Sudden parakeet death: Is psittacosis a risk to my other bird or me?

You should definitely keep a close eye on the other one as it could be from an infectious disease, if you see any abnormal sign such as puffed feathers, tail bobbing, reduced appetite, abnormal droppings- take him to an avian vet right away to get checked and have a fecal test done.

Birds can carry disease that is transmissible to humans, such as psittacosis. Since you have multiple birds and people in your household that are ill, I would recommend scheduling a vet visit for your remaining birds and a doctor's visit for any medical issues your human family is experiencing.

I'm very sorry to hear that! The best way to find out what your bird died from is to submit its body for an autopsy (called a necropsy in animals.) If you call your veterinarian and ask, they should be able to help you figure out where to have this done in your area. As for your remaining bird, if you're concerned, I would recommend taking it in for a vet visit to make sure it seems healthy.

Hello, and thank you for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach. I'm sorry to hear you've lost two parakeets recently! There are many possible causes of sudden death, but if you've had this happen twice in a row, some sort of toxic exposure would be my biggest concern. Something infectious would be another possibility. If your parakeets have access to flying around your house, then there would be many possibilities - but if they stayed in their cages, I would be looking for a toxic exposure they could come in direct contact with. Newspaper lining the cage (the ink can be harmful if the birds chew on it), moldy food, unclean water, etc. I recommend carefully cleaning everything you can, replacing anything that can't be well cleaned, making sure you're using safe substances in the cage, and when in doubt, you could consult with either the pet store (about your habitat) or your vet. Hopefully you don't experience the loss of another bird - but if it were to happen again, I recommend promptly bringing the bird in to a veterinarian for a necropsy (the animal version of autopsy). By doing a visual exam, and potentially getting tissue samples of different organs for analysis, your vet may be able to determine the cause of death, which will hopefully help prevent any further issues! Again - I'm sorry you're dealing with this,and I hope this helps!

So sorry to hear this! I suspect that the bird has suffered from a nasty haemorrhagic infection or possibly traumatic injury. Either of these could have occured to the respiratory tract, leading to coughing up blood, or the gastrointestinal system, leading to passing blood. It is impossible to know exactly what caused this without having the bird postmortemed. However, in terms of your other bird, I would thoroughly clean and disinfect the cage in case there are any traces of infection. Hopefully it was a one off incident and the other will be fine. If you do notice illness contact a vet immediately. They have a duty of care to all animals so will help you. I think the regurgitated seeds were likely just brought up due to death as opposed to an illness.

I'm sorry for your loss. It's impossible to know what she dies from based on these symptoms, the only way to know the cause of death is to send her body to the lab for histopathology analysis (through your vet), they will usually be able to tell you what the cause of death was.

Hello, I am very sorry to hear about Kiwi. Situations like this can be so challenging and hard to experience. When birds are not feeling well they often spend the majority of time at the bottom of their cage. It is very hard to know what happened without having evaluated Kiwi, however upper respiratory infections secondary to bacteria are not uncommon in parakeets, many of these are contagious among birds. Other systemic infections due to bacteria are also seen in Parakeets. I hope this helps. Losing multiple pets in such a short period of time is incredibly saddening, I am very sorry for your loss.