Trust the progress or call to the vet?

Did you explain to the vet when you were there that you have two budgies that are caged together?
Did the vet give you the option of administering the medication orally through a syringe?

It would be best for you to separate Felix and Fayrouz while Felix is ill.
If you put them into individual cages (Every member should always have an extra cage to use as a hospital/quarantine cage) then you can give Felix his medicine without worrying about Fayrouz ingesting it as well.

As you are indicating you have a mixed gender pair, it is VERY important you do everything necessary to prevent breeding when the two are caged together.
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I did tell this to the vet, in fact she even came with, just to be sure (and bc mr felix is a big scardy-bird). When I posed the question he in fact told me that there is no need to separate them as there are no health risks involved with her ingesting the medicine, and might pose even more stress as they are very bonded. Most of the medicine (after the antibiotics) are vitamins and immunity boosters anyway.

Not to worry 1. there is no nesting box available in the cage and there was never a thought in my mind to do so (especially when sick) 2. My female is only 4-5months of age. So definitely not ready yet for mating or egg-laying.

the medicine is to be taken with water via their water container(not directly by hand) so not much of a choice to give it any other way.
i was thinking or switching the places of food-waterbowl around (bc he sure knows where his food is)

Hey Emma, you can do what I did! Every morning when I woke up, my budgies would wake up with me. We were all on the same cycle, 7am wakeup, 7pm sleep. I wouldn't keep the water bowl in their cage. My routine would be to prepare two water bowls: one with the medicine for my sick bird, and one with normal water for my healthy bird. I would then take them out of the cage separately and let them drink as much as they wanted from the correct bowls. I was unemployed at the time, so I was with them all day. They'd only want water first thing in the morning, and just before bed, but I'd offer them the bowls in the afternoon around 4pm (which they sometimes had, sometimes didn't).

Depending on how busy your life is, you could perhaps do the same? Make sure you don't forget which bowl is which and just manually water them for 8 days. As long as they get lots of water first thing in the morning and before bed, they should be okay. But of course, if it's hotter where you live, or your birds are more active with free flying, they could be thirstier than my two. My two live in air conditioned 21c room with only occasional flying, as they both prefer to sit and preen. Just keep a good eye on them and it should work great! I did this for about a month, it was easy peasy. Just required a lot of dedication and lots of cancelled social events.

If the vet says it's okay for both birds to drink the medicine, just remove all bowls except one? Felix will definitely drink it, whether or not you see him do it. I had to separate my two bowls as it was very strong antibiotics and I didn't want to needlessly upset my healthy budgie's natural bacteria balance.

Cody said:

It is possible that because the medicine is in the water he is not getting enough of it to be effective. Talk to the vet about giving something directly into the mouth or perhaps the vet can give an injection that will be more effective.

Click to expand...

It is indeed the case. My first inquiry of how to see if a bird drinks, should have been, how do I make a bird drink at all. Apparently he barely drinks? (Don’t ask how that is even possible, I’m not sure of it myself) he knows very well where his water is.

anyway thanks to you I also asked what other ways there are, so the vet gave me the instructions on giving the medicine directly by hand with a drip.

Problem is, he is not a tame bird (I was in the middle of retraining him). Felix is a self-bred budgie, that I used to spend a lot of time with (i will include a picture of when he was still youngand very trusting, I could carry him around the house if I wanted to).

Then I had to live outside the city for school for 3 years. He and his parents had a huge cage where they could fly free in, unfortunately my parents never really had the time to keep up the training.

When my studies were over and his parents had died from old age, I had to transfer Felix into a smaller cage (the one he is in now).
But sometime during my time ‘away’ he became afraid of hands 😕 (very specific the ‘hands’) I can in the same room or even right next to the cage and he’ll be singing, head bobbing you name it.
I go into his cage with a hand, he’ll be very wary.

I recently gave him his buddy (now named Fayz, with the recent gender reveal) and that helped him tremendously, they are very close. However the fear of hands remain. Felix and Fayz can be sitting the same distance from my hand, but only Fayz will eat the millet in it. Hand is gone? Felix will eat.
I’ve been trying to gain his trust back, and for a while I can see it works!
But now, having to grab him and force the medicine in? It seems like a slippery slope back down to ‘distrust-town’. I will do it ofc, but if anyone has some tips on making it as painless and non-stressful as possible I’m more then open to hear them!

thanks in advance! (And sorry for the long text)
Emma

Did the vet give you a syringe to use to give it into the mouth? If you are just using a dropper there can be a variation in the size of drops that it makes. None of my birds are hand tame and this is what I do to give meds via a syringe.

The method I use is as follows: I give the meds in the morning while it is still fairly dark and the birds have not yet begun to be active because the room is still dark and they are still covered. You have to have a nightlight or something so you can see a bit what you are doing, let your eyes adjust to the darkness of the room before beginning. Make sure you know where he is sitting in the cage , if there are other birds in the cage this may be a bit more difficult. Very slowly and quietly open the cage door reach in and gently cup your hands around him and remove him from the cage, do not grab with one hand if at all possible, this may be more difficult if the cage has only a small door, sit down and place him on a table or your knee, during all this time I find that it is best to use only the amount of restraint with your hands necessary to keep him from flying off, the more gentle you are the less he will fight and squirm around. Once you are sitting administer the meds into the mouth and return him immediately to the cage and keep the lights off and let him relax. This may work out better if he is comfortable sleeping in a cage by himself because when you put your hand in the cage to remove him you will not be spooking the other birds, once that happens you need to back off and try again later, the last thing you want is to try to catch him when all the birds are in a frenzy. My birds are not hand tame and I have used this method hundreds of times, make sure you have the meds ready in the syringe before you begin and stay calm.

Cody said:

Did the vet give you a syringe to use to give it into the mouth? If you are just using a dropper there can be a variation in the size of drops that it makes. None of my birds are hand tame and this is what I do to give meds via a syringe.

The method I use is as follows: I give the meds in the morning while it is still fairly dark and the birds have not yet begun to be active because the room is still dark and they are still covered. You have to have a nightlight or something so you can see a bit what you are doing, let your eyes adjust to the darkness of the room before beginning. Make sure you know where he is sitting in the cage , if there are other birds in the cage this may be a bit more difficult. Very slowly and quietly open the cage door reach in and gently cup your hands around him and remove him from the cage, do not grab with one hand if at all possible, this may be more difficult if the cage has only a small door, sit down and place him on a table or your knee, during all this time I find that it is best to use only the amount of restraint with your hands necessary to keep him from flying off, the more gentle you are the less he will fight and squirm around. Once you are sitting administer the meds into the mouth and return him immediately to the cage and keep the lights off and let him relax. This may work out better if he is comfortable sleeping in a cage by himself because when you put your hand in the cage to remove him you will not be spooking the other birds, once that happens you need to back off and try again later, the last thing you want is to try to catch him when all the birds are in a frenzy. My birds are not hand tame and I have used this method hundreds of times, make sure you have the meds ready in the syringe before you begin and stay calm.

Click to expand...

Thank you, that seems like a very budgie-friendly way to do it. I will definitely follow it up.
Unfortunately he only gave me a drip, but showed me how to do it, so Felix already got his first dose today. Right now they are still separated in cage but next to eachother, with felix being in the travelcage (a normal smaller cage) as it is no contagious sickness.
I know it is in no way big enough for a budgie long term, but for now I think it might be the best option in terms of ‘not having to reach too deep when taking him & it won’t disturb my other budgie (who just did his first time sitting on my hand when taking the treat 🥺 I’ll include a pic, sorry for the unfortunate angle 😂)’.

But back to the topic, the antibiotics cure is only for 10 days and a vet visit. Then he can rejoin the big cage.

thanks again for all the information, I’ll keep updates for those who care.
Thanks!
Emma

Cody said:

What is he doing that makes you say he is more sickly? You said he has a bacterial infection, where is the infection and was there any testing done to make that diagnosis? If no tests were done and the medication is not helping him it may not be the right antibiotic or the infection could be fungal or viral rather than bacterial and if that is the case an antibiotic will not help.

Click to expand...

He puffes up more then before, eyes are closed more often and droopy too.
His droppings were perfectly fine, its in his crop region where the vet took a swab and explained to be there were bacteria that didn’t belong there. The vet knows what bacteria they are but previously when I was supposed to the antibiotics in his drinkingwater each day, Felix didn’t drink nearly enough to have an effect. (Proven after another visit not much later)
So when I went back to the vet and he explained how to give medicine directly into his beak.
Its only been the second day (out of 11) giving his medicine so I don’t expect much of an improvement yet (although for the first time, since he developed it, he didn’t have that nasty rasp in his breathing, that I showed in a clip above).

the vet explained that that was the cause of the bacteria (making slime) that he coughs down every morning. luckily it has nothing to do with its lungs.

hope this explained it a bit more