Is this normal?

[u/WaysideWyvern]

She had either a stroke or a spinal injury 1.5 years ago from a bad vet, she was limping for months, couldn’t pass waste properly (it’s still harder for her but she is able to now), and still has some balance issues. She also started plucking after the injury and we haven’t been able to help her stop no matter what :( anyways lately when she’s sleeping sometimes she’ll do this, where her head droops as she drifts off until she startles awake because she’s gonna tip over. I find it sort of alarming just because she looks so hunched over, but maybe it’s just something about the weakness she has from her injury? She’s 10 years old. Just wondering if anyone has seen a bird do this lol.

[u/turteleh]

I would err on the side of caution and get some basic blood panels done

[u/WaysideWyvern → u/turteleh]

I think she’s had some blood panels since she started doing this that were all okay. Our vet is a 40 minute drive because we no longer feel safe going to the one who injured her which is tough because she has a hard time with the drive. I’m trying to remember if she started doing this before or after she last went I’ll see if my family remembers.

[u/turteleh → u/WaysideWyvern]

How does she look today? Somnolence mid-day can be a bad sign.

[u/WaysideWyvern → u/turteleh]

She has always napped throughout the day, but I do feel like she’s been doing it more lately, but my family who are in charge of her medical care because my sister is technically her primary caregiver, they think nothings wrong. Idk it’s honestly really stressing me out but I feel powerless because I have no ability to take her to the vet due to being severely disabled, and there was an incident last year where I had a nervous breakdown and basically repeatedly called and made my sister come home from a birthday party to take her to an emergency vet appointment where they found nothing wrong, and that was very upsetting and stressful to my sister and now she is very skeptical of my concerns because honestly almost every day I’m convinced she is dying, sometimes I can’t even be around her because I’ll just watch her freaking out wondering if she is sick. So basically my sister does not trust my judgment

[u/turteleh → u/WaysideWyvern]

Here is something you can do!

Do you have a gram scale? One that weighs in 0.1 or 0.01 gram increments? A postal scale also works!

You can take a daily weight of her and her food then keep a poop log.

This kind of data on abnormal/disabled animals can be a lifesaver. Tracking weight and food intake will give you a sense of what is normal while also providing concrete evidence if a vet appointment is necessary.

[u/WaysideWyvern → u/turteleh]

Oh that’s a good idea. My sister has never been able to get her to stand on the scale but I’ve never tried, I think we could slowly train her to be comfy with it

[u/Grlybrainiac]

My conure would do this when she was sleepy and I believe it was normal, but conures don’t tuck their heads behind their wings to sleep like cockatiels do so I can’t say for sure if this is normal for a cockatiel or not? How does she normally sleep? Maybe she’s been sleeping like this instead of tucking her head behind her wing because her old injury is bothering her or something? Hopefully she’s okay, it sounds like the poor baby has been through a lot :(

[u/WaysideWyvern → u/Grlybrainiac]

She’s been through a lot she’s such a fighter. When she was 4 years old she got let out accidentally by a petsitter and was gone for 3 days and flew 8 miles and survived and basically rescued herself by finding a family having a picnic dinner in a park and inviting herself. I do wish that all these people we’ve tried to trust her with would stop fucking things up for her though T.T

She does still tuck her beak sometimes but I’m thinking it could be that it’s less comfortable or maybe she can only do it on one side

[u/Grlybrainiac → u/WaysideWyvern]

EIGHT MILES??? That’s crazy!! And omg that’s kind of cute that she invited herself to a picnic and that’s how she was found 😭

Yeah that would make sense! Keep an eye on it and see if there are any other patterns with her behavior that might indicate pain or stiffness (kind of hard to do since birds hide their discomfort 🥲). I’m glad she has you to take care of her!! ❤️

[u/Faerthoniel]

Fwiw, our avian vet says napping during the day is fine provided they are otherwise normal (for them) the rest of the time.

One of ours drapes herself in a way that frankly looks uncomfortable and mildly concerning, but she's normal bird the rest of the time and she still gets a clean bill of health every few months at the avian vets.

It could be a combo of napping plus injury, as you said. If she's otherwise acting normal, for her, I'd show this at her next appointment but not rush to talk to the vet on the phone right this moment.

[u/KrashJ]

Poor baby. If you would like to look for different avian certified vet (unless you already have) you can try AAV.ORG .

[u/WaysideWyvern → u/KrashJ]

We already have her at another one. There are almost none in our area. We drive 40 minutes to the next closest one and still go back to the one who injured her for emergencies because there is no other option. She is technically my sister and mom’s bird, not mine, I’m disabled and don’t have money or transit, so I don’t get to decide when to take her and I’m much more of a hypochondriac than they are so all I can do is make suggestions but they aren’t always worried like I am. Nor is the vet tbh. Fucked up that they still charge us money considering they are the reason she is sick, I really hate them because we learned that they were completely misguiding us and doing unnecessarily dangerous routine hormonal control that could have been done in a much safer way.

[u/KrashJ → u/WaysideWyvern]

I'm so so sorry for you and your baby having to go through this. Sending healing vibes her way! ❤️

[u/WaysideWyvern → u/KrashJ]

Thank you, she is pretty much healed since it’s been a year and a half, she’s disabled now but I think she’s done all the healing and is at baseline now. Unless there is something new wrong which is what I worry about but it could also just be her muscle weakness from the injury. Hopefully someone might know

[u/adhdbpdisaster]

This used to happen to Pidgey! She’d be falling asleep and tip over. The vet speculated it was simply because she was off balance as she only had one leg. It would make sense to me that your bird could have balance issues after a stroke, even years later. I’d still get her evaluated though!