# Bird Ataxia? Help needed!



## Green (Aug 9, 2013)

A few weeks ago I rescued a young nestling off the side of the road. He seemed fine, just a bit weak. I thought he might die since he was so young and I don't know how long he had been there, but he pulled through.

He is now almost fully feathered except for some small areas around his neck and under his wings. Most of his Pin feathers have been shed except for a few on his wings closer to his body. I'm not sure what kind he is.

I tried to look for a wildlife rehabilitation center but I live way out in the middle of nowhere and the nearest one is too far for me to drive. I have raised a few young birds in my life and rehabilitated them myself, so this is nothing new to me.

I've been keeping him in a plastic dresser drawer on the floor in my living room, padded with paper towels.

However, I woke up this morning and found he was acting sort of funny. He started perching a few days ago although he was quite wobbly. He has never really been a hopper although he is definitely old enough to start exploring and fledging. It worried me that he never really seemed keen to fully use his legs. He rarely hops around and will instead prefer to spin in a circle on his hunches if he moves at all.

I believe he may have Ataxia. He has been getting worse throughout the day. He seems quite stiff and will sit with his head flipped upside down across his back. Sometimes he will will stretch his neck to his front and sort of wring it to the side multiple times, or roll his neck around his shoulders. He is very wobbly and sometimes will fall on his back rolling around his cage.

He is eating just fine. I have been feeding him canned crickets, live crickets when I can buy them, and dried mealworms soaked in warm water to give him some fluids.

Does this sound like Avian Ataxia? If so what are the chances he will survive? Are there any home treatments I can give him? Any advice for me?

I do not live anywhere near a vet or wildlife center, although there is a feed store nearby that MAY have vitamins or medicine he would need, if any such things can be bought in stores. If he doesn't need immediate care, the store may be able to order what I need and have it shipped in within a week.

I have tried researching ataxia online, so I am fairly sure this is what the little bird has, but I haven't been able to find anything overly useful about treatments and care.

Any help and advice is greatly appreciated! Thank you all for your time!


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## poohdog (May 16, 2010)

It doesn't sound good I'm afraid.Could be one of many reasons for the behaviour.There are so many things that can afflict young birds.Sorry I can't be of more help.


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## Phoenix24 (Apr 6, 2013)

I didn't even finish reading this post to know (or think I know) what might be going on -because I had the same thing happen to me this year. Your bird is most likely suffering from calcium deficiency (according to what was told to me by a professor in a veterinary school) . 

Apparently with some species it is very difficult - even if you mimic the natural diet as closely as possible - to give nestlings what they need to develop correctly. There appears to be something missing from human hand-feeding that is 'transferred' somehow when a parent bird feeds its chick. What this is I don't know, and neither did the vet who explained it to me (I suspect what he meant was we don't really know exactly the ins and outs of what/how birds feed their young, only what we can observe and interpret). What he also said was that even zoos struggle with it in their own bird collections, even with high-strength veterinary grade calcium supplements at their disposal. 

I was raising great tits. I gave them a mix I had used before (with great success on other species), with a calcium supplement - and yet the chicks started exhibiting some of the symptoms you describe, plus more - worse ones (torticollis/'stargazing' is the head twisting you are seeing, but I also had tremors/fitting, long thin leg bones, weak joints, paralysis of legs and wings, fracturing of long bones, loss of coordination (ataxia), muscle weakness...). I had another chick which was younger and I switched to a hand-rearing formula which supposedly had the correct balance of nutrients, but to be on the safe side I also supplemented it with vet grade calcium balancer. It was doing really well, but I noticed growth began to slow, and then signs of deficiency appeared (it broke both legs after a relatively minor fall when practising flight in the nest pan). In the end I had all of them put to sleep.

Can you describe the bird to me - perhaps I can tell you what it is and then we can address dietary issues if there are any. It would help if you told me your feeding regime, housing, lighting, etc. Also, are you feeding 'live' foods e.g. mealworms? If you are feeding anything like that you should be dusting them with nutrobal, as the mealworms and other commercial live insects actually act as calcium depleters (something I didn't know until this year) and it is always recommended to dust them first.

BTW my first 'panic' moment with the great tits was that they had some form of one of the paramyxoviruses. Just in case, keep your hygiene regime extremely strict, as these are highly infectious and contagious - though the likelihood of it being that is small.

**Sorry, edit: just saw what you said about feeding. Alas, this is almost certainly calcium deficiency. Your bird will never recover from this now the symptoms are so advanced, I advise you have it put to sleep. I'm very sorry.


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