# underweight cockatiel



## fullmetalgirl (Nov 11, 2010)

hi,

A cockatatiel of a friend weighs about 80 grams...
So it underweight..

my question:
What can cause underweight?

Birds very active, alive and curious


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

Sometimes because of breeding tiels can be smaller...Fuzzy weighed 79gms when we got him, and now he weighs about 84gms. Its not wanted for breeding but some birds are just smaller than others.


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## srtiels (May 1, 2009)

ALL tiels vary in weight. Just because it is 80 grams does not mean it is underweight. You have to take several things into consideration, such as the genetic background of the bird. Were all similar size?

You can physically look at him. If he has good muscle mass to the chest muscles then he is fine on the weight he is. Does he look proportinate for his size? Some tiels have a fine/small bone structure, and others are large boned.


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

> Some tiels have a fine/small bone structure, and others are large boned.


Very true!! Fuzzy is small-boned while Snowball, my WF Cinnamon boy is bigger boned and hence he weighs more. It all depends on the bird, they're about as diverse as people are!!!


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

The way to determine whether a bird's weight is appropriate or not is to feel the amount of fat around the breastbone. This is hard for an inexperienced person to judge but an experienced person (like an avian vet) can figure it out in a flash. If the breastbone sticks way out the bird is too thin. If it doesn't stick out at all the bird is too fat. The in-between part is where you need experience to figure it out!


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## fullmetalgirl (Nov 11, 2010)

I knew there was a big diffrence with budgies... 
but it's new for me with cockatiels

thnx all!


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## .mpeg (Oct 6, 2010)

mister weighs in at 76g on average. he got a bad bacterial infection during fledging and weaning which required systemic antibiotics, which gave him thrush. fast forward a couple of months while we treated one, then the other, then both at once, then just on apple cider vinegar to see if he could build his own immune system, then treated both again,(or something, i lost track after a while) and he got a parasite. so we treated that plus an anti-fungal as a preventative (because the anti-parasite was systemic). he's healthy now.
the moral of the story is that he missed out on a lot of growth and that's just going to be his size. he's going to be a small bird. 
your friend's bird could just be a small bird. of course it's possible that he/she is actually underweight, and someone mentioned the breast bone correctly (as far as i know) as the first indication that that would be the case. 
if your friend is worried then they should take the bird to a vet.


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## fullmetalgirl (Nov 11, 2010)

yeah i always advice that if they're worried 

he felt the breast and didnt felt anything extreme (lke bone sticking out badly)
I told him to watch the weight for the next week.. if it stays at about 80 grams its probably just his averige weight


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

The youngest bird in a clutch tends to be the smallest, especially if it was a big clutch. Squeebis was the youngest in a clutch of six and usually weighs in at 75-80 grams. But the vet says his weight is perfect. So maybe this bird was just the baby of his family.

My other birds aren't that big either, usually somewhere in the 80-90 grams range.


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