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Aspergilliosis - My Chloe's Story


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This is a copy of my original posting from another forum about Chloe and Aspergillosis. I did not realize there were two types and my Chloe had the chronic type.

 

Here is the original posting:

 

I have only been registered with this site a few day but would like to share our experience and hopefully stop anyone else suffering the loss of their special baby under similar circumstances.

 

Back in July (2005) my husband and I started to decorate our lounge. We had put this off for sometime as we were concerned how Chloe would take to the change. We removed the carpet from the room in preparation for decorating, Chloe was not in the room at the time. We returned her to her house (cage) and then went to the kitchen to prepare dinner.

 

About ten minutes later we returned to the room to find Chloe had removed about a dozen feathers from under her wings. Prior to this Chloe had never pulled out any feathers. Immediately we removed her and her cage from the lounge and set her up in the dining room. Two days later we took her to our avian vet for her annual check up and to have the feathers looked at. He was confident that as he had seen her so soon after starting to pull her feathers that this would not develop into a more serious habit. We continued to take her to the vet regularly for various injections to help the feathers grow and to keep infections away but she did continue to remove the new pin feathers.

 

It got to a point at the end of September that both us and the vet decided to stop treatment as her feather pulling was not getting any worse and the removal of the pin feathers would stop as soon as it started. At the beginning of October the day before we were due to go back for a check up we notice a wheezing sound. We took Chloe for her check up and the vet listened to her chest and said it was clear and she may be lacking Vitamin A or it could be a built up of feather dust. He gave her an injection and things seemed to get better.

 

All this time we had been hiding Monkey nuts in her house to encourage her to forage and distract her from feathers. We never brought value nuts, only good quality human consumption roasted monkey nuts. About 10 days later the wheezing came back and she would scratch her throat area. We went back to the vet and treated her for a bacterial infection. A couple of days later still no improvement and he decided she had Aspergilosis a fungal infection.

 

We questioned ourselves where had our little girl got this from. I cleaned her house daily it was always so clean, her food was fresh, I would not give her anything I would not eat myself. Basically it had come from the monkey nuts. When you crack a monkey nut there is a dust which can contain fungus spoors. Because Chloe was having treatment for her feathers her immune system was lower which enabled the fungus infection to take hold. According to our vet once this nasty infection takes hold it is very hard to treat. During her last days she would not eat or drink anything and she became very poorly. Sadly there was nothing else we could to for our girl but make the decision to let our little girl go to sleep, and have sweet birdy dreams. Making that decision was so hard and to this day I still cry about those last minutes of her life. It is something I will never forget. My heart goes out there to anybody who has to make this decision.

 

From our sad story there are a few things fellow parrot owners could learn, to stop them suffering the heartache and pain that we are.

When you change your parrots environment is it really necessary?

 

Think of the times your parrot may have suffered stress i.e. after a holiday, the immune system is lower allowing for possible infections to take hold. Under normal conditions monkey nuts are not a problem for parrots, if I could turn the clock back my little Chloe would never have had monkey nuts, and my advise to fellow parrot owners is are they really necessary. NO they are not so don't take the chance its not worth it. My vet said that he sees 2 or 3 cases of Aspergillosis a month which is quite a lot and African Greys are succepable to this condition.

 

Its has been 17 months since our little girl passed on and not a day passes where she is not far from our thoughts.. She was one very special little girl.

 

Thank you for reading this.

 

God Bless Chloe.xxx

 

Chloe's Mum

 

 

 

Through the sad loss of Chloe I have been blessed with two more beautiful greys, Poppy and Charlie. They are nearly 10 months old now. They are brother and sister. I love these two to bits and I am very proud of them both. They are real little stars.

 

_________________

http://photobucket.com/albums/g189/TNG123/Chloes%20pictures1/ .......Chloes Photo Bucket

 

Chloe 28 Nov 2000 ~ 28 Oct 2005 (Sweet Birdie Dreams Baby Girl XXXXXX)

 

Our Parrot Family

 

Phoebe - cockatiel - 14 Mar 07 - Sweet Birdy Dreams little one - Always in our heart - Never forgotton xxx

 

Poppy - african grey - hatched 12/06/06

Charlie - african grey - hatched 14/06/06

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This happened back in 2005. My husband and I miss our Chloe very much. She was a super parrot. It broke our heart the day she was taken from us. We both miss her dearly.

 

Poppy and Charlie are great. We followed them from the day the eggs were laid. In my Photobucket there is video and pictures of them.

 

We called Poppy her name because she was hatched in June and the Poppys were out over here, also Poppys are the flower for remembrance and also because they are red like a greys tail. Charlie was named because Chloe was called Charlie when we got her.

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Tracey i love the explanation behind Poppy & Charlie's names :) Gosh 3 years, it will always feel like yesterday to you . Chole will always have a special place in your hearts.

 

 

One of our members Birdgranna's amazon Tommy has recovered from aspergillosis she got from peanuts in the shell.<br><br>Post edited by: lovemyGreys, at: 2008/01/30 17:44

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I'm so sorry you had this experience with Chloe. Just reading about what you and she went through made me feel ill.

 

I read the forum about aspergilosis and have a couple questions. There are peanuts in the shell in Dorian's Fiesta mix but somethimes I notice the outside shell doesn't look so good and I pull them out before I serve him. Can I trust them if they're already in pet food, or should I keep pulling them.

 

My second question is I've been buying peanuts in their shell at our bulk store that are meant for people. I know human grade nuts are a must, but if you guys tell me that they're even safer if I shell them, I will do that for the rest of Dorian's life if it makes him safer.

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Acappella out of choice i do not feed any nuts in the shells to my greys, i know this takes away a little of the fun for our greys of having a nut in a shell but i personally dont wish to take the chance.I only feed human grade nuts.

 

Can you found out what quality of nuts are in the Fiesta mix ? Your instinct has already told you to shell the bad looking ones, i personally would only feed nuts you purchase for humans.

 

Here are two links on previous topics regarding nuts.I hope they will be of some value to you.

 

http://www.greyforums.net/forums/bird-food/23193-peanuts-in-the-shell.html#35346

 

 

http://www.greyforums.net/forums/bird-food/25600-the-peanut-debate.html#29494

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