WORMS IN BIRDS

WORMS IN BIRDS

BY MITESH PATEL

I am a senior trainee at LSeT, where I am currently completing my advanced training. I was caring for a pair of hawk-headed parrots (red fan parrots) that were bred in December of last year. Everything was going well for the parents and their two chicks. One day, I noticed that the parent birds’ feces were quite abnormal, and further examination of the fecal sample revealed that the parents were infected with roundworms. We took the chicks away for hand-rearing and dewormed the parent birds. The baby birds grew into beautiful juveniles, and we are now weaning them off of their natural seed and veggie diet. Another day, I noticed that the feces of parrot babies were abnormal, which was very similar to what their parents had experienced a few weeks before. A microscope examination of the sample revealed that the chicks were carrying roundworm eggs, as well as some bacterial load. We didn’t want to stress the babies’ internal systems further because they were young and in the process of being weaned.