said that I need to keep Bishop away from Harrison's foods because it has to be an allergy but to which of the ingredients I have no idea so I'll just have to keep an eye out for things that contain those 4 things. He said that Bishop is fine on the pellets he is currently on but to make his diet 50% pellets and the rest mostly foods high in fiber and low in fats.
Skye is also acting perfectly fine after yesterday so I have no idea what the problem was. Maybe it was just a short lived sinus problem or a bunch of dust in her nose or something. Her voice is back to normal and she's back to her usual evil spoiled birdy self.
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Post by easttex on Jan 14, 2016 18:06:10 GMT -5
When I first got my grey, I knew the first vet visit would be a trial. I took her there for little familiarization tours twice before the actual appointment. She still freaked out about it. She'd probably never been in her first seven years, either. I'm glad everyone appears well. That's a shame about the Harrison's, but everything doesn't work for everybody. It would be nice to know the specific allergy.
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Post by aaron on Jan 14, 2016 18:07:10 GMT -5
Glad to hear Bishop (and Skye) are both doing well! Always nice to get a good report of health from the vet. Poor Bishop... the first trip to the vet can be quite stressful for these little guys. At least for Cupcake it has gotten better over time... she seems to know the drill at this point. And her second visit to the vet was extremely stressful, as it was because we had her clipped (the only time) and she fell to the ground and cracked her beak open and we had to rush her in to have them grind down her beak. You'd think that she would have been so traumatized by that experience that going back would be a challenge, but it seemed less stressful for her in future visits after that one.
Cupcake often gets a mild case of the wet sneezes when we do major cleaning in the house or rearrange furniture and there is dust in the air, but it always goes back to normal quickly. Sometimes when she has a bunch of feathers coming in on her head she gets quill dust in her naries as well and that will set it off too. As long as the discharge is clear (and there isn't an excessive amount of it) it should be ok.
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