Concern on diet and beak health
Hello! I am very concerned and working on finding a vet who actually understands parakeets. My poor jimmy, him and two others were attacked by a cat months ago. One died, the other was fine, and jimmy seemed to have a scratch under his eye and a possible puncture wound on his beak. The next couple days i took him to the vet, and got prevention antibiotics, no illness was found, this was 4 months ago. He then had these strange growths on either side of his beak and some was discolored. It seems to have gone away in the last few months, and i took him to another vet that said it was a vitamin deficiency. I had been feeding them dr harveys best parakeet food, and adding powdered “the missing link” on top, but i found out later it doesnt really stick and they dont get much nutrients in that form. So i started trying to incorporate pellets, which is the healthiest for them. I do feed them lettuce, kale, and other veggies/fruits suitable for them but its rare they’ll take to it. With adding water to pellets, and adding less and less seeds mixed in they became STARVING. They completely refused to eat pellets in any form over the next two weeks, in which they became frantic and eating their own poop, whch jimmy is doing mainly, which is also a sign of vitamin deficiency. I gave them seeds out of guilt, and started adding vitamins into their water. I dont know if its helped at all, but jimmy’s beak looks like this as of today. Im so concerned, and looking for a vet who knows what to do because ive tried all i can do, maybe they just didn’t like the pellet brand? Maybe i could add something different to entice them? Im so concerned. Jimmy eats and preens, but he sits in the sun all day, sometimes on the floor which is a very bad sign, but acts fine otherwise, eating drinking preening, bathing. He got worse after his friend died, so grief is adding to it. Im so worried. Anyone have any advice please? I live near cincinnati if anyone knows of good avian vets. I also want to note, my mom let in our outdoor cats, hence the accident my room was open. Also my birds are free range with LOTS to play with and 3 windows. I clean their spaces regularly and deep clean atleast every month or so. My other bird has no illnesses and is perfectly fine so i know its not contagious.