# Can Antibiotics (Bactrim) make a cockatiel depressed and listless?



## Sweetcheek (May 21, 2012)

My little cockatiel baby (8 weeks old) has been through a lot in his short lifespan, he has had crop issues and been treated (unsuccessfully) with Clavamox and then Keflex before the vet prescribed Bactrim and IT WORKED! His crop has started clearing in a normal time frame. 

He is tiny (65grams) from the lack of weight gain but he was always lively,to the point he has been named Cricket because he was always jumping and running around like a crazy bird. He always acted like he was starving (even when full) before the Bactrim and now on the Bactrim (also on Nilstat) his crop is clearing, his poops are normal, but he seems to be listless, depressed and lacks his usual appetite (he is having to be crop fed). The Bactrim makes him vomit at times and so I am adding a bit of ginger into his food. He no longer screams incessantly to be fed, has been eating some silverbeet and picking at the seed a bit but majority of the time he just sits fluffed up on a perch or the bottom of the cage.

Is this normal? He is finally seeming like he is on the road to recovery and yet he is acting sicker than he did before the treatment was even working. He is on a 7 day course of antibiotics and today is the last day so I am really hoping to see him perk up once he is no longer on the Bactrim. 

Thank you for any help or advice.


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## bjknight93 (Nov 13, 2011)

I looked up side effects of the drug..and it is commonly nausea, loss of appetite, and vomiting. He may be feeling queasy from the meds. If that was the case, I wouldn't want to be moving around too much either. I don't have a straight answer for you though.


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