Help please! Rescued a baby Lorikeet.

[tracyl]

Hi there, 
This morning my daughter and I rescued a baby rainbow lorikeet from our male Sharpei in the backyard. Luckily he is half blind and I don't think knew what to make of all the screeching.
There seems to be no visible injury to the bird except for a torn claw. 
It appears this is a very young bird, very short stumpy tail feathers, black beak, looks in excellent health and is eating very well from a syringe (went and bought the proper wet food mix for it)
It doesn't appear to be able to fly.
I started reading and found a frightening article about the beak and feather disease?  (Can't remember the spelling now.)
Now I'm very concerned as my daughter has three cockatiels. 
We had planned to try and let this lucky little bird recover, look after it until it can fly and then release it but now I'm worried that even though it looks perfectly healthy that maybe it might have this disease and infect our other birds?
I'm not sure what to do now.
Strange thing is too that it seems SO tame. Doesn't flinch at loud noises. We can put our hands in the cage and it's not particularly bothered....but makes "feed me" noises.  So quickly?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
I feel responsible for the plight of this little creature, escaping the gummy jaws of possible death in my own backyard.

cheers,
Tracy

[avinet]

It sounds very likely that the baby has Psittacine Beak & Feather Disease -  PBFD.  The baby will have left the nest expecting to make it's first flight, but landed in a heap n the ground due to the disease causing the flight feathers to fall out.  The baby will be about 7 to 8 weeks old.  These birds are called "runners" around here, due to their inability to fly - just run around on the ground, and without human intervention will all die due to inability to feed and predators getting them.  As you have found, they are usually easy going birds that readily adapt to human care.

The disease is almost always caught when the baby is very young before it's immune system has properly developed - in the first two weeks of life.  It is rare for an older bird to catch the virus since a well developed immune system will defeat the virus.  In addition cockatiels seem to have an inbuilt immunity to the virus and examples of cockatiels getting PBFD are extremely rare, even when exposed as babies in the nest.   So your daughter's cockatiels are not really at any risk.  However better safe than sorry so I would suggest not letting them be around the lorikeet - the risk might be much less than 1% but it can't be said to be zero.

Feeding the baby by syringe is good, and you will find it will rapidly learn to eat the wet food out of a dish.  I have a small dish by the baby so it will see me taking the food up with the syringe and then soon try to eat from the dish itself.  Also provide it with some fresh fruit - Granny Smith apples are a favourite, but other fruit, as well as vegetables can be tried.

In the long term there are three basic possibilities.  Firstly the baby will die within 6 months from liver failure due to liver damage by the virus.  Secondly it will survive but gradually lose all it's feathers, and may well live for several years.  Finally it will apparently fully recover and be able to fly - unfortunately some of these apparent recovered bird will still be virus carriers and so cannot be returned to the wild.

You basically have two choices - either keep it and see what happens with it's health (perhaps keeping it separate from the cockatiels) or pass it on to your local wildlife care group.  They may well have someone that specializes in looking after them lorikeets with PBFD.  If I had found the bird I would be taking the second choice - but I have a lot of birds, including some expensive ones that are very susceptible to the PBFD virus.

cheers,

Mike

[tracyl]

Thanks so much Mike. I stayed up till the wee hours reading everything I could about this disease. Terrible thing!
This morning we fed the bird again- my it was hungry! (Silly thing didn't want to sleep last night with the light off. Screamed every time we turned it off, lol!)
Anyway, after it's feed I suggested to my daughter that we let it out of the cage in an enclosed room to see if it COULD fly. And it did!
After much more observation, and photo comparisons, it seemed as though it has all it's flight feathers and even it's tail feathers, which just don't look quite as long as an adults.
I still didn't know what to do because it didn't seem to know what to do with the apple we gave it, just seemed to be dependent on being fed by the syringe so we figured maybe it hadn't become independent in that area yet.
We heard Lorikeets outside and lo and behold sitting out there were two adults. The baby started frantically calling so we took the cage outside and it was plainly obvious these were the parents.
After a few moment of hesitation we opened the cage door and the baby flew straight up into the air with the parents closely behind.
Perhaps it flew into a window, or maybe even got into a scuffle with the miner birds, or magpies even. Could explain the injury to it's claw?

Anyway, it's taught me a lot reading up about this PBFD thing - I did also read that cockatiels are less susceptible to it, which is a relief.

[avinet]

That's great news Tracy - sounds like it will be OK now it's parents have found it.  Maybe it just became separated form them on it's first flight and became exhausted and on the ground.

Nice to get a good news story

Mike

[tracyl]

Yes it is the only thing is now my daughter has gone from looking up you tube video's of Rainbow lorikeets to Indian Ringnecks. "Aww mum....they're soooooo cute, AND affordable!"
Hmm.

[avinet]

Aug 13, 2013 12:57:35 GMT 10 tracyl said:

Yes it is the only thing is now my daughter has gone from looking up you tube video's of Rainbow lorikeets to Indian Ringnecks. "Aww mum....they're soooooo cute, AND affordable!"
Hmm.

Just so happens if you live on the Sunshine Coast I have a couple of yellow Ringnecks about 7 months old I'm looking to find a home for before the coming breeding season.  Both hand raised and tame, one male and one probable male.

cheers,

Mike

[tracyl]

Unfortunately no, we're in Sydney on the central coast. IF we were to go down that track I'd certainly want a hand raised one.
I'd have to do my research first though. I know some of these birds can live a very long time and I always plan on giving our pets forever homes.
But thanks for letting me know. Hope you find good loving homes for them!

[avinet]

The oldest Ringneck I know of was in the USA and belonged to a friend of mine. It died at the age of 67 years! The bird was imported into the USA as a young wild caught bird, from India, and at time of import a leg ring with a date was placed on the bird. At that time it hadn't got it's ring so it was known to be a young bird. That bird was famous in the USA as the father of the first cinnamon ringneck ever to be bred there, and had belonged to my friend for around 40 years. That bird had a good life - he was a successful breeder until a year before his death.

My oldest pair of ringnecks are Sasha and Jello - 22 and 20 years respectively and still great pets. The young birds I have to find a home for are from them. A photo or two of them helping to feed their babies (from several years ago) is below.

So Ringnecks can live for a long time - 67 is exceptional but you would reasonably hope for 25 to 30 years from a ringneck. Even cockatiels should get to 15 or more - my oldest pet tiels currently are 1992 hatches.

cheers,

Mike

[tracyl]

Wow, 67. That's amazing. Kind of become family heirlooms when they get to those ages!
Those pics are lovely. Gorgeous birds! It must be incredible to see the whole process - see the devotion from the parents with the chicks. I'd have a hard time seeing them go and end up a crazy bird lady with loads of birds (which I'm positive my daughter is going to be.)
She's been hoping her cockatiels will breed but so far we just have one incredibly stalkerish male who is obsessed with one female, but she is so bonded to my daughter that I doubt she'll ever actually allow him to mate with her, despite all of his desperate tactics to woo her.