# Gagging/vomiting



## kirbulous (Jul 21, 2010)

For a while now Kirby (2 year old pied) often gags and/or spits up food while eating. He is on a Harrison's pellet diet with fresh vegetables. The gagging/vomiting mainly happens when he is eating pellets. When he was still on seed about 6 months ago I suspect he did the same thing since I found spit up seed around his cage twice back then. It worried me sick because I thought he was ill. Turns out his behavior has been completely normal he just sometimes gags/spits up his food while he is eating.
My vet advised that he may be eating too quickly, which I believe may be true sometimes. But just tonight he did it again and it didn't seem like he was rushing to eat. But I hear him whistling away, acting healthy and normal.

Should I be worried? Have any of you experienced anything like this?
I have read that the gagging or stretching of the neck is normal; the sites mentioned that this is related to adjusting the crop. Is this true?

His weight has been normal, he hasn't lost any. He's a little guy, regularly about 72g in the morning and 76g when he goes to bed. When I first got him he was only 66g. Ever since he switched to pellet his weight has improved.

Any help would be great. Thanks in advance!


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

The vet knows a lot more about your bird than we do! 

Birds will stretch their necks to adjust the crop, and to me it looks like they also do this when something gets caught in their throats. Pellets are dry food so it wouldn't be difficult for a chunk to not go down quite right and need some adjusting.


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## kirbulous (Jul 21, 2010)

Thanks tielfan. I do believe in my vet, it would just be comforting to know that other tiel owners out there observe similar things with their birds.

Also my vet only does bacterial checks. She swabs the beak and takes a poop for bacterial cultures.
I've asked about a blood test but she says Kirby is too small so she doesn't want to take blood unless it's absolutely necessary. It worries me a little since I believe it would be best to have a baseline of his bloodwork while he's healthy. But this particular vet actually saved Kirby when he did have a bacterial infection last year. The first vet we took him to gave him Baytril that I was to adminiter orally and that went horribly; he actually got worse! 
So we took him to our current vet and she put him on Zosyn injections which fixed him right up from the start. So I am a believer in her.

But again, thanks for the response. I agree it's most likely the dry food that's the culprit.

Just a worried bird mom I guess. :tiel1:


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

There are differences of opinion among avian vets about which tests are really necessary. Some want to test for everything every chance they get, and others (including mine) say that lab tests are worthless if the bird doesn't have any symptoms. I really don't know which approach is more valid, but obviously it isn't out of line for your vet to not do blood tests. She's reducing her own income by not doing them, so selfishness certainly isn't a motive.


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## kirbulous (Jul 21, 2010)

Agreed that my vet most likely has the best interest of my birds in mind. That's what keeps me going back to her and I use her bird boarding service. It's great since they feed them pellets and fresh veggies. I'm pretty sure my birds get better care or at least more exposure to a variety of veggies when they're being boarded than when they are at home.
I have a hard time keeping up with all the excess veggies that I end up with since I buy it mainly for the birds. I guess it makes my diet healthier too.


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

Who is your vet BTW? I see that you're in Tucson - me too. My vet is Dr Samuels at Central Animal Hospital. He's popular with the local bird club.


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## kirbulous (Jul 21, 2010)

My vet is Dr. Latas at the Arizona Bird Clinic. 
I've heard of Dr. Samuels and actually I tried to take Kirby there from the start but the timing and location didn't work out for us. If I remember correctly he only sees patients on weekdays and I couldn't get off work early enough to run home to get him and then take him back into town to the vet. So we tried Valley Animal Hospital for a while. In the beginning I thought they were good. I liked their facilities but we didn't have the same vet consistently so when he was being treated when he was sick they kept telling us different things and their treatment (Baytril) only made him worse, which is why we found a different vet. Also we used to board Kirby at Valley Animal as well and they'll take any pets although they do have a bird room but the birds that they take aren't required to have checkups so there's no guarantee that they don't have some sort of serious avian illness. And I actually suspect that's how Kirby got sick in the first place because it happened after we had gone on a trip and picked him up. We had him home for a few weeks then I noticed the lethargy and lack of appetite. Then on the meds he started breathing heavy; he could hardly stand! And when we did pick him up his cage was extremely close to one of the macaw cages and there was some macaw poop in/on his cage so I'm not sure if the macaw had a bug.
Anyways so far I've been happy with Dr. Latas and their staff. Their boarding requires that all birds be up to date on their annual checkup which makes me feel better and they provide the pellet and vegetables and out of cage time.
I'm fairly new to Tucson and wasn't aware of the bird club. I'd be interested in more information.


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

Valley is good when you have an emergency during "off" hours - there's no other emergency clinic in town that takes birds. But they aren't actually avian vets over there, just regular vets who will treat birds.

Here's the website for the bird club: http://www.arizonaast.org/ The next meeting is August 8, two weeks from tomorrow. You just missed our summer bird mart which was a week ago. That's the smallest one of the year but it's still pretty nice. The next one (in October) is the biggest one of the year. The bird marts are by far the best place in town to buy supplies!

There's a Yahoo group for Arizona bird owners at http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/arizonabirdtalk/ It's at least 90% people from Phoenix but it's a pretty good source of information for Arizona-specific bird questions. There used to be a huge amount of off-topic idle chatter but it looks like they've cracked down on that, so it's much more bird-oriented now. I may have to start spending more time there!


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## kirbulous (Jul 21, 2010)

Yeah, when I left Valley I didn't really say anything since I figured I may need their off hours services one day. Initially I thought they mentioned that some of the vets there are avian vets. And supposedly those were the ones that I saw but they all said different things about Kirby.
Thanks for the bird club info. I will be sure to check it out!


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