About a month ago, Olive wasn’t feeling well and threw up so we moved him to a hospital cage and monitored him for about a week and he was actfine. But then it happened again two weeks later, we had just gotten him and his buddy Greenleaf a bigger cage and moved them in when I walked in the room and found him vomiting. So we got him in the hospital cage and took him to the vet.
He was diagnosed with AGY yeast and the vet prescribed him Amphotericin B for a 30 day course, then a two week break, then another 10 day course, then a six week break, then another 10 days as a preventative measure. They also x-rayed him and found that he had an unknown foreign object in his gizzard which may have been making him vomit. I was confused because he’s a cage bird so I don’t know how he would have swallowed something that big.
After the 30 day course of medication, little Olive was back to his old self again. The day before the next course, he was feeling a little nauseous, but I didn’t think much of it because he didn’t vomit or anything. But then, right after we started the treatment, Olive and Greenleaf started molting. Olive started acting more lethargic, but I didn’t suspect he was ill, until one evening he was sitting on the floor of his cage sleeping.
The next morning he wasn’t any better so we rushed him to the vet and they did some more x-rays and found that the object in his gizzard was breaking down, which was good. They also said that his testicles were a bit enlarged and it could be due to a tumour or because he’s sexually active. He had been regurgitating at me in the past week and courting his mirror more often than usual. They gave him antibiotics and kept him there for a few days waiting to see if he got stronger so they could do some bloodwork.
Four days later we got the call. Olive wasn’t responding to the antibiotics and wasn’t eating properly. His crop wasn’t working that well so they were having to tube feed him.
We went there that afternoon to say goodbye, then had him euthanized so he didn’t suffer.
I was heartbroken when we got the news. I thought that he were going to get through this, but the vet suspected that he had a tumour. I am so sad and confused because we fought so hard to overcome the AGY, but in the end it was the tumour.
He was the sweetest little budgie on earth. He was never tame, but he would always chirp happily to us and his mirror. He always made me feel better whenever I was sad. The house is so quiet without him and his happy cheeping. We had him cremated, and I have a little vase of his tail feathers. He will be missed dearly by Greenleaf and I.